FEDERATION OF A HOME-RULE EMPIRE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sia,—Mr. Parnell believes that Ireland will " save the Empire" by its claim to self-government. A year before he
said so, you allowed me, as " Still a Liberal," to argue that- refusing to consider Ireland's claim meant, sooner or later, an attack upon the unity of the Empire and its principle of cohesion. Of course, I had to admit that mine was the direct converse of the idea a short time ago popular in England. It was the cry of the " unity of the Empire " that carried the sudden vote of England against Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in 1886. Will you allow me now, without adding anything of my own, to point out from your own recent words, that the wheel has already come full circle, and the prophecy has been, fulfilled P
Just a fortnight ago, you take up Mr. Parnell's aspiration and argue against it that Australia, Canada, and South Africa are " sections of our so-called Empire which can never be really identified with this country in their main interests." They will "care little for contingencies for which we care much; and much for contingencies in which our interest will be small." You cannot " co-ordinate from London the motions of a horse in England, a buffalo in Canada, a kangaroo in Australia, and an ostrich in South Africa." And, accordingly, you give up at once the idea of our meddling with their internal matters, or their meddling with ours. That is already very like Home- rule. But you go farther. You object not only to Imperial solidarity, but to an Imperial policy, even to an Imperial foreign policy. It is beyond hope that those great Dependencies " can by any possibility be so welded together into the repre. sentative fabric of the British Constitution as to be asked to settle with the United Kingdom upon the right foreign policy." Upon Imperial policy, therefore, they are not even to be taken into consultation; and why ? Simply because, as you put it, their interests are different,—" The interests of totally distinct countries at opposite ends of the earth, and necessarily possessed by utterly alien hopes and fears." And, accordingly, with equal-handed justice, you object alike to their having "to identify themselves with our European policy," and with our being compelled to identify ourselves with their public policy. I suppose no one doubts that this means dissolution of the Empire. And the sooner the better, for, as you point out, these countries " will grow more and more important every day," and "as they grow, their views of foreign policy will become more and more unlike ours." Indeed, the question will soon be whether they are to ignore us in settling upon. the one Imperial policy ; for the mere attempt to work out one between us all would, in your view, cause "a final removal of the centre of gravity from London, either far to the West, or far to the East, or far to the South,"—a calamity which, it is admitted, would not result from mere Home-rule in the United Kingdom, whose interests you prove to be the same. Your argument, it is fair to acknowledge, is in form directed against a Federal or Home-rule Empire. It is, of course, six times more conclusive against the tyrannical attempt to impose a policy, from what is not even the centre of gravity, upon great countries whose interests and whose hopes are increasingly different from ours.
Strange as this is to those of us who do not despair of the British Empire—who believe, on the contrary, that its great age may be now beginning—it is stranger in view of your striking and beautiful article a week later on the decay of national feeling in England proper. Since Elizabeth's time, England has " learned to prize highly the nationality of others," which is the first qualification for Federalism ; but has "unlearned a great deal of its own," which otherwise it might have fallen back upon. But even " we no longer feel like one nation," and " there is far less massiveness of national feeling, perhaps because there is far more scrupulous intel- lectual and moral discrimination." That is to say, there is to be no more absolutism of empire, even from the centre of gravity- But if the old source of Imperial strength has passed from us, is it not wisdom, as well as duty, ardently to welcome the new ? The Standard, indeed, as you quote it, believes that the new creed of England, "the creed of cosmopolitan philanthropy and the equality of nations," however true it may be, is " unworthy of a patriot." But a man who holds what he knows to be a lie in his right hand, is a sneak, by whatever big name he calls himself ; and that, as you discern, is the real reason why England has no longer the courage to refuse Home-rule to Australia and America. England knows that it is right to give it. But why not take a step farther ? A Federal Empire of men of our blood all round the world—bound, perhaps, by a loose tie—would, as you admit, be good for self-defence. Has it no other magnificent possibilities P And is it worth while, in order to have one farewell stab at Ireland, to cut the cord that binds together so many great memories and greater hopes P—I am, Sir, &c.,
[We are entirely opposed to cutting any cord whatever. But we are still more opposed to making the loose cord which binds us to the Colonies the excuse for loosening the strong cord which still binds together, and, as we hope, will always bind together the United Kingdom, in spite of the Home- rulers, who, like our correspondent, are doing all they can to loosen that cord.—ED. Spectator.]
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