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LIBRARY
PROBLEMS OF GEEATEB BEITAIN
PEOBLEMS
OF
GREATER BRITAIN
BY THE
EIGHT HON. SIR CHAELES WENTWOETH DILKE, BART.
AUTHOR OF
'GREATER BRITAIN,' 'THE FALL OF PRINCE FLORESTAN OF MONACO,'
'THE PRESENT POSITION OF EUROPEAN POLITICS,' AND 'THE BRITISH ARMY'
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
WITH MAP
[ SECOND '&&ITIOX
ILontion
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1890
All rights reserved
&*
(/. Is
First Edition January 1890
Second Edition March 1890
CONTENTS
PAET IV. INDIA
HAP. PAGE
I. INDIAN DEFENCE ..... 3
II. BRITISH INDIA 77
PAET V. CROWN COLONIES OF THE PRESENT
AND OF THE FUTURE 153
PAET VI. COLONIAL PROBLEMS
I. COLONIAL DEMOCRACY . . . . .227
II. LABOUE, PEOVIDENT SOCIETIES, AND THE POOE . 284
III. PEOTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTEIES . . . 332
IV. EDUCATION . . . . . .358
V. RELIGION ...... 389
VI. LIQUOE LAWS ...... 430
PAET VII. FUTURE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE
MOTHER-COUNTRY AND THE REMAINDER
OF THE EMPIRE . . . 463
PAET VIII. IMPERIAL DEFENCE . 499
CONCLUSION 576
MAP
INDIA . . . . . To face page I
PART IV
INDIA
J
VOL. II B
CHAPTER I
INDIAN DEFENCE
THE most important question connected with India at India.
the present time is that of defence. From the more
limited or British Indian point of view it is of little o
use for us to concern ourselves with improvements in question of
. . defence.
government if we cannot retain the country in our
hands ; and from the larger or British Imperial point
of view the loss of India would be a crushing blow to
our trade, if our rule were succeeded by that of a pro-
tectionist country or by a period of anarchy. It would
constitute, moreover, so grave an encouragement to our
enemies in all parts of the world that we might expect
a rapid growth of separatist feeling in Canada, South
Africa, and Australasia, and a general break-up of the
British power. The bolder among the pessimists of the
Dominion ; the extreme Dutch, who may desire the
creation of the United States of South Africa under re-
publican forms ; and the wilder portion of the " native"
Australian party, would need no other signal would
find no longer any difference of opinion among their
friends as to the nature of the action that they should
take, nor would they be confronted with the same body
of opposition to their views as exists in the three groups
of colonies at the present time.
There are some dreamers who appear to think that
4 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
LOSS of we should leave India to itself, and the loss of trade,
iia ' by the possible adoption of a protectionist policy in
India, they would, I believe, be content to face. Be-
sides trade there is the interest upon capital, and India
remits so much money for various purposes to England
that in this sense, too, a peaceful and friendly India seems
almost necessary to our existence ; and it is difficult for
any one who knows the divisions of the peninsula to
suppose that an India left to itself would see its races
and its religions dwell together in amity and concord.
If to speculation speculation is to be opposed, I should be
inclined to fancy that some effect might be produced upon
the minds of those of whom I speak by asking them to
consider not only the evils of a lower kind which the
loss of India would occasion, but also those of a higher
nature. I would bid them reflect upon the hopeless
insularity that would overtake the British people if
deprived of the romantic interest that the possession of
India lends to our national life. Is it conceivable, how-
ever, that India should be able to govern and to defend
herself? The exactions and the quarrels of the native
princes alone would set the country in a blaze, and every
city of the north would be a scene of civil discord between
the adherents of the chief rival creeds. Even if India
did not fall at once to the lot of Russia, the recent
action of Germany in Africa warns us that Germany, and
Madagascar and Tonquin warn us that France, would
strive to conquer or to divide that vast peninsula which
we should leave wholly unable to defend itself by force of
arms. A despotism less beneficent than our own would
probably succeed a period of anarchy in which the good
results of many years of steady progress would be lost
to the subject population. There can, I think, be no
two opinions among reasonable men as to the necessities
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE
of every kind that force us to link our fate to our con-
tinued domination throughout India. It is then useless
to go into inquiries about our Indian Empire unless we
first make sure our ground with regard to Indian defence.
There is another reason for separate treatment of the Reasons for
question of Indian Defence, and for its full discussion,
before we reach that question of Imperial Defence in
which it seems to be involved. The Indian problem se P aratel y-
is distinct from the general problem. Not only is it
the most difficult branch of the defence question, and
one which thoroughly deserves to be studied on the
spot, but one wholly different in its nature from the
British Imperial Defence question as it exists elsewhere.
It is only in Canada and in India that we have land
frontiers of military importance. I have already dealt
in the previous volume with the question of Canadian
Defence ; but while in Canada there is little prospect
that we shall be attacked by our peaceful neighbours,
in the case of India we are face to face with a
different set of circumstances. It is in fact only on
this one of all the frontiers of the Empire that the
British dominion is virtually conterminous with the
continental possessions of a great military power. The
British Empire has of late, in New Guinea and else-
where in the Pacific, become conterminous with Germany,
in Further India virtually conterminous with France, and
in Africa conterminous with both Germany and France ;
but if we command the seas we could cut off Germany
from Africa and from Polynesia, and France from Africa
and from Indo-China. Kussia alone is virtually our
continental neighbour, in the same sense in which the
United States is our neighbour on the Canadian frontier.
The United States is not a military power, and, though
able to crush us in Canada, will never advance except
6 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
invited by the Canadians, or driven into war, while
Eussia is an autocracy with untold millions of men who
are ready to march at one man's will.
consensus Those in England who desire to close their eyes to
the importance of the question of Indian Defence are in
ance of the ^ h a bit of describing as alarmists all who force them to
Defence discuss the matter. It is, therefore, right to show at
the outset that those who belong to the peace section of
the Liberal party, but who happen to know India well,
are as thoroughly awake to the danger as are military
Conservatives themselves : in fact, that there is unanimity
of opinion among the well-informed, whatever may be
their predispositions. For example, Sir George Camp-
bell has argued, in a work circulated by the Cobden
Club itself, that we ought not to feel easy about our
military position in India ; that our Indian army is,
considering what it has to do, " the smallest army in
the world" an army of 200,000 men, not all fit for
the most dangerous service, defending, against internal
troubles and against a great military neighbour, a
peninsula containing 250,000,000 of inhabitants. Sir
George Campbell points out that we have to deal with
tremendous risks both east and west of India, and to
observe the approach of two great European powers
towards our borders. He shows how our difficulties
have been increased by a popular resistance to our rule
in Burmah, such as we never experienced in any part of
India, and such as will call for the presence of a large
garrison for many years ; and he says : " We can no
longer consider India to be a country divided from
the whole world, and our military arrangements must
be modified accordingly." Kadical economists and the
Cobden Club are thus, it is seen, compelled by the
necessities of the case to use words which would not be
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 7
disavowed by those who are looked upon, by the portion
of their countrymen who are uninstructed in this par-
ticular matter, as alarmists of a military school.
The first question that arises in connection with The idea of
Indian defence is, whether our preparations for war in alliance.
or near India against a European enemy are necessary at
all, or whether it would be possible safely to come to
terms with Russia. There is a school in England the
members of which would attempt to bring about an
Anglo-Russian alliance based on the general principle
that Russia should be allowed to work her will on
Turkey, provided our Indian North- West frontier were,
through the alliance, made secure. There is this to
be said for those who think thus, that it is our duty
to look at such questions from a point of view less
selfish than that of British interest alone, and that
it is well sometimes to try to place ourselves in the
position of Russian statesmen. Russia, ice-bound as *
she is, needs outlets ; but we must remember also that
she has an outlet on the Pacific which will become
more and more important day by day, that the outlet
through Turkey is not ours to give, and that the outlet
through India is ours to refuse. Without dwelling upon
the fact that under certain circumstances the possession
of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles by Russia might
prove a political danger to ourselves, and without
urging the consideration that there is a large British
trade in Turkey which would soon be destroyed by
Russian protectionist feeling, it is difficult to see, if
we look to the Indian side of the question, how Russia
could put it out of her own power at any moment to
threaten us on the North- West frontier.
What we should gain by an understanding with Russia
is far from clear. No promise, especially no promise
8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
accompanied by an advance towards our frontier, could
enable us safely to reduce our Indian forces and to take
less money from the Indian taxpayer. On the contrary,
while I am far from agreeing with all that has been
written upon the subject by the late Sir Charles Mac-
Gregor, still, in discussing the transport difficulties of a
Kussian advance on India, he was writing on a matter
which he thoroughly understood, for he had given much
time and care to it. The then Quartermaster-General
in India put the most successful possible result of the
first Kussian campaign as the annexation by Eussia of
the country up to that very line of the Hindu Kush
which it is now proposed by some, whose language is
eagerly reprinted by the Russian press, to give to
Russia voluntarily, as the result, not of a campaign, but
of an understanding. Sir Charles MacGregor was of
opinion, as the whole of our authorities in India at the
present moment are of opinion, that once in secure
possession of Herat and Balkh, Russia could afford to
wait, to consolidate her power, to complete her railways,
and would then, and then only, issue forth from her
excellent bases to make her attack on India.
The Tsar. Granting the pacific disposition of the present Em-
peror of the Russias, and supposing, for the sake of
argument, that we might safely give to him personally
that which his friends in England ask, is it not at least
possible that in some years' time there may be at the
head of affairs in Russia those who will hold different
views, and who might return to the designs of General
Skobeleff, to the prosecution of which they would bring
the enormous advantage of a perfect base for opera-
tions virtually bestowed upon them by ourselves?
Moreover, we should be giving that which is not ours
to give ; we should be thought by the Afghans to have
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE
shown the utmost treachery towards their interests ;
we should incur their hatred, and at the same time the
contempt of our Indian princes, and the Kussians would
be to a corresponding extent strengthened by the exist-
ence of these feelings.
To willingly let Russia occupy the northern half of Our
Afghanistan in the lifetime of the present Ameer would p
be a flagrant breach of faith, for, in spite of Mr. Curzon,
whose recent articles made more stir in Russia than he
can like, to judge from what he has since written in a
book, 1 we are deeply pledged to Abdurrahman by our
promises, twice at least perhaps three times volun-
tarily made. To give up Northern Afghanistan even
when he is gone would be to reverse the policy which
seemed wise to Mr. Gladstone's second administration as
well as to their Conservative successors. What we
should lose by the Anglo-Russian alliance, which seems
to reduce itself, when examined, to a permission or to an
encouragement to Russia to stretch herself on the one
side towards the Dardanelles, and on the other side into J&
Afghanistan, is clear : our Turkish trade, our power to
use the Euphrates route or the Suez Canal during war
with Russia when once she was established on the mag-
nificent position of the Sea of Marmora, the friendship
of the Afghan people now tardily obtained, and the con-
fidence of our Indian subjects in our strength. At one
blow we should have brought military Russia within
possible striking distance of India, and put ourselves
farther off from India by driving ourselves to the use
of the Cape route even in a single-handed war. An
increase of the distance from our base in England to
the Helmund where we should have to fight would be
1 Russia in Central Asia, by the Hon. Geo. N. Curzon, M.P. Long-
mans, 1889.
io PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
brought about at the same moment as a shortening of
the distance between the Kussian railroads and India.
The story of Batoum has shown that Kussian promises
cannot be trusted. The reply of the friends of Eussia
in this case is, that the promise as to Batoum was an
unwilling promise, extorted from Kussia at Berlin. It
was not in form unwilling, but, even admitting the fact,
we may doubt whether the promises or declarations of
the present Emperor of Russia would be more binding
upon a successor who might very likely hold widely
different views.
We are told that we might diminish our military
expenditure in India if we had a Russian alliance.
That cautious and economy-loving power the German
Empire, at the time when her old Emperor and the
Russian Emperor were bound together by the most
solemn of alliances, in the Three Emperors' League, con-
tinued with feverish haste to strengthen her fortresses
of Thorn, Konigsberg, and Posen, useful only against
Russia, while Russia strengthened Warsaw and the
Polish Quadrilateral, useful only against Germany. No
prudent power, with a frontier exposed to land attack,
can afford to rely upon promises, however apparently
binding, and relax her preparations for meeting in arms,
if necessary, possible invasion by a military power of
the first class. It did not need Batoum to prove that
it would be unwise to trust the very life of our Empire
to any promise.
Without inviting Russia into Northern Afghanistan
we may, of course, be called upon to consider what we
shall do when she has come there uninvited. The
Russians have sufficient belief in the reality of our
pledges to the present Ameer not, I think, to come there
in his lifetime ; but supposing that they are right in
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 11
thinking that the Ameer and Afghan rule are unpopular
in Herat and Balkh, and that a successful insurrection
may be organised against him, circumstances may so
change as to tempt them forward. The Russians may
be right, too, in thinking that if the present strong
man were removed by assassination there might be civil
war in Afghanistan and disorder upon their frontier
sufficient to give them a fair pretext for advancing.
Supposing that we fail to make those wise arrange-
ments, with regard to the Afghan succession, and for
securing tranquillity in the country on a change of
sovereign, which we ought to make in time, and could
make, the Russians may very likely cross the frontier
with a small number of men upon some apparently
excellent pretext, ready to withdraw if our Government
should threaten war, and ready to remain if we should
only grumble. We all of us are sometimes strangely
like the Turks in thinking that what will last our
own time is good enough, and in finding reasons for
putting off the fight until the time of our successors.
We have weakened English public opinion by the very
uncertainties of our past Afghan policy, the most amaz-
ing instance of which was the sudden reversal by Lord
Beaconsfield's Government in 1878 of the uniform policy
of Great Britain with regard to Herat, in the offer of
Herat to Persia, actually bound at the very time by
a secret treaty to Russia, a portion of which has
since been revealed. It is at least possible that
if the Conservatives were in office in England when
Russia in small force crossed the Afghan frontier,
recently settled with her, there would be a coalition
between the mass of the Opposition and Conservatives
who hold the view that the present arrangement
has no element of permanency in it which would
12 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
prevent the Government from resisting the Kussian
advance.
views ex- In May 1867, when I first wrote upon Indian defence,
Swofcr I recommended that policy of advance upon our left
Sen which was afterwards adopted. The railway through
1887. th e Bolan, and the station at some such position as
Quetta has since become were among the suggestions
that I made. The adoption of this policy was advised
from many sides and the policy was successful ; and
writing again in January 1887, after nearly twenty years
had passed, I was still able to take a hopeful view of the
prospects of Indian defence for some time to come. It
was still possible to set very high the risk to Kussia of
plunging into defiles inhabited by an independent
population, and to lay stress upon the time that would
be needed for the completion of her strategic railways in
Turkestan. On the other hand, while I thus stated my
own opinion, I was forced to quote the opinion of foreign
military writers to the opposite effect. These think,
as I showed, that it would be difficult for us to put
40,000 men at Quetta within three months of the
declaration of war, and that we could do it only if we
gave up all idea of offensive operations against Russia in
any quarter of the globe, and confined ourselves to a
defensive attitude, leaving Russia to attack us when and
where she chose in itself a serious weakness. I showed
that the foreigners who had written upon this subject
thought that Russia could raise trouble for us in India,
and force us to leave a large proportion of our troops
behind to watch narrowly the armies of the native
states ; and that they believed that an advance force of
Mohammedans, in the Russian interest, descending from
the mountains upon Kabul, might conciliate the Afghans
and bring with them towards India the tribes eager for
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 13
the plunder of our plains. I ventured nevertheless to
discount these alarmist views, and to suggest that
pressing danger would first arise only several years after
Kussia had occupied Herat (should we allow her to reach
that point), had finished her railways in that quarter,
and had fortified her base. The Kussians, it seemed to
me, had every interest in postponing war, and would do
so for twelve or fourteen years at least. At the same
time I hinted that we were one of the least popular of
powers, and that if we were attacked in India no hand
would be raised in our defence.
Writing, however, a few months later, after I had The m-
-, f, T -,. ,. sufficient
received irom India many answers to my earlier number
suggestions, I had somewhat to tone down my optimism,
Sir Frederick Eoberts 1 could not be quoted upon the our troops -
more cheerful side, though naturally proud of an army
with which he has been long and honourably connected.
Lord Wolseley had thrown the gravest doubts upon our
having sufficient strength to do more than remain on a
strict defensive. I pointed out that it was a dangerous
delusion to suppose that the whole of the Indian army
could take the field against the Kussians, and that
English officers who knew the Russian army thought
that their picked troops were admirable, while it was
certain, owing to transport difficulties, that Russia would,
if she attacked India, bring picked troops into the field.
1 As I was invited by my friend Sir Frederick Koberts to accompany
him in his military frontier tour of November-December 1888, and did
so, and as I have dedicated to him this work, some attempt might possibly
be made to commit him to the opinions put forward in this chapter, which
he has not seen. It is better, therefore, that I should distinctly say that
the views expressed are mine, not his, and differ indeed in several points
from those of the Commander-in- Chief in India. At the same time, where
my conclusions are known to me to be opposed to those of the highest
military authorities in India, I have said so in the text.
14 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
I argued in favour of the creation of a separate white
force for India, inasmuch as our compromise as to length
of service was ruinous to India, and forbade her having
any hope of keeping up a sufficient army to meet coming
dangers, in return for such money as she could afford to
spend, while at the same time it spoilt our home service
army. I stated generally that the criticisms which had
reached me showed a steady growth of pessimism among
our best officers, and that it was the universal opinion
in India that if the Afghans should join the Kussians,
the Eussians would have the game in their own hands.
Hence the need for first considering our relations with
Afghanistan.
Mr. Glad- The policy of the second administration of Mr.
Afghan Gladstone in the Afghan matter is of some historical
pohcy. an( ^ Q f some p resent importance. Mr. Gladstone recom-
mended the removal of Lord Lytton, and reversed Lord
Lytton's policy, but not to revert to the Lawrence
policy. On the contrary, while he wisely evacuated
Kandahar following largely the advice of that most
skilled of all observers of the Afghan question, Sir
Robert Sandeman Mr. Gladstone gave those strong
pledges to the Ameer of Afghanistan to which I have
alluded, and proposed the delimitation of the Afghan
frontier. The arrangement declared to be binding
by the Russian Emperor in 1888 was the outcome
of these proposals. The Ameer of Afghanistan was
subsidised and supplied with arms, and was told by
Lord Dufferin, by direction of the Government, that
so long as he conformed to our advice his enemies
would be ours. After some hesitation the Quetta
frontier was advanced, the loop strategical railway
made, and the Bori valley brought under British rule.
This policy of Mr. Gladstone's second administration,
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE
followed as it has been since that time by Mr. Glad-
stone's third administration, and by two Conservative
administrations, was wise and necessary. The policy
which I have described was, then, a policy of influence
at the Court of Kabul, combined with non-interference
in the domestic affairs of Afghanistan, and it was a
portion of this policy that we should extend either our
frontiers or our authority up to the Afghan border.
This was indeed the ground for that occupation of the
Bori valley under Mr. Gladstone's second administration
to which I have just referred. In the course of the
twenty years of which I have spoken the British and
the Russians have drawn 1100 miles nearer together,
Russia advancing 900 and we 200 miles ; and we are
now not in a straight line, but by road 500 miles
apart. On this line there is no mountain chain worth
naming. There are two much -travelled native roads,
along one of which Ayoub marched with wheeled
artillery before he beat us at Maiwand.
The strong, friendly, and united Afghanistan created
by our policy will exist during the life of the present
Ameer, but there is too much reason to fear that his death
will be the signal for confusion in Afghanistan unless we
take steps ourselves to prevent anarchy ; and the prac-
ticability of an invasion of India depends almost wholly
upon the condition of Afghanistan and upon our relations
with the Afghan ruler. It must be remembered that, if
an advance should come, large offers will be made to the
Afghans. Russia, besides giving money to the chiefs, will
promise to Afghanistan the Peshawur valley and other
former Afghan districts of the Punjab. So far as the
present Ameer's life may extend, we have done our
utmost to secure him. He knows that we wish his
kingdom to be independent, and by our evacuation of
1 6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
Kabul, Ghazni, and Kandahar we have proved to the
Afghans that we do not desire to take their country.
He understands us to have promised him to see that
the Kussians do not take it, and he undoubtedly be-
lieves that we should resist, with the whole force of
the Empire, and in all parts of the world, any attempt
to pass the line of pillars which the joint Commission
has set up. He is persuaded that by himself, and
without our guarantee or virtual guarantee, he could
not hope to keep the Eussians out of Herat and Balkh.
The position, although our policy has been successful
up to the present time, is one necessarily full of anxiety.
It is difficult for us to guarantee the succession of the
son of the present Ameer, who may not be the best
candidate for the throne. It is difficult for us to
accept responsibility for the Afghan proceedings upon
the Russian frontier while we have no officer within
hundreds of miles of Balkh, and yet the presence of
British officers upon the frontier, advised by Mr.
Curzon, would probably involve responsibilities even
greater than those which it might prevent. Still, what
is done is done. It was hopeless to expect that the
Ameer would be our friend so long as the most valuable
portion of his dominions was in our possession. His
very existence as ruler of Afghanistan was involved in
the Kandahar question, and necessitated our restoration
of the city. The result has been that the present ruler
of Afghanistan has complete trust and confidence in us,
and has done everything in his power, which in such a
matter is but limited, to make his people friendly. Sir
Lepel Griffin has said 1 that when he first met this
remarkable man, at the time when we were about to
place him upon the throne, Abdurrahman had never
1 Asiatic Quarterly Review, October 1888.
CHAP. I
INDIAN DEFENCE
one had, however,
as his guest near
known an Englishman. At least
stayed with that Afghan prince
Samarcand, and had long been familiar with his char-
acter. The impression which he made upon the first
Englishman who ever saw him was as favourable as that
which he produced on Sir Lepel Griffin ; and his first
English friend, now dead, was equally struck by his
remarkable information, self-possession, and knowledge
of the world. Brave, strong, and ready, it seemed
certain that he would one day succeed. The specula-
tion, however, as to the Afghan throne, which is the
most interesting, concerns not the present Ameer but
his successor, and to discuss this subject in the present
state of our relations with the Ameer would be unwise.
When the question is asked whether it is possible
as a fact for Russia to invade India, the answer must, Russian
in my opinion, be that Russia could not invade India invasion -
with a good chance of success if she started from her v*i
present frontier. At any time between 1879 and 1885
we might have had some difficulty in resisting, but in
consequence of the Indian military measures of the last
few years we could place in line upon her flank an
army which, did the Afghans continue friendly to us,
ought to give a good account of any force for which
the Russians could at present find transport across the
desert. This is not the opinion of Sir Charles MacGregor
in his " confidential " book, which was, unfortunately, so
largely circulated that it has been thought that copies
were purchased for use in Russia. He laid down for the
Russians every step of their march, and worked out for
them every figure of their transport, but I think that,
for the purpose of rousing our military authorities, he
lessened the difficulties which the enemy would have to
meet. On one point, indeed, Sir Charles MacGregor
VOL. II C
i8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
erred in the opposite direction. He underrated the
total military force of Eussia, and then proceeded to
make such large deductions from it for garrisons and
armies to watch European and other frontiers as to leave
the Eussians with a limited number of men, although,
in his opinion, a sufficient number for attempting the
invasion. It would be more accurate to look upon
Eussian numbers as unlimited for this purpose, but,
while unlimited upon their own frontier, sharply limited
as long as that frontier is where it is, and so long as
Herat is not connected with the Eussian railroads,
by transport difficulties. One natural result of this
fact is that any Eussian invading army would come
in the form of a force of carefully -selected men. To
allude only to the extracts that were published
from Sir Charles MacGregor's book, he thought the
invasion of India already then a possibility. Since
that time Eussia's peace footing has been increased and
her war footing almost doubled, as shorter service has
gradually affected her reserves. Eussia has advanced/
from Sarakhs to Penjdeh, within easy striking distance
of Herat. If Sir Charles MacGregor was right in
thinking that Eussian Central Asia can produce 30,000
camels, and that vastly greater numbers can be obtained
from the Persian frontier, then indeed advance across
the desert is robbed of half its difficulty.
Sir Charles MacGregor is, rightly enough, considered
in England to have been an alarmist, but there are
signs that he was not in all cases inclined to overrate
our difficulties. For example, in the opinion of skilled
observers of our Indian position, he underrates the
danger to us from the armies of the independent
^ princes of the south in the event of a rising ; and again,
it is known that it was his opinion that in the event of
CHAP. I
INDIAN DEFENCE
invasion all troops might be withdrawn both from
Burmah and Assam, on the ground that it would not
be difficult to reconquer these great provinces if we
repulsed the Kussians certainly not an alarmist view.
It is believed in India that the Russians will advance Difficulties
by Balkh and also from Penjdeh through Maimena R
with small forces upon Kabul ; with a small force and advance -
mule transport by Chitral upon Jelalabad ; and with a
small force by Gilgit upon Kashmir, although, according
to Sir Charles MacG-regor, the last route would be
possible in July and August only. These small forces
would be from one to two months on the road, and their
marches would be extremely difficult at the present time ;
but, according to Sir Charles MacGregor, if the Russians
were established in Balkh, at the frontier which we are
now asked to willingly give them, and which Sir Charles
MacGregor said they would obtain as the result of their
first successful campaign, these marches would become
"a perfectly feasible operation of war." The large force
of the invader, with his siege train, would of course come
by Herat to Kabul unless we beat him, or to Ghazni, and
then, if not defeated, by the Kuram river, which he
could reach during eight months of the year, or by the
Tochi valley towards Lahore, and by the Gomul pass
towards Dera Ismail Khan and the south. Some think
tat Russia will advance also by Seistan towards
indahar ; but she would have to pass through
districts where the people are friendly to ourselves,
thanks chiefly to Sir Robert Sandeman's popularity, for
he is looked upon as the best friend both of chiefs and
people, and as justice incarnate. At Quetta we are
strongly established on the flank of the Russians, whose
main force, advancing over fairly level ground, and not,
like the small forces, over passes of 10,000 feet, would
20 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
have to march 350 miles from Herat against the 200
from Balkh of the small forces before reaching us.
Results of It is often said that if success or failure depends
upon the attitude of the Afghans, as is frequently
alleged by Indian officers, we had better let the Kussians
be the first to enter Afghanistan, as then the Afghans
would turn against them. Russian credit has stood
very low in Afghanistan since 1878, because the
Afghans thought that the Russians behaved meanly
in not defending them against us at that time ; and
similar views, in a more aggravated form, would be con-
ceived of us if we took no notice of Russian entry into
Afghanistan. The Russians were not pledged to defend
the Afghans. We are pledged, in fact, to the present
Ameer, and in universal Afghan belief to the Afghans
generally. Sir Robert Sandeman's chief assistant, one
of the men who know the Afghans best, said to me at
Quetta last year that there was no greater fallacy than
to suppose that the occupation of a part of Afghanistan
by Russia would make the mass of the Afghans her
foes, for that they respected power, and would be more
likely to turn against us for refusing to defend them
than against Russia for advancing, and when once
shaken would begin to look, as they have looked before,
for their share of Indian plunder. I have said but little
of the intrigue which would go on in the still "inde-
pendent," or British, part of Afghanistan, and in India,
when the Russians were established on the new frontier
which some would give them. I agree with Sir R.
Temple that it would be impossible to preserve Kabul
from the interference of a European power established
at Herat. To say, too, that there would be intrigue in
India itself is not to direct special blame against the
Russians. For example, the Russians are aware that
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 21
Indian officers have proposed to the Indian Government
to prepare rebellion among the Turcoman tribes, and it is
not, therefore, impolite to suppose that the compliment
has been returned. We have never taken any actual
steps to disquiet the Kussians in Central Asia, and it
is possible that they have never taken any actual steps,
as yet, to disquiet us in India ; but there can be no
doubt that, if they advanced to the proposed frontier,
and if our relations became unfriendly, Russian agents
would swarm at the native Courts. In short, it seems
plain that the nearer Russia is allowed to come to India
the more we must increase our army and our military
expenditure. As the Government of India are said
to have put the matter in August 1888, the division
of Afghanistan between England and Russia, or the
advance of Russia across her present frontier into
Afghanistan, would be ruinous to India in expense, and
our position in India would under such circumstances
become intolerable.
Those who best know Afghanistan are then of importance
opinion that invasion of India by Russia is possible, O f Afghan
and would in the event of war certainly be undertaken
provided that Russian influence were dominant in Kabul,
and that this could hardly fail to be the case were
Russia at Herat and Balkh. The co-operation of
Afghanistan would be of such essential moment to the
Russians that any gifts or promises would be cheap pay-
ment for it, and it is certain that such promises would
not be wanting after the Russians had been allowed to
establish themselves at Herat.
We have now to consider by what means the danger The prob-
lem of
of invasion is guarded against at the present moment, defence.
and what further steps would be necessary if, by the
adoption of a foolish policy, the danger should increase.
schemesfor
22 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
The oriinal idea was to watch the outlet of the
passes and have our main armies on the plains ; but this
actually ^ u involved, in time of peace, the keeping of our chief
been done, r *- , . .
garrisons in an unhealthy valley, and in time ol war
the abandonment of the whole of the right bank of the
Indus without a serious struggle. The effect in India,
in the event of invasion, of the important stations of
Peshawur, Nowshera, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ghazi Khan,
and Dera Ismail Khan being abandoned to our enemies
would have been disastrous. Yet it would have been
impossible to fight a battle between the Indus and
the hills unless at a fortified position at Attock
crossing. When this plan was given up, the next
suggestion was to fortify the whole length of our new
frontier. It was, however, found not only that the forti-
fications would have cost a great deal of money, and
that, for them to be worth much, they would have
required larger garrisons than our small army could
provide, but that there was an alternative course which,
in a military sense, was a wiser one. The third scheme
was to strongly fortify not only Quetta but Peshawur.
Here again the inadequacy of our army would have made
the step perhaps a mistaken one, committing us to fight-
ing in strength upon two lines, or else to wasting a large
garrison upon Peshawur an unhealthy place and not a
naturally strong position.
The two The course which has been taken is that of deciding-
defence. to fight with our field army upon the Quetta line, and
of resisting upon the Khyber line, first in the defiles,
and then at Attock, only sufficiently to delay the enemy
while we attacked him upon the flank. But the arsenal
at Eawul Pindi is to be defended on account of the
possibility of descent from Kashmir upon our great rail-
way line, and also as the last position for the defence of
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 23
the Khyber route. We have made an excellent
military road through Kohat and Bannu to Dera
Ismail Khan, as well as the perfect road from Dera
Ghazi Khan to Pishin, which I traversed in the cold
weather of 1888-89, and which enables troops from
the Punjab to march to the Pishin valley on the
road towards Giriskh or Kandahar without going round
by Sindh.
We have made excellent military roads round Quetta, The Quetta
and, besides our tunnel through the Khojak, which will lme '
be finished some time between April and November 1890,
an excellent military road over the summit of that pass.
There has been constructed a twofold line of broad-
gauge railroad to the frontier with a bridge across the
Indus at Sukkur ; Quetta has been strongly fortified as ^>
a base, and the position is one naturally so nearly im-
pregnable that even the fact that the new fortifications
would not stand against the "high" explosives with which
foreign field artillery may soon be armed hardly weakens
the value of the Quetta base. The Baleli position in
front of Quetta can be easily strengthened by inunda-
tions, with the curious result that those of the enemy
advancing upon it who do not die of thirst in the
" country of sand " will, when they meet water for the
first time, find too much of it. Quetta, in short, with its
system of roads and railways, now forms a magnificent
base for a field force, but for the liability of the Indus
valley and even of the Afghan passes to occasional July
floods. The material sufficient for completing the railway
to Kandahar is at the front. The Khyber, on the other
hand, is prepared at Lundi Kotal to resist attack by a
small party, and, if it is forced, the intention is to fall
back first upon the Attock positions and then upon
Eawul Pindi, while our main army operates upon the
24 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
flank of the invader in the neighbourhood of the
Helmund or of Kandahar.
Fortifica- Fortifications in India are mainly needed by us
for securing an advanced base such as Quetta is, and
such as, in the event of a break-up of Afghanistan, some
point upon the Helmund would become ; for the protec-
tion of arsenals, such as Quetta and Eawul Pindi, and
for the protection of strategic points such as the crossing
of the Indus at Attock. Generally speaking it must be
understood that the policy which has rightly prevailed
in India is that our defence must be by the offensive
with a field army, and that the less we have to do with
fortifications the better. We have therefore fortified
a perfect base, and we are fortifying our arsenal at
Eawul Pindi, but are not attempting to cover the whole
frontier by a line of fortified positions, such as that which
defends France against the German Empire. By roads
- and railways we are obtaining the power of rapidly
concentrating our troops for offensive action upon the
invader's flank. In short, the military policy contem-
plated is the defensive in the extreme North West
vv combined with a vigorous offensive from Quetta or
Kandahar. Our Indian army, if the improvement in
its transport which, as will be seen, has already been
brought about within the last two years be rapidly
continued, may be looked upon as an excellent army for
the purpose of offensive action from the Quetta base,
provided with a system of communications and with an
impregnable position in its rear.
The There may be some who are inclined to think that
line! 61 the Indian Government show a want of caution in pro-
posing to act offensively upon the single line from Quetta,
and who believe that the invader would come through
Kabul and the Khyber, and would be joined by the
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 25
Afghan tribes. They point to a supposed necessity of
our resisting in strength upon the Khyber line ; but the
best defence for the Khyber would be attack on the
Kandahar side or from a new base to be occupied between
Ghazni and the Gomul, the fortification of which would
both defend the Tochi and Gomul passes, and afford a
starting-point for an advance to Ghazni for ourselves.
The position of Peshawur, and the probable hostility to
us of the tribes in the event of a Russian advance, make
resistance in the Peshawur valley impossible. All we
could do would be to delay the enemy in the pass, gain
time for orderly retirement, fall back, in the first in-
stance, upon our position at the Indus crossing, and, as
a last stand, upon the entrenchments at Rawul Pindi.
It should be remembered also that the supply of the
army, and its reinforcement, if necessary, from home,
are easier by Karachi and Quetta than by Bombay
and Peshawur. These considerations form a complete
defence for the policy which has won the day.
While the Indian authorities are, as I have said, Transport,
pessimists with regard to matters bearing upon Indian
defence which are not within their own control, they are
of opinion that India is better prepared for war than is
admitted by their critics. The considerable length of
time which would be needed before concentration at or
near Kandahar is chiefly caused, they think, by the dis-
tances which have to be travelled. The funds for the
purchase of 5000 mules which were provided in 1889
will bring the number of mules for transport, exclusive
of those in Burmah, to upwards of 13,000. The army
have also a thousand camels ; and an immense number of
mules, donkeys, and ponies are available for purchase or
hire in the Punjab and North West, while the frontier
itself can supply a vast number of slow camels. It is
26 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
supposed that in any future war wheeled transport will
be again resorted to, although there were immense losses
in connection with wheeled transport in the last Afghan
campaign. In 1880 the whole road from Kandahar to
Sibi was strewn with the wreckage of thousands of
broken-down carts, but it is thought that the new carts
which are being made for transport will be really strong
and serviceable, and the roads to the extreme military
frontier have been much improved. India is at least
well prepared for war as compared with England.
steps to be While the measures that have been taken are sum" -
taken.
cient for the present upon the Quetta line, and those
which are being taken at this moment are sufficient
upon the Khyber line, it is necessary to take imme-
diately certain other steps, either in other places or
of a general nature. Above all, it is necessary to still
further increase the reserve of mules and the reserve of
horses, with all the necessary saddlery, harness, and
carts, and to provide the whole army with the latest
weapons. The delay in deciding about the new magazine
rifle has been serious, as we are unable to arm the whole
of the native infantry with Martini-Henry rifles until
the British troops in India have received the new rifle.
The question of ammunition is also difficult. So long
as some of our Indian forces are armed with the Snider
rifle we must keep up a reserve of Snider ammunition,
and, in the hope that the British soldiers will soon have
the magazine rifle, Government are unwilling to keep a '
large reserve of even Martini-Henry ammunition. The
ammunition difficulty extends also to the artillery, of
which some batteries have the new twelve-pounder
breech-loading guns, while others are still armed with
the old nine-pounder muzzle-loading guns. The Indian
authorities are of opinion that the dependence of India
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 27
upon the War Office for arms and stores should be
brought to an end, and India, like the Colonies, allowed
to buy them in the open market. The Indian railway
bridges should be made fit for the passage of troops on
foot ; rolling stock on the railways terribly deficient-
increased to enable troops to be conveyed with rapidity
by our strategic lines. The bridges of boats that have
been taken away should be replaced ; the Indus ferries
kept up ; the railway should be made to Bannu ; the
Tochi valley surveyed and opened to trade, and the
tribes as far as the Afghan posts brought into relations
with ourselves. It is known to the Indian Government,
since the recent visits of Sir Kobert Sandeman and of
General Prendergast, that the Zhob valley would pay
for occupation, and that the chiefs and people desire our
protection. During the Viceroy's visit to the frontier
in November 1889 it was rightly decided to annex the
Zhob, and in December Sir R. Sandeman marched
through the Gomul Pass. The Kuram line which
would have to be defended, first at Peiwar Kotal, then
in the defiles, and then at Kalabagh, where a bridge
head is needed would become also a valuable alterna-
tive line of advance for ourselves. Bridge fortifications
are also needed for the defence of the Sukkur position.
In the meantime surveys should be carried on between
the Zhob and Ghazni, with the view of the selection of
the strongest point that can be found as a more northern
base for our field army. Such a spot is already marked
upon our military maps, but it is perhaps better that
its name should not be divulged.
It would be an excellent military step, and, as I think, The
an excellent civil step as well, to put the whole of the
frontier policy and all dealings with the tribes under one
man. At the present moment the Punjab Government
28 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
are allowed to pursue a useless course of blockade,
and of the taking of hostages, when it is a well-known
fact that the blockaded tribes are glad to have some of
their chiefs kept for them in comfort, and are always
able to obtain the goods they want from their next
neighbours. When Sir Frederick Eoberts commanded
at Kuram he was also chief political officer there, and it
was at one time proposed to divide the frontier between
Sir Kobert Sandeman and himself, Sir Frederick Roberts
taking the north part, and Sir Robert Sandeman the
south, or, in other words, that which he has now, but
with, I fancy, although I did not hear it from himself, a
general control over the whole. This arrangement was
prevented by the Afghan War and Sir Frederick Roberts's
promotion. .The civil officers of the frontier, who have to
do with Districts, cannot possibly find time, in executing
their continually increasing duties, to carry on relations
with the border tribes in that slow manner which is
necessary for success. The Commissioner of the frontier
might be given a district as large as possible, from Gilgit
to the Persian Gulf, provided that he had nothing to do
but travel about and meet the chiefs, and preside over
their councils. They need not see him often once a
year in each part of his district would be enough, so that
one progress along it each year would suffice, and this
could be accomplished in the cold weather between
October and March. Of course he must have good men
under him, as Sir Robert Sandeman has good men now.
Soldiers less experienced than Sir Frederick Roberts
are sometimes inclined to resent the authority given to
political officers upon the military frontier; but the
work cannot be done by the soldiers themselves. On
the one hand they are apt to be a little rough in
dealing with the tribes, and on the other, they shrink
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 29
from the often necessary advance of posts, on account
of the unpopularity in the army of frontier stations,
where both officers and men are literally bored to
death. The army, generally speaking, are as much
opposed to advancing our posts into the Zhob as
advised by Sir Frederick Koberts and Sir Eobert
Sandeman as were the navy to the retention of Port
Hamilton, and for the same reason. They look upon
this service on the extreme frontier much as the Egyptian
army look upon service in the Soudan.
Sir Robert Sandeman's one idea is said to be to sir Robert
retire from India and take service of some sort in
Ireland, in which idea his enemies, if he has any, will
hope that he may succeed, and all his friends will
hope that he may fail. If the Government of India
would consent to place the whole of the frontier in
Sir Robert Sandeman's hands no better arrangement M
could be made. If they will not do so, then, upon the
retirement of Sir Robert Sandeman, I should be glad
myself to see the whole frontier given to the Viceroy
and controlled directly by himself. The one thing that
ought not to be is that the present jealousies of the
Governments of the northern portion of the frontier
should continue. It is a singular example of the way in
which Governments go on in old-fashioned lines that we
keep up separate establishments with separate Governors
at places like Madras and Bombay, of which the first is
unimportant and the second important only as far as
trade is concerned, whereas the vital point of the whole
Empire is partly left in the excellent hands of Sir Robert
Sandeman, but partly left to chance. While Sir Robert
Sandeman is a kind of king of the whole country between
Persia and the Punjab, beyond Sir Robert Sandeman we
come first to the Deputy Commissioner of Dera Ghazi,
30 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
then to the Deputy Commissioner of Dera Ismail, then
to three other Deputy Commissioners, and then to
Colonel Warburton, all of them being more or less
hampered by the Punjab Government. The Governor-
General of Kussian - Turkestan keeps the frontier
question in his own hands, and unless the Indian
Government is content to put the whole question
into the hands of Sir Robert Sandeman, who would
be cheap at a peerage and the salary of Madras or
Bombay, then our frontier should be in the Viceroy's
direct control.
Need for There should not be one policy for the Bolan,
poik 1 another for the Khyber, and a third for the Tochi
^, valley and Gomul pass, but one policy for the frontier,
the passes, and the tribes. The object of a frontier
policy is to protect the peasantry of India against
raids; to protect the merchants who use the passes
against exaction ; to allow our survey parties to do
their work without being fired at, as they have been
fired at in the Mangrotha and the Gomul ; to organise
transport for the possibility of our advance ; to make
such military roads as we think necessary. In certain
eventualities, moreover, after advancing through the
passes we must be able to count on finding the people
friendly, and, when we reach the other side of them,
must be certain of tranquillity in our rear. All this
has been attained in British Baluchistan, and can be
attained farther north by the adoption of Sir Robert
Sandeman's tribal and local levy system. So complete
is the belief in the Indian military and foreign depart-
ments that the side which has the tribes with it in a
frontier war will win, that it is difficult to explain how
it is that the Khyber system of Colonel Warburton has
not been extended to the Afridis of the Bazar valley
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 31
and to the Kohat pass, or the Sandeman system to the
Wazaris behind the Gomul. Not only should we gain
security in time of peace, but the advantage of large
numbers of recruits of warlike tribes, who could be
brought into our ranks against the time of war. Our
local levies are expected gradually both to develop
their military efficiency (as the Khyber rifles have
already done : witness their excellent performance in the
Black Mountain expedition) and to extend the recruiting
ground for our regular native force. It is also possible
that the improved levies may find suitable employment
for the best of the native officers of our own army.
The local levy system which is an aristocratic tribal The
system under British protection, which answers per-
fectly, secures peace and order, the arrest of criminals,
the guarding of roads, the protection of trade and of
telegraphs, and the partial cessation of blood feuds
rests upon our maintenance of the authority of the
chiefs and the decision of all tribal questions, according
to the will of the majority of the sirdars and according
to tribal custom. In the districts of strong chiefs the
system is very similar to that by which the Dutch
have long ruled Java, although the Baluch population
is as independent as the Javanese Malays are cringing.
Sir Robert Sandeman answers to the Dutch Resident,
and princes like Jam Ali of Lus Beyla to the Dutch
Java-Sultan. We have also an analogous system of
government in the British dominions in our new colony
of Fiji, but there we have, living side by side with the
chiefs, white planters, who make a grievance of the
favour shown to the chiefs for the purpose of upholding
their influence with the tribes. The Sandeman system
could not exist if there were a British population settled
in Baluchistan.
32 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
other steps One of the many matters that I would deal with
to be taken. ag ft w j lo j e ^ ex tending the Sandeman system over all
the tribes between ourselves and the Afghan posts, and
by employing them on road-making, is that of the road
from Peshawur to Kohat, which should be properly
made, and arrangements entered into for keeping it
open. We must speedily erect forts, similar to that
which has just been finished to block the Khyber, in
the cross valleys which form alternative routes from
Jelalabad to the Peshawur valley. It is useless to
waste much money upon important forts in this neigh-
bourhood, because they could not be held if the tribes
rose against us, and we should have to fall back at
once to the Attock position on the Indus, where, it
should be observed, the Attock forts have still to be
completed. One of the further steps which will, sooner
or later, need to be undertaken, is an extension of the
railway from Quetta towards the west, in the direction
of Nushki a matter to which I shall be forced to
return. A difficulty is at present caused by Karachi,
the base for the defensive action, being in the hands
of the Bombay Government, while the army which
would be supplied through Karachi and Quetta would
be a Bengal army; but this difficulty is only one of
those which are caused by the Presidency system, the
^ abolition of which is of the first necessity.
Kafristan I have now named the various steps that should
Kashmir, at once be taken, with this addition, that in the
north we should make friends of, and employ as
soldiers, the inhabitants of Kafristan, and so defend
the passes of Chitral. It is understood that the
visit of Sir Frederick Eoberts to Kashmir in May
1889 was connected with a scheme for raising a local
force for the frontier defence, and for improving the
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 33
Kashmir organisation for the defence of Gilgit. This
was very necessary, as, though in the event of a Russian
advance on India the main attack would doubtless come
by the road which offers the fewest difficulties, namely,
through Herat, smaller columns of infantry, with moun-
tain guns, would attempt to pass through Gilgit as
well as across the Pamir to Swat, and through Leh
into Kashmir.
Now there comes the question of the steps that Action m
should be taken if, under one pretext or another, the
Russians should advance to Herat or Balkh, or both.
I have already stated that I believe that the announce-
ment of the promises we have made to the Ameer
would be sufficient to prevent advance, but failing that
announcement the advance may come. If it come
during the life of the Ameer, which is unlikely, I assume
that war would be the result ; but if it come under the
other circumstances which have been described as possible,
and if public or parliamentary opinion at home would not
support resistance, what are the steps which should be
taken ? The railway would at once be laid to Kandahar,
although I should strongly advocate the policy of stop-
ping short of that city, and not attempting ourselves
to undertake the government of the town or province.
In the opinion of high military authorities a railroad
equipped with defensive posts must then also be made
to Nushki and towards Farrah, and there are some who
would have this line begun at once. Mr. George
Curzon, in a paper read before the British Association,
in 1889, advocated the pushing forward of railways
into Seistan mainly for purposes of trade, and there
can be little doubt that the future communication
with Europe will pass between India and Persia by this
route. The Russians have taught us, as American
VOL. II D
34 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
example seems not previously to have done so, that
railways need not be as costly as ours in India, and that
lines useful both for trading and for strategic purposes
can be made at little cost even in difficult countries.
The Russians have bridged a far more difficult river
than any we should have to cross, with a bridge of wood
brought to the spot at greater cost than would be
incurred by taking American wood to Seistan, and,
according to Mr. Curzon, the Eussian bridge across the
Oxus cost only 30,000, whereas we should probably
have spent upon it from half a million to a million. In
the opinion of many who have given consideration to
the question our position on the North- West frontier will
never be thoroughly secure until we have two lines of
railway meeting in Seistan one connected with India,
probably by our Quetta route, and the other with a point
on the Persian Gulf. The country between the Persian
Gulf and Seistan must be surveyed, for with our present
knowledge it is impossible to say whether the line should
be from Gwadur or from some other port farther west-
ward. The Nushki lines are not the only additional
strategic lines of railway which will have to be con-
structed if Eussia comes to Herat or Balkh, and to
make railways in such difficult country as the Afghan
frontier takes so much time that there will be no room
for delay. The heavy rains of 1889 showed that neither
the Bolan nor the Sibi-Pishin railway can be depended
upon when the floods are higher than is usual, and it
is scarcely possible to provide sufficient culverts for
the immense volume of water which sometimes comes
off the high hills surrounding both these railways. The
want of cross communication also between our line of
defence in the front of the Khyber and our Quetta line
is too complete for safety. The only railway communi-
(HAP. i INDIAN DEFENCE
35
cation from Quetta or from Sibi with Peshawur, or with
Eawul Pindi, or the Attock crossing, goes round by
Lalla Musa or by Lahore. The Zhob stream rises not
far from Pishin. and is easily accessible from a point
between Pishin and Loralai. It flows into the Gomul
stream, and forms a natural line of communication be-
tween Dera Ismail Khan and Quetta, and saves 200
miles, while the construction along it of a railway would
bring a vast tract of disturbed country under quiet
rule. In the course of November and December 1889
the military authorities have been carrying out a survey
of the Indus between Kalabagh and Dera Ismail Khan
with a view to the ultimate construction of a bridge,
and with the hope that some day Attock will be con-
nected by a line upon the Indian or eastern side of the
Indus with the routes through the Gomul and the
Bolan, so as to give the necessary mobility to the forces
engaged in the defence of the right and centre of our
position on the North- West frontier. Above all and increase of
in this would lie the great permanent expenditure
the trustworthy portion of our Indian army, both white
and native, must be increased ; and it is in the necessary
increase of the European army in India, already so
tremendous a burden to that country, that lies the
immense danger in allowing a Kussian advance to the
Hindu Kush.
A regimental reserve has lately been established in The
India for the native army, and a reserve which, unlike lc
our so-called reserve in England, is to be trained ; but
this excellent force, should it grow as is hoped in numbers,
will only increase the disproportion between the native
and white troops, and, unless there is a proportional
augmentation in the number of white troops serving in
India, will not increase as against Eussia our fighting
6V 6 11 til*
36 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
strength. At present the reserve is small, and would
not fill up the ranks to their usual numbers after the
losses of a single battle.
Our Indian army is possibly sufficient for our present
Indian needs and dangers ; that is, while the Russians
force for ^ ee p k e h m d the frontier lately marked by us and them
* -*
w ith much solemnity, and recognised, as previously
mentioned, by the Russian Emperor as lately as the
8th June 1888. Our army is, however, as will be
shown, insufficient for the other eventuality. The
mobilisation scheme which was prepared in India and
sent home contemplates, I believe, that India should take
the field with two army corps and a reserve division, and
some 250 guns ; but it asks for six battalions of British
infantry, so that perhaps it will be desirable to neglect
the reserve division. If the Afghans were with us we
should be able to advance beyond Kandahar with 55,000
picked troops, which would be sufficient to meet such an
army as the Russians could bring against us if they had
to start from their present frontier, with the enormous
difficulties of transport across the desert. In the event,
however, of a long war beyond Kandahar, or of a Russian
advance from a new frontier on the Indian side of Herat,
India would need a large force from England to reinforce
the garrisons of the Indian towns, to make further pro-
vision for lines of communication, and also to replace
casualties. The coming of these troops would enable
every good man now in India to be sent to the front,
and the men from England might be recruits, except for
the fact that men of very youthful age die in large
numbers from the climate. The stores for the first army
corps would be ready at Quetta, and those for the second
at Rawul Pindi. It has been suggested that the second
army corps is mythical, like the second army corps in
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 37
England, and when I set out to pay my last visit to
India, to look into the Defence question, I was inclined
to be sarcastic about the probable results of an encounter
between the Indian second army corps and the second
army corps at home ; but as a fact all is ready for the
second army corps except the transport, and there is, as
I have shown, a great deal of country transport to be
obtained in India, while the Russians at the present
moment are also not without their transport difficulties.
There can be no doubt that our transport in India is and of
still defective, although immense progress has been
made since Sir Frederick Roberts has held command
and been assisted in this matter by his late Quarter-
master-General and by General Chesney. As matters
stand our transport difficulties would be all but over-
whelming if the tribes opposed us, but would present
far less difficulty if they were friendly. Sir Robert The tribes.
Sandeman was able in the period from 1879 to 1881 to
assure the armies that passed through the Bolan and
that occupied Kandahar that he would see that they
should not starve ; and, even after Mai wand, he had no
difficulty in procuring supplies through his own people,
although he was attacked by those people from beyond his
northern frontier with whom he had, owing to the oppo-
sition of the Punjab Government, not been allowed to
deal. We have now two perfectly open lines of com-
munication, yielding a good deal of local camel transport,
both of which 1 myself have crossed. The more northerly,
however, of these lines has been carried at vast cost over
the summit of a mountain 6000 feet in height, when the
line might have been made shorter, and have crossed
the Sulieman range through an easy pass at a height
of only 800 feet. At last, owing to a positive declara-
tion on the part of the Commander-in-Chief and of the
38 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
late Quartermaster -General that the opening of the
Gomul is a military necessity, the posts are being-
advanced ; but the jealousy of the Punjab Government
continues to be marked. The questions of frontier
arrangement and of transport are closely connected, and
our soldiers appear to be right in their contention that
we can do everything if the tribes are with us, and
nothing if they are against us. From the Sandemaii
frontier in the Zhob southwards they are with us :
northward they are hostile or almost ignorant of our
existence, because the Punjab Government has pre-
tended to have a defined frontier at the mountain foot,
and has not established with them those relations
which we should have fostered. A thoroughly friendly
support from the tribes as far as the Afghan posts is
easy of attainment, and to get as loyal a support from
* the tribes who lie between the Afridis and the Lunis
as we have from the Lunis and from the Afridis them-
selves is essential to our position. When in November-
December 1888 Sir Eobert Sandeman marched to Khan
Mahomet Kot, Morgha, and Mina Bazar, he made it
possible to survey the Gomul and to give us a far
shorter road from India to the new frontier. By
every such step fresh tribes of ex-robbers will become
our best supporters, camel transport will be locally
obtained, and our position upon the frontier made
daily more secure.
The native The native army in India is only partly good enough
to be used in the field against the Kussians. In writing
a few months ago upon the subject I was forced to
frankly state the opinion of the best impartial military
judges upon a portion of the southern infantry. This
was converted into an attack upon the whole Bombay
army by some critics, for the Madras army was generally
INDIAN DEFENCE 39
given up as regards service against a European enemy,
I was far from attacking the Bombay army generally,
for I praised its cavalry, its mountain batteries, and its
pioneers, and praised indeed its infantry so far as old-
fashioned Indian service was concerned, merely pointing
out what is notorious to those who are not partial
that the Bombay infantry are not fit to cope with picked
Russian infantry, who are the possible enemy for whom in
India we have to prepare. It is a curious fact that I was
criticised on both sides at once by Bombay officers and
writers for depreciating native troops, and by English
military authorities for rating them too high in stating
my firm belief that our Indian native cavalry are, for
service in India or upon the Indian frontier, as good as
any cavalry that could be put in line against them.
The gallant service of some Bombay troops in the Karen
field force was brought up against me, as though I had
for one moment pretended that Bombay troops, with
their admirable discipline, would not get the better of
irregular native levies. My point, and the only point
worth discussing, is whether Bombay troops are fit, in
the usual proportions of native troops to British troops,
to stand against the advance of picked Russians.
Another form of criticism on my remarks was to be
found in the Times of India, which took the line of
asserting that, if Madras and Bombay infantry could not
be employed against Russians, " Bengal proper " was on
a par with them, and that when " the Bengalis boast of
their troops they " were " referring to their . . . frontier
troops and Sikhs." This is good criticism, and I fully
admit that down-country Bengal troops would be of as
little use against Russians as troops from the Southern
Presidencies, and that the only native infantry which
ought to be placed in the field in Afghanistan is that
40 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
composed of Goorkhas, Sikhs, Pathans, Afridis, and the
best of the Punjab Mohammedans. The critic, however,
went on to urge that what was wanted was " marching
power, discipline, and a thorough musketry training, in
each ,of which most of the native Indian regiments are
exceptionally good." The w r riter seems to leave out of
account that power of standing up against European
attack which is not exactly the same thing as mere
courage, and which, once present among the Southern
Indian races, seems to have died out among them in the
opinion of those of the best judges who are not as it
were personally enlisted upon the other side. I fear
then that I cannot modify the view which I expressed
with regard to the southern infantry, and that, while
probably the seven regiments of Bombay cavalry and
the two Bombay mountain batteries might be used on
active service against a Kussian attack, the twenty-six
regiments of Bombay infantry (including their excellent
pioneers) could not be put in the front line. So too,
while the four regiments of Madras cavalry and the five
regiments of Hyderabad Contingent cavalry could be
used, if their regimental system should be modified as
will be explained, the thirty-two regiments of Madras
infantry or pioneers and the six regiments of Hyderabad
Contingent infantry could not be safely put in the
front line. The Hyderabad Contingent artillery are
on mobilisation to become ammunition columns, as were
some of our own artillery under the War Office scheme
of 1887, now nominally abandoned for another system,
which has, however, no real existence.
S^od" In the Ben g a l army and Punjab Frontier Force there
troops, are sixty-seven regiments of infantry or pioneers, of
which, by careful inquiry, I made out forty-nine, besides
pioneers, or fifty -two in all, to be good. There are
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 41
twenty -four regiments of cavalry of the Bengal army
or Frontier Force and six mountain batteries. The
result of the most elaborate inquiries into the character
of each regiment in the whole Native Army led me to
believe that the forty regiments of cavalry are as good
as anything that could be brought against them ; the
eight mountain batteries could all be used in the field, if
sufficient money were spent on them in advance ; and
forty-nine regiments of infantry for the front line, besides
the six regiments of pioneers, which might be employed
on their own work. This leaves seventy battalions
of infantry which could not be put in the field against
the Russians and are not really worth the money they
cost. If we take the infantry as averaging 800 men to
a battalion, we shall find that there are 56,000 infantry
that are not good enough to use against a European
enemy. On the other hand, there are 44,000 infantry tfy
or pioneers good enough, if in combination with an equal
number of white troops, to use against a European
enemy. If we take the cavalry regiments as averaging
550 horses, 22,000 native cavalry can be used ; and the
eight batteries at an average of 250 men would give
2000 men for use; that is, 68,000 good, as against
56,000 not fit to take the field against a Russian
advance. There are also in various parts of India
certain irregular troops which are fit for use, such, for
example, as the excellent Khyber rifles. Now it is an
accepted principle that we must put into the field almost
as many white as native troops, and that we must leave
a large number of trustworthy garrisons in India. As
we have about the same number of trustworthy troops
and white troops in India the proportions seem easy to
observe, provided we neglect the less efficient troops,
which, in my opinion, ought to be gradually reduced.
42 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
Army It will have been seen from what I have written that
recruited 6 I have formed a distinct opinion that we should cease to
certain en li g t men from the un warlike races. We have already
races only. cease d to enlist Bengalis, and I should wish that the same
principle should be extended, and that we should no
longer enlist men from Southern India. When I come
to discuss the Presidency system I will consider whether
there is any political danger in enlisting only men from
the Punjab and North West, and from outside our
frontier ; but for the moment I will lay down the pre-
liminary view that our native infantry is of the most
varying degrees of merit ; that no one would dream of
sending Madras, Bombay, or down -country infantry
regiments against Eussians ; yet that our native infantry
can produce troops as good as any in the world. We
can show in the 4th Goorkhas, or the 44th Goorkhas,
indeed in Goorkha regiments generally, unequalled dash ;
and in the 2d Sikhs, or 14th or 15th Sikhs, and many
other Sikh regiments, a steadiness able to resist any
shock, and men fit for any service except, indeed, one of
those prolonged campaigns in which scurvy plays havoc
in their ranks. As we can obtain in India recruits from
several warlike races, and of more than one religion, it
seems clear that we should cease to raise mere peace
troops, and to tax the Indian people for their support.
It is possible that we can for the present not find an
increased supply of Goorkhas, but we have not quite
reached our limit as regards Sikhs, and we have hardly
tapped the resources of the Afridis and the other frontier
tribes. For my own part, failing Goorkhas, I should
prefer frontier men to the ordinary Indian Mohammedans.
When we were sending Moslem troops to the Soudan
an agitator appeared among them, and was ultimately
% tried at Loodiana for attempting to induce them not to
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 43
fight against their Arab co-religionists. If we should
ever find ourselves exposed to a Kussian invasion, headed
by Turcoman levies, these agitators will appear, not by
ones or twos, but by hundreds, among our Indian troops.
I had sooner trust Afridis than Indian Mohammedans to
resist them. It should also be remembered that the
British Empire contains vast numbers of warlike races,
and that among the Chins of the Burmah hills, whom
we are now fighting, and the Malays, not to speak of
the Houssas and other African subjects, we might find
magnificent recruiting grounds.
While then a large portion of our Indian army
is so composed that it would not be possible to place safely using
it in the field against Russian troops, that part of
our Indian army which is good is all but perfect
as good in prosperous times as the best British troops.
The drill, even of the Bombay troops, is admirable,
but those who have had experience of them in battle
know that, in spite of their drill, fierce Arabs can
go through them as they please. When they are con-
sidered as troops to hold lines of communication, and to
do police work, it should be remembered that every
additional mouth in Afghanistan is a serious matter, and
that the better the troops the fewer the men that are
employed. Moreover, it is costly to employ the southern
troops in Afghanistan, because they are invalided in great
numbers on account of the inclemency of the climate,
and hate the service. The Telegu family Sepoy of the
Madras army is essentially a well-drilled policeman and
not a fighting soldier, and I myself do not think that,
whatever was once the case, even the Eajput foot-soldier
that we now attract to our standard is good enough for
our service. Our Indian mobilisation plans ought (they
do not) to frankly take into account the uselessness, as
44 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
regards field service, of a large portion of the native
infantry. It has to be virtually recognised in this way
that the regiments for war service are brigaded three
together, and that the inferior ones would be left upon
the lines of communication, and would have to give up a
portion of their white officers to the regiments at the front.
Sir Kichard Temple has said that it is important not to
allow the Madras and Bombay armies to feel any sense
of inferiority, or the Bengal army to regard itself as occu-
pying a superior position, and as being indispensable to
the State. There is much apparent wisdom in this view,
but it is altogether too late to urge it. Since the
Russian danger has come upon us the Madras and
Bombay infantry, being notoriously inferior to a portion
of the Bengal army, as being recruited from less warlike
races, are well aware that they will not be used in the
field, while the Bengal army is fully persuaded that it
alone will fight. It is perfectly well known through-
out India that no general chosen to command in
the field would allow even the very few southern
regiments which nominally form part of the first and
second army corps to appear in the fighting line. It
is too late for Sir Eichard Temple's natural objection,
and this points to the dissolution of the southern
armies as separate organisations, and to the unifica-
tion of the native force with fighting men only in
its ranks.
and for Many of the " garrisons " will require troops trust-
garrisons, worthy as regards mutiny, although not necessarily
of high efficiency for the field; but I fear that the
southern troops would not be used largely even for this
purpose. There are a great number of garrisons in India
which are called " obligatory," but these include a force
for places which are really on the line of communica-
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE
45
tions, such as Quetta, Eawul Pindi, Loralai, Peshawur,
Kohat, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Dera Ismail Khan.
Of course the garrisons of Kawul Pindi, Peshawur,
and the places lying between and in the neighbour-
hood, would be intended in the first place for the
defence of the Khyber and of the Attock positions,
and in the second place for that of the Pindi entrenched
camp.
We have in India at the present time about eleven The force
horse artillery batteries, forty-two field artillery batteries, 1U
four heavy batteries, sixteen mountain batteries, and
twenty-three garrison batteries of artillery. We have
nine regiments of British cavalry, and forty regiments
of native cavalry if we count the Hyderabad Contingent,
which should certainly be counted, or forty-one with
the Central India Horse. We have about fifty-three
battalions of British infantry, and about one hundred
and twenty-two battalions of native infantry, with some
irregular forces. The two army corps would take for
the field army about eight horse artillery batteries, about
seventeen field batteries, about three heavy batteries,
and about eleven mountain batteries, some six regiments
of British cavalry, and fifteen of native cavalry, twenty-
seven battalions of British infantry, and thirty-four of
native infantry. There would, therefore, as is seen at
a glance, be a large force left behind a larger force
indeed staying behind than would go into the field ;
but the artillery would be crippled by mobilisation, as
horses would be taken from the batteries in India for
the benefit of those mobilised. Moreover, it is only the
batteries for the field army which are as yet armed with
the new gun. The infantry and cavalry would, how-
ever, be in a far better position than would be the case
in England with the troops left behind after mobilisa-
46 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
tion. An altogether unnecessarily large force of magni-
ficent native cavalry would remain behind in India
under this scheme.
Mobiiisa- The weak point of all Indian mobilisation proposals,
those of 1887 and 1888 included, has always been that
the Indian Government asked ' for a good deal from
England which there would be but little chance of their
obtaining. I believe that the Indian authorities think
that they require some 500 captains or subalterns, some
200 medical or veterinary officers, and some 20,000 men
upon the outbreak of war, and 10,000 for casualties in
the first campaign, or about 1000 men a month. I
cannot myself but believe that the wisest course would
be for the Indian Government to recognise the fact that
they will not get officers from England in the event of a
general war, and to arrange for promoting non-commis-
sioned officers and utilising their own reserve of officers,
now in course of formation, and also for obtaining
skilled volunteers who have gone through their training
well. The best of the officers from the Madras and
Bombay infantry should, of course, be utilised to fill
vacancies in the fighting regiments, and their places filled
by British non-commissioned officers, able to speak
native languages. Difficulties are thrown in the way of
all such proposals by the separation between the Bengal,
Madras, and Bombay armies ; but every vestige of this
^ separation must be swept away at once if India is
ever to be successful in a war.
Cavalry. The infantry and cavalry in India can be mobilised
without trouble. The artillery, as I have said, is in
much the same position in this respect as the artillery
at home. For example, of the eight native mountain
batteries in India only five are reckoned upon for service
in the field ; but the other three are perfectly useless
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 47
when left behind, for there are no reserve gun mules,
and as a fact three batteries out of eight are completely
sacrificed to make five for the field army. Looking to
the character of our native cavalry, and to the fact
that the Cossacks and the Turcoman horse, which alone
the Kussians would be likely to bring against them
after a desert march which would be destructive to
their European cavalry, would be troops of the same
class, I doubt myself whether it be necessary to have
British cavalry in India. British cavalry would, of
course, be of the greatest service in the event of a defeat,
when the Indian cavalry could not be counted upon ;
but we must not look forward to a defeat upon our
North -West frontier, for our rule in India will not ^
survive such reverses. The mobilisation scheme contem-
plates the placing of about four out of five thousand
British cavalry in the field ; but I think, though
military opinion is against me, that we might safely
employ the whole of our native cavalry in the field, and
cease to send British cavalry to India, with a great
saving to the finances of that country, and with an
augmentation to our strength at home in the very point
where we are weakest. Anglo-Indian military opinion
would strongly disapprove of our relying solely upon
native cavalry unless the present number of white officers
were increased. I know that many Bengal officers believe
that the Madras cavalry are, although smart- looking
upon parade, made useless by the immense number of
their followers and by their bad arrangements for cutting-
grass. But I cannot believe that these are "fixed points"
of the Madras service, and one result of the abolition of
the separate Madras command would be to assimilate
the cavalry system of Madras to the cavalry system of
Bengal.
48 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
Command. Great pains have been taken lately to have the best
ers> of soldiers at the head of regiments as commanding
officers and as second in command. One special reason
why care is even more needed in this matter in India
than elsewhere is because the choice of recruits rests
with the commanding officer, and by this choice
he may make or mar his regiment. We have among
the people of India the best and the worst fighting
material in the world, and merely to decide that a
particular regiment or company is to consist, say, for
example, of Punjab Mohammedans, is not sufficient to
give uniformity of type. For instance, there are
Northern Indian Mohammedans who cannot be counted
upon to fight, while those from Chilian wala and the Salt
Eange, and from near Rawul Pindi, are as good as any
recruits that can be found. On the whole, although I
should prefer to see a smaller force of artillery more
completely provided for war and easier to mobilise, and
although I should wish to see the arrangements hastened
for buying transport, I consider that the Indian army,
when the abolition of the Presidency commands is
complete, will be in an efficient condition for the service
that it has at present to perform, and that invasion is
impossible until the frontiers of any possible enemy have
been advanced. In this event the army will have to
be rapidly increased.
The The Presidency system places directly under the
Commander-in-Chief in India only the Bengal Army and
the Frontier Force, and in a certain degree the Hyderabad
Contingent and the Central India Horse, or less than
two-thirds of our native army. Seventy-nine battalions
of infantry of one sort and another are under the Com-
mander-in-Chief in India, and fifty-eight battalions are
under the Commanders-in-Chief in Madras or Bombay.
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 49
It is essential to both strength and economy to abolish
the Madras and Bombay commands, and to concentrate
the whole army under the Commander-in-Chief in India
and the Viceroy.
It need not be supposed that there never was any-
thing to be said for the Presidency system. The old
Indian view, before we had to face the prospect of
Russian neighbourhood, was that the organisation of the
Indian army must be largely governed by internal
political considerations as well as by those external
considerations which are alone in view in the case of
Continental armies. While it is necessary to make our
Indian army as efficient a fighting machine as possible,
we have also to remember that we are an alien race,
holding by force an enormous territory, and compelled
to rely in great measure on native troops, kept together
only by bonds of self-interest and discipline. We
are forced, therefore, not to trust entirely to one class
of recruits, and this is the defence offered for the
maintenance of separate Presidency armies. Although
they arose, in the first instance, not through the
exercise of any political foresight, but simply by chance,
nevertheless they now give us, it is pretended by
their supporters, who are chiefly to be found in
England, a valuable guarantee against military com-
bination or mutiny. I have never for one moment
argued in favour of our taking all our troops from one
class or one race, but I have condemned the Presidency
system, because its absurd administrative complications,
and the present distressing conflicts of authority, are
admitted by the Government of India to be fatal ob-
stacles to vigour of action in case of war. I grant that
' during the prevalence of political excitement in India it
would be a great advantage to be able to bring troops
VOL. II E
50 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
from one part of India to another for the purpose of
garrisoning or occupying the country. But it is not
necessary for this purpose to keep up that Presidency
system which the military authorities of India have
almost universally condemned. Under the Presidency
system the military administration is divided as well as
the organisation of the troops. There are, for example,
still at Quetta Bombay troops under Bombay adminis-
tration, although the Quetta force is supposed to be
specially under the Commander-in- Chief in India.
brms. Some advance in the direction of simplification has
been made. The Ordnance, the Eemount, and the Military
Finance Departments have been brought under the Gov-
ernment of India ; but while the Punjab Frontier Force
has been placed under the Commander-in-Chief, the
Madras and Bombay armies are still maintained on the
Presidency system, although the Presidency Govern-
ments have really very little power in the matter except
by w T ay of obstruction.
The Army Commission of 1879 pronounced strongly
in favour of the abolition of the Presidency system,
and adopted the proposals on this subject which
had been made by General Chesney as long ago as
1868. They stated that an economical administration
of the Indian armies was incompatible with the main-
tenance of the Presidency system, and that its continu-
ance would be fatal to vigour and efficiency in the
conduct of military operations out of India. The
recommendation of the Commission was adopted by
Lord Lytton and by Lord Kipon, but, although it was
toned down to suit the Government at home, it was
vetoed successively by Lord Hartington and by Lord
Kimberley. In 1885 the matter was again warmly
taken up by Lord Dufferin and his Government; but
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 51
their proposals were not adopted by Lord Kandolph
Churchill, who, however, did not base his opposition on
the merits of the question.
The Indian Government pointed out to the Govern-
ment at home in 1888 that, while the garrison of Quetta
and the force in Baluchistan have been placed under
the orders of the Commander-in-Chief in India as regards
the movements of troops, the stations they occupy, and
the duties upon which they are employed, the selection
of troops for relief, and the inspection and administration
of the force, remain in the hands of the Bombay Govern-
ment. At one time there were Madras troops at Quetta,
but the Madras regiment sent there was transferred to
the Bengal establishment. A sort of working arrange-
ment has been arrived at, but both in Baluchistan and
in Burmah there exist the elements of friction. It was
necessary to put the General commanding in Upper
Burmah directly under the Commander-in-Chief, leaving
Lower Burmah under the Government of Madras. There
is only a small remnant left of the old Presidency
system, but this remnant still does much harm. All the
inconveniences and embarrassments which occurred dur-
ing the last Afghan campaign, and which it was predicted
by the Government of India would certainly occur again,
arose once more in Upper Burmah, after the repeated
rejection of the proposals of the Indian Government by
the advisers of the Secretary of State.
The Military Member of Council himself has reported
that it is difficult to describe in adequate terms the ex-
traordinary embarrassment caused by carrying on military
operations under such conditions. He has said that the
amount of needless trouble that the Presidency system
involves can only be appreciated by those who have to
encounter it.
52 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
It is also the case that the Bombay authorities have
tried to recruit surreptitiously from the Punjab and
North-West provinces, notwithstanding a distinct pro-
hibition which was issued in consequence of the objec-
tions of the Government to having the Indian armies
homogeneous. I am convinced myself of the ground-
lessness of the fears as to danger arising from the
homogeneous nature of an army recruited only in the
Punjab and North West. The Punjab and North West,
with the addition of the states outside our border which
furnish us with men, give us recruits of most varied
kinds. We have Punjab Mohammedans speaking one
tongue, Mohammedans of the North West who speak
another, Sikhs of a different religion, Goorkhas of a
different religion again, as well as a different race and
tongue, and Afridis and Pathans Mohammedans,
but divided from the Mohammedans of India by race
feeling.
My own belief is that the Presidency system is as
unnecessary and as evil in its results in civil as in mili-
tary affairs ; but, while in civil affairs its consequence is
only waste and muddle, in military affairs its conse
quence is danger, and may be the loss of a campaign
and destruction of our Empire. If the Indian Council
insist on keeping up the Presidency system they
may disappear along with it, and certainly their fight
for the Presidency system has been a complete con-
demnation of the wisdom of their own advice. As
has been said of it by a former Foreign Minister of
France, a friend of England, M. Barthelemy Saint-
Hilaire, in his work on India: "When will the
reform be brought about ? . . . The sooner the better.
The existing state of things is intolerable. No doubt
there are many obstacles the resistance of routine
CHAP. I
INDIAN DEFENCE
53
and of private interests but all these obstacles will be
surmounted."
In 1888 the Secretary of State asked the Government 1888-89.
of India to prepare, through their military department, a
draft general order based on the supposition that the
unification of the Indian military system had been
actually sanctioned, and notifying to all concerned how
the arrangements were to be carried out. The work,
which was one of great labour, was cheerfully undertaken,
because Lord Dufferin's Government fancied that the
India Office had really given way or changed its mind ;
but a year after, in the middle of 1889, the Government
of India were informed by the Secretary of State that, Lord Cross.
while he recognised the completeness of the scheme and
the thoroughness with which it had been prepared, he
regretted his inability to sanction it, as it would involve
legislation for which he did not feel in a position to ask.
If this reply on the part of Lord Cross did not merely
conceal continued difference of opinion among his
advisers, it, being interpreted, must be read to imply
that the Secretary of State is afraid to bring India
before the House of Commons lest faddists should
give trouble. There is another example of the same kind
of difficulty. It is admitted by all the authorities of the
Church of England that some legislation is needed upon
Church matters ; but it is difficult to obtain this legislation
from a House of Commons in which there is a large Koman
Catholic and Presbyterian and a large Nonconformist
element, and in which only a small minority are Church-
men interested in ecclesiastical affairs. The result of the
impossibility of legislating about the Church of England
in the House of Commons must inevitably be, sooner or
later, the disestablishment of the Church ; and if Lord
Cross be not unduly timid in thinking it impossible to
54 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
legislate about India, the result of the impossibility of
legislation will be the loss of India. In the present
session Lord Cross has, indeed, been driven to propose
legislation, but has excluded the military question. In
the refusal of Lord Cross to initiate legislation (if legis-
lation be indeed necessary, which I doubt) to secure
the unification of the military command in India, there
is a peculiar excess of timidity caused by the fact
that he is assured of the support of Lord Ripon and
of Lord Dufferin, and that he knows that the former of
these ex-Viceroys feels so strongly upon the subject as
to make it certain that he would be able to secure the
support of Mr. Gladstone for the reform. Lord Cross
will now bear the blame which might have fallen
upon Lord Kimberley. His decision has probably
been the last that could be taken in time upon this
question. The favourable opportunity may never recur,
and to adopt the change when war may threaten, or
when the Russian throne may be occupied by one less
favourable to peace, will afford us no breathing period
to bring the new system into working order.
Force When, if ever, the Presidency system has been
abolished, the Indian army will be fit for all which
^ P resent ^ nas to ^- The field army is a nearly
difficulties, perfect force, soon to be supplied with a perfect weapon,
and needing only additional transport mules to be able
to move rapidly to the front.
but not Now comes the question of what should be done
ire> as regards men and transport if the Russians are
unfortunately encouraged or allowed to establish
themselves within striking distance, for our military
establishment in India, already small when we con-
sider the size of the country and the numbers of its
people, will then become ridiculously inadequate for its
CHAP. I
INDIAN DEFENCE
55
duties. When the Eussians have connected Herat and
Balkh with their European steam communications, and
made an impregnable and well-provided base at Herat,
our numbers of men in India will have to be regulated
by no consideration except that of the completeness of
Eussian transport. We shall have to be ready to place
immediately in the field at Quetta not one army corps
alone, or two army corps, but any number of army corps
which may be necessary to meet those parts of the
innumerable Eussian hosts that can find transport to
march from Herat to Kandahar. Our own transport
difficulties in India show that this, for the Eussians,
would be entirely a question of cost. We need for the
mobilisation of two army corps 20,000 mules, 25,000
camels, and 4000 bullocks. We are able to find a great
deal of bullock transport in Sindh, and large numbers of
camels in the plains of India, but the plain camels do
not stand the Afghan climate. Of hill camels the
Brahouis can supply 8000 ; but these would have to be
bought right out at a high price, as the Brahouis
themselves will not go out to war. The large amount
of transport that I have named contemplates the advance
of two army corps each consisting of about 35,000 men
and 26,000 followers. The Eussians would probably
advance without followers except so far as the followers
were able to provide for themselves. We have only at
the present moment 13,000 transport mules permanently
in the hands of the Government of India, and, in the
event of the Eussians being established at Herat and
Balkh, a complete reserve of horses and a provision of
transport sufficient to meet the Eussian provision of
transport must be kept. The Eussians are short of
mules in Central Asia, but are said to be able to find
camels without limit. A vast increase in our infantry
56 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
and artillery will be needed if the Eussians come to
Herat and Balkh.
Separate When we contemplate the increase of the Indian
army in the event of Kussia being allowed to settle
herself in Herat we cannot do so without taking into
view the desirability of the creation of a separate army,
which is indeed forced upon us by financial considerations.
The present system is too ruinous to India to allow of a
sufficient force being kept on foot, and we shall court
disaster unless we speedily change it, though it is
perhaps already too late to do so with safety. India
with an increased British force will be drained dry by
the money asked of her for a system which is not suited
to her needs. When I say a separate army, of course I
do not mean a return to the old Company's system.
Both the home short service army and the army in
India would be under the same supreme authority of the
throne. They would be alike in drill, exercises, and
discipline, but separate in the existence of two systems
of recruiting; one for not more than three years for
home service, and one for long service for India and
the Colonies.
bffit 01 of "^ n ^ e even ^ f R uss i a coming towards or to Herat
Afghanis- and Balkh, and in the course of time organising an
opposed to attack upon us, which may, it is only fair to note, be
lon< precipitated by a policy on our own part offensive to
Kussia in European affairs, we have to consider at what
point she would be vulnerable, because it is difficult to
defend our Indian Empire if we are to remain only upon
the defensive. The Indian school, as I have pointed
out, would wish to strike at Eussia from an Indian base.
The War Office school would aim against her an expedi-
tion from a naval base on the Black Sea coast. Both
schools, however, agree in objecting to the only line of
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 57
attack which to me seems possible. The Indian Mobilisa-
tion Committee, the best known members of which were
Generals Roberts, Chesney, Chapman, and Elles, I believe,
considered carefully the whole problem a year or two
ago, and, although their report was confidential, it is
pretty well known to all interested in the question what
their general conclusions were. They thought that
Russia would be not unlikely, if ultimately she comes
to Herat, to hand over that town and valley to Persia
as far as civil administration goes, reserving special
treaty rights to herself for military purposes in fact
to adopt the policy suddenly and strangely resolved
upon as regards ourselves and Herat by Lord Beacons-
field's Government in 1879. The Indian generals
were agreed in thinking that in any case Herat would
form the base for Russia's main advance, and Balkh for
her secondary advance. Holding us to be absolutely
bound to the present Ameer for his life, they thought
that anarchy might be avoided on his death if the Afghan
army were guaranteed its pay pending unanimous selec-
tion by the sirdars of a new Ameer.
Our hold over Afghanistan is being increased by
the growth of trade, and the small beginning which has
been made by the Ameer in working mines will also
have favourable results. Captain Griesbach, a deputy
superintendent in the Geological Survey of India,
who was deputed at the Ameer's request to go to Kabul
and report upon the mineral products of Afghanistan,
became a trusted counsellor of the Ameer, and went
with him to Turkestan in the expedition of 1888-89,
returning to India in July 1889. His reports of the
Ameer's health are understood to have been to the effect
that it is far stronger than has been supposed, and that
he may live for many years.
58 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
Kandahar. There is a certain danger to our policy involved in the
strong desire of many Indian soldiers to occupy Kandahar.
It is doubtful to my mind whether even in a military
sense, until Kussia actually comes to Herat, if we allow
her to do so, it would not be better to stay at Chaman
rather than to advance to Kandahar. The soldiers seem
to think that, while no large army could advance upon
the Khyber leaving us in unbroken strength at Kandahar,
it is possible that the Eussians might pass Quetta. But
if enough transport mules are purchased, long before a
Russian army could advance in force from Herat towards
the Khyber we could be in, or in front of, Kandahar.
Coming to it then, we should come as deliverers ; advanc-
ing to it now, we should reach it as the enemies of the
Afghan. Of course, if the Ameer should be brought to wish,
owing to trade or other reasons, for the completion of our
railway to Kandahar or to the Helmund, it should be
made at once ; but failing such a wish on the part of the
Afghans I do not think that an actual advance should
be contemplated until compelled by military necessity.
Indian The generals who served upon the Mobilisation
^piS Committee, I believe, calculated that transport difficul-
ties would at present prevent the Russians advancing
with more than 60,000 picked troops from Herat, and
that, at the outside, Russia could at the same time, by
sending small parties across the passes, gradually collect
20,000 men in the neighbourhood of Kabul or the
Khyber, feeding them, however, with much difficulty.
This is a computation based on the existing state of
things, and not on a consideration of what would happen
if Russia had been some time established at Herat. The
Mobilisation Committee, I believe, assumed that we should
insist on the inviolability of Afghanistan, and declare a
violation of the frontier lately settled between us and
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 59
Eussia a casus belli, even after the death of the present
Ameer. They doubtless argued that we are but a
handful in India ; that, although our frontier is the
portion of the country which is animated by the most
friendly intentions towards ourselves, yet there is
danger behind us farther east and farther south.
After the battle of Maiwand the Bombay troops and a
part of the Bengal army were dispirited, and there were
signs that the native states would not stand by us in the
event of a considerable defeat. While some of our leading
officers in India have protested against the policy of rely-
ing upon the armies of the native states, and while the
other party, who wish to use them, have won the day,
the latter officers consider the maintenance of our prestige,
by treating any invasion of Afghanistan as a casus belli,
an essential portion of their policy, and if they were
persuaded that after the next vacancy in the Afghan
throne Russia would be allowed to settle herself at
Herat and Balkh, they would change their view and
agree that we could not afford to utilise the forces of the
independent states. They think, moreover, that for us
to look quietly on while Afghanistan is gradually absorbed
by Russia will only make an ultimate attack on India
the more certain, and the more likely to be successful
when it comes. India will be ruined by the expense of
keeping up the army which would then be necessary to
face the millions of armed men of Russia, and the
excitement produced in every native Court by the close
neighbourhood of a great power would be unbearable.
At the same time the publication of our pledges to the
Ameer would for the present prevent a Russian advance.
Our Indian officers are unanimous in thinking that in
the event of Russia being allowed by England to advance
to Herat we should advance to Jelalabad and Kandahar,
6o PROBLEMS OF ORE A TER BRITAIN PART iv
and this, of course, would be a virtual partition of the
greater part of Afghanistan ; but they are opposed to a
policy of partition because of the strain and drain upon
India which would follow, and they would therefore
resist a Kussian occupation of Herat.
Present The weak point in the Indian argument is that, sup-
bmty r of posing that a publication of our pledges proved insuffi-
the 8 pacffic G ^ Qn ^ ^ prevent a violation of the Afghan frontier, it is
difficult to see where we can reach Russia. In my
opinion we could do so for some time from the Pacific,
especially with the Chinese alliance ; but this is not the
view of our Indian officers, some of whom think, how-
ever, that we could anticipate, or, if not anticipate, then
successfully attack, Russia at Herat. It is to me incon-
ceivable that we should be able to anticipate Russia at
Herat ; but other Indian generals think that we should
be able to supply officers to the Afghans to conduct
the defence, and that if the Afghans knew that we
were coming to their help they could keep out the
Russians. Those who hold such views underrate, I am
convinced, the power of Russia and the enterprise of
her soldiers. Many Indian officers believe that Persia
should be enlisted, and could be enlisted, on our side ;
but Russia can place with ease an immense force upon
the Persian northern coast, having a large fleet of
steamships on the Volga and Caspian line the main
artery of her Empire. The Indian officers have an easier
task when they point out the impossibility of attacking
Russia in the manner which has been proposed by
strategists at home. The distances in each case are
enormous ; and it is hard to see where, without powerful
alliances, we could attack Russia (except indeed for a
time on the Pacific) or where she would not fight us at
an advantage. On the other hand, the policy of permanent
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 61
alliance with the Central Powers put forward by Colonel
Maurice has been rejected by Government.
It is difficult for me to maintain successfully a inyuiner-
defence of my suggested temporary policy, of defending Russia
India against Eussian invasion by attacking Russia upon
the Pacific, against the combined weight of authority* 1 ^'
presented by our Indian officers and our generals at where -
home. While, however, the policy of an attack on
Russia at the Armenian frontier from a Black Sea base
rests absolutely upon the Turkish alliance, which may
not be obtainable, the policy of an attack on Russia
from a Pacific base does .not rest wholly upon the ut
Chinese alliance, but would, in my belief, be feasible
without it. As long as Russia has not developed steam
communication by land with Vladivostock, but yet
looks upon this stronghold as an essential portion of
her Empire, and one from which everything is to be
expected in the future, Russia, it seems to me, must fight
at Vladivostock, while she would fight at a great disad-
vantage. The position is strong, and it is probable that
our fleet could not safely force an entrance to the well-
protected bay ; but if we sat down at Vladivostock with
an expeditionary force the tables would be turned. The
policy which exhausted Russia in the Crimea would be
revived, and revived at present with, I am convinced,
the same result. The weak point in the whole policy is
that before we are attacked in India Russia will probably
have completed her steam communication with her
Pacific strongholds, and be able to meet us in superior
force even at those distant points.
The home school in their writings upon the subject The
assume, as I have said, a European alliance, at least with alliance.
Turkey. Not only is this an alliance which we may be
unable to secure, but the Bosphorus (and, therefore,
62 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
ultimately the Dardanelles) could, in the present state
of things, easily be seized by suddenly landing a well-
equipped and not large Eussian force, and it is probable
that even with Turkey willing to ally herself to us Eussia
might not give her the opportunity. Eussia is building
a fleet of ironclads in the Black Sea to which Turkey
has now little to oppose. The sum which was wasted on
presents to the German Emperor would have defended
Constantinople against a rapid land attack, according
to the plans of von der Goltz Pasha, but the money
has been steadily refused for the latter purpose, for
fear of offending Eussia. . It seems to me probable
that, when the struggle between Eussia and England
comes, Eussia, for whom we are not in diplomacy
a match, will have contrived to isolate us from the
^ remainder of the world. What could we then do ? Sir
Charles MacG-regor suggested that we should bring
Eussia to terms by an atack upon her trade, but I fail
myself to see that we could do her much harm even if
we blockaded every port and cleared the seas of all her
ships. It is difficult to cripple a trade which has so
little necessary dependence upon sea routes. Indeed
there is much reason to suppose that, although she is
never likely to be a match for us at sea, she would do
us more harm by interfering with our trade than we
could do to her, looking to the fact of her enormous
territory and to the smallness of that portion of her
foreign trade which is necessarily sea-borne. Unless we
had the Turkish alliance, and could confine ourselves to
co-operating with the Turks in what would be limited
operations upon the Armenian frontier, from a Black Sea
base, it is hard to see where in Europe, or in Western or
Southern Asia, we could strike a blow. To send an
expedition from the Mediterranean or from the Euphrates
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 63
against Kussia, as seemed in contemplation at the time
when certain speeches were made about the value of
Cyprus as a base, would be wild in the extreme, and the
six or seven hundred miles which our armies would have
to march would lie through Turkish or through Persian
territory : the country could, moreover, be traversed by
a British force during only half the year.
We could divide Persia with Eussia at any time, but Persia,
to reach Russia through Persia is an operation beyond
our strength. The Russians are far nearer to the
Persian capital than we are. They could occupy it
before we really started upon our march, and in Northern
Persia they could easily overwhelm us with their
numbers.
The Indian view, that it would be possible to attack Herat.
Russia at Herat, is one which seems to me still less
tenable, even supposing that the Afghan tribes were
friendly and anxious to provide us with supplies. By
the time we reached the Russians we should be suffering
from the long march, and should be greatly weakened in
numbers ; and it is difficult to see how we could hope to
beat them. While we were marching upon Herat the
Russians would send a great number of small columns
across the mountains from Maimena and Balkh, and
there they would have the country with them. People
in India would grow nervous, and expect the Khyber to
be both forced and turned through Kashmir, and panic
would be not unlikely to result. Instead of our taking
the Russians in the flank, as we could do from Quetta if
they advanced from Herat on Kabul, they would reverse
the process, and take us on the flank as we advanced *
from Quetta towards Herat. In short, it is certain that
no advance in the direction of Herat by a field army
would be possible for us, unless we were prepared to
64 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
denude Great Britain of troops and to reinforce the
Indian army of reserve by every man that we could
command for foreign service. Even then the experi-
ment would be a doubtful one. The smallest reverse,
it must be remembered, would bring all the lawless
elements of India upon our rear, would convert the
Afghans into our enemies, and dangerously disturb
the native princes. With regard to the attitude of
the Afghans it should be remembered that, while
they desire to preserve their independence, if a colli-
sion occurs between their two great neighbours, in
which their government is destroyed, they will prefer
to side with the Russians rather than with ourselves.
Upon this point there is no doubt among the best
authorities. They all agree that, while the Afghans
will fight with us against the Russians as long as
they have a fair chance of keeping both sides out,
they will prefer to become Russian rather than to
become Indian subjects of Great Britain. They hate
and despise our Indian subjects. They look upon
themselves as their superiors and our equals, and they
believe that under Russian rule they would play a
greater part than is possible to them in the event of
absorption by the Government of India. They know
* our system and dislike it. They know little or nothing
of the Russian, but they have a general belief that the
Russians allow more local independence in their subject
peoples than we ourselves. Even if they become
Russian, they think they would be allowed to do as
they please, whereas if they became British the laws of
India, they fear, would be applied to them.
virtual There is a policy of second line upon which it would
be possible to fall back if the country should reject the
Indian policy of declaring to Russia that she must not
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 65
cross the frontier lately fixed. It is a policy of partition,
or virtual partition, of Afghanistan. Actual partition
would, in my mind, be undoubtedly a mistake. At the
next vacancy in the Afghan throne, should this country
allow the Russians to advance to the line of the Hindu
Kush and to occupy Herat, and should we refuse to take
steps to keep Afghanistan together and to guarantee the
new Ameer, it would, in my belief, be unwise, as I have
already argued, to accept the suggestions which have
been thrown out to us by Russian officers that we should
occupy Kabul. But, short of becoming the apparent
destroyers of Afghan independence and the nominal
masters of the turbulent and fanatic tribes, we could, in
the event of Russia being settled at Herat, advance our
position to the Helmund, make our railways and our
military roads, prepare our supplies and transport,
and take up our position at a spot which would allow
us to enter into close relations with the Hazaras,
a friendly Tartar people who are hostile to the true
Afghans and who occupy the hills to the north-west of
Kandahar.
It is hardly possible for those who have given careful Difference
attention to this subject to realise how little it is under-
stood by many of those in England who are supposed to
be authorities upon the question, and who, to the great the Indian
danger of the Empire, are allowed to throw difficulties ment.
in the Indian Viceroy's way. For example, a powerful
party at home has been trying until recently to force
upon the Government of India the fortification of
Multan. No doubt the fortification of Multan, like that
of Peshawur, was at one time wished for by the Indian
Government ; but times have changed and we have
moved, and, now that we occupy an impregnable position
at Quetta, it is impossible to suppose that it is worth
VOL. II F
66 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
wasting the money of India upon the fortification of a
place which lies so far behind our frontier. If ever we
were driven to Multan we should have to give up or to
reconquer India. The energy which the Government of .
India have of late displayed in fighting against the
proposals which at one time had, I believe, been
suggested by the Indian Defence Committee, and agreed
to by Sir Donald Stewart for fortifying Peshawur and
Multan, and pushing forward a railway to Kabul at the
cost of some four millions sterling, would have sufficed
for providing that transport in which we are at present
still deficient.
Armies of We must always remember that it is necessary
for US t0 win tne first bi g battle tliat We % nt > Other - ^
wise we shall have to cope with a worse storm than that
of 1857 in our rear, while the greater part of our army
is at the front. Even supposing that no one of the Indian
fighting races should turn against us, we have always
the opposition of the rough part of the population, and *
in the event of our defeat we should have, as in 1857,
the indifference of the vast majority and no armed sup- *
port. The rebellion would be helped by the leadership
of more capable men than could be found in 1857, as a
result of what we have rightly and necessarily done for
education and enlightenment. The native states have
armies which could not, under such circumstances, be
counted upon to be friendly, and which Sir Charles
MacGregor, after omitting the minor states and all
troops that are clearly not worthy to be counted, esti-
mated at 350,000 cavalry and infantry, with a large
force of artillery possessing over 1QOO really serviceable
guns. The native states keep up, besides their so-called
"regulars," a large force of irregular troops, of which
it is said by themselves that, to use the words of the
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 67
Hyderabad memorandum of 1886, " it must be admitted
. . . that . . . their cost is unduly large when com-
pared with their efficiency."
All admit that the armies of Hyderabad and
some other of the Southern principalities are far too
large, a burden to the people, a danger to ourselves, ^
useless except for evil ; but, of course, there are native
states in which the so-called army is in fact a police.
As regards Hyderabad, however, a dispassionate observer,
Baron von Hiibner, stated in his well-known book that,
" according to the highest military authorities, the Nizam
could at any moment become the arbiter of the destinies
of the Indian Empire." This is not true, but it is
sufficiently near the truth to startle some into seeing
the gravity of the danger and the need of remedy. The
editor of the Asiatic Quarterly Review, Mr. Boulger,
has admirably pointed out in his England and Russia
in Central Asia the danger of the present position
as regards the native armies, and he adds Indore and
other states to Hyderabad as having armies, in his
opinion, after careful examination, enormously costly,
and useless except against ourselves. The native states
have a far larger force of men and of guns in proportion
to the numbers of their people than has the British
Indian Empire, although the native states have no
frontiers to defend. It is a question whether we ought
not, in the interests of the population as well as in our
own interest, to put down these unwieldy and danger- ^
ous armies, and increase the small contributions of the
native states towards our revenue, which really provides
for their defence. At the present moment it may be
said that their fifty millions of people, are looked after
by nearly twice as many troops as the two hundred
millions of British India proper.
68 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
The native It seems to me only fair that the native states con-
tained within our territories the existence of which
depends wholly upon our good pleasure, and which are
freed from all fear of war, all chance of invasion by their
neighbours, all risk even of serious civil disturbances
should be called upon either to make a large money
contribution or to keep up efficient troops under our
command. The defence of the peninsula as a whole is
an object towards which those whose security is guaran-
teed by our position should contribute, and it is not fair
to the people of British India that they alone should
* supply the effective means of defence. When the matter
was discussed in 1888 the general view adopted was that
which I think was held by the Commander-in-Chief,
though not unanimously by the staff or the Viceroy's
council. The policy which prevailed is that we should
communicate to the respective native Governments our
opinion concerning the number of troops that each
should supply for foreign service, and that we should
* agree to arm and inspect these troops ; and this scheme
has been carried out in the Punjab. I have doubts
as to the wisdom of applying this plan outside of the
Punjab and Kashmir. I altogether reject the idea that
the contingents of the native states would be likely to
be fit, unless a large supply of European officers were
given them, to fight against picked Russian troops,
which is the force that, if any, we have to meet. On
the other hand, as regards lines of communication, as
long as we keep up the Madras and Bombay infantry in
their present form we have in all seventy battalions of
our own which would perform such service in districts
in which they would be safe against Russian attack.
The first necessity of India is to add to the troops
of the quality of British infantry or artillery, or of
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 69
Goorkha, Pathan, Afridi, and the best of the Sikh
infantry ; we have no need to increase the number of
inferior regiments, but, on the contrary, shall only
encumber ourselves with useless men if we add to our
" communications troops." Moreover, even for com-
munications, posts held by the armies of the native
states would always give anxiety. They would be held
in greater strength than would be necessary if they were
held by British troops or Goorkhas under white officers,
and this is a serious matter when the food and transport
difficulties are remembered ; and if they were held in
strong force without support there would always be
some doubt in the mind of the General-in-Command as
to the disposition of the men. I venture to differ from
the Commander-in-Chief in India upon this point, and
believe that the only sound policy was the bold policy
of enforcing upon the great Southern states disarma-
ment, or at least considerable reduction of force, com-
bined with military contribution in money and transport
towards defence. On the other hand, I would have
lightened the blow by relaxing the supervision over the
internal affairs of these states, and I would, of course,
allow their rulers to keep up bodyguards and police.
The rights and privileges of the feudatory chiefs are
secured by treaty, but I believe that almost the whole
of these treaties contain limitations of numbers as regards
the armies, and that they have all been broken or evaded,
so that they would form no difficulty in our way. We
are, very properly, anxious to observe our stipulations
towards the native states, but an arrangement might be
made with them upon this head. We certainly cannot
be acting wisely in encouraging the princes to keep up
forces which are not good enough to be used against
the Russians, and which are sufficiently numerous to
70 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
overrun India in our rear if we lost the first battle in
Afghanistan.
Kashmir. Kashmir should, perhaps, unless it should pass
under British rule, form an exception to my general
principle. If we can make the Kashmir force efficient
for the defence of the Gilgit passes, we shall be able,
in the event of war, to save one or two divisions
which could ill be spared from the Helmund army. It
is essential that Kashmir should be made a source of
strength, and the Kashmir forces, if placed under British
officers, could be made capable of acting in their own
mountains against Eussian troops. The position of
Kashmir is so important in our scheme of frontier
defence that the Maharajah's offer of his army, made
before his outbreak of 1889, should be accepted in this
The Sikh form. We have already obtained military control of
the Sikh states, which have the best native force in
India, and we are to inspect their army by British
officers and to make them thoroughly efficient. These,
however, are trustworthy forces. The case of the
Southern states is different.
Arms. We are also confronted with the arms difficulty
when dealing with the armies of the native states. If
we put good arms into their hands they constitute a
\ certain danger to ourselves. At the same time it is
not difficult, I think, to prevent their use against our-
selves by limiting the supply of ammunition in time of
peace, and ascertaining, by inspection, that the amount
supplied is actually used for practice.
If we were upon better terms with the natives
. in the Eastern and Southern parts of India we could
more easily afford to disarm the forces of the princes.
The Kussians have the reputation of being more success-
ful than ourselves in this respect. A foreign corre-
CHAP. I
INDIAN DEFENCE
spondent, who advanced with Skobeleff when he
marched against Geok-Tepe, says that, immediately
after the battle and massacre, the Russian officers,
came to the field chosen for a Durbar with utter absence
of display and with perfect simplicity and geniality.
They shook hands with the chiefs, offered cigarettes
from their cases, and then strolled about unconcernedly
with their hands in their pockets and a smile on their
faces, and in a day or two were on friendly terms with
all the population. He contrasts this course with that
of the British, who try, he says, to behave on such occa-
sions as if they were " at the Field of the Cloth of Gold."
The Russians have recently annexed countries that Compari-
looked like desert ; and we had taken under our charge a ourselves
few years earlier, and have now annexed, other countries
of similar appearance. Both tracts consist largely of
irrigable land which would have been cultivated had
tribal feuds and raids allowed water to be brought to
it. Large districts of Central Asia have already been
colonised by the Russians with their own people. We
are unable, even did we wish to do so, to persuade
our colonists to go to British Baluchistan, for, unless
tempted by the presence of precious minerals, they
do not settle willingly in countries inhabited by dark-
skinned people. They go chiefly to the United States,
the Transvaal, and the Argentine Republic, where their
presence is of no military utility to the Empire.
While we stand still in India as regards numbers,
Russia in a military sense grows stronger every day. Advantages
AVe must look forward to the time when the Merv
oasis will become as Russian as the Caucasus has become,
and as great a military strength to the Russian
Empire in the East. We must make up our minds
to the fact that we shall be fighting, if we are at war
72 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
with Russia, against the most patriotic army in
the world with a mercenary army on our side,
and it is, of course, a commonplace that the best
mercenary army of a conquered race cannot be counted
upon to fight to the last, under disadvantageous
conditions, as the Eussians would fight, or as our own
white troops would fight. The best native soldier,
Sikh, or Goorkha, or Afridi, or Pathan, serves because
he is a fighting man, and loves the horse, the rifle, and
the uniform, and fighting for its own sake. He likes his
pay and he likes his pension, but, above all, he rejoices
in being a warrior and looking down upon the peasant.
He is proud of the military history of his regiment, of
medals and orders and titles of honour : but he cannot
be expected to continue faithful after severe and general
defeat.
Indian I believe that of late there has been, except as regards
Lon * the armies or contributions of native states, general
agreement in India upon the necessities of the position.
The Military Member of Council has fallen in with the
views of the Commander-in-Chief, the late and present
Quartermasters-General, and the other army authorities.
The Foreign Secretary has followed suit. During Lord
Dufferin's viceroyalty, the Viceroy and his private
secretary were in agreement with the members of the
Government, and opposition came only from the quarters
from which it might naturally be expected from those
who were especially concerned with the state of the
finances, and with the civil public works, which often
have to be suspended when pressing military measures
must be undertaken. If it were a matured, decided,
and well-known policy that Great Britain would resist
with all her strength the partition of Afghanistan, or
the settlement of Russia at Herat and Balkh, much of
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 73
the expenditure which is now becoming necessary might
be avoided. I have shown that we are in a position, as
soon as a few necessary but not very considerable measures
are completed, to repulse any attack which might be made
from such a distance as the present Kussian frontier.
It is, however, impossible to be blind to the risk there is
that that frontier may before long be advanced chiefly
through people at home not realising the true facts of
the position and further military measures become
necessary. It is commonly assumed by soldiers that
we suffer in India and in England by the politician's
unwillingness to risk his position by telling the people
unpalatable truths. The timidity is foolish, and states-
men would find it wisest to speak out. If, for example,
Mr. Stanhope had refused to reduce artillery in 1887,
and told the public why he did so, he would have
gained rather than have lost in strength.
It has been said that the Financial Member of Council Position
in 1887 argued, against his colleagues, that there might be Russians m
some danger that if we were too thoroughly well prepared
in India we should be likely to test our preparedness by
making an attack on Kussia. The military position,
however, of Russia is such that there is not the slightest
risk of this, which is a real danger in some countries at
some times. The Russians are far too firmly seated in
Central Asia to give our soldiers the slightest encourage-
ment to march across the intervening country and
attack them in their home. It is perhaps a reproach to
our rule in India that the Russians who have been so
short a time in Sarakhs and Merv, and even Tashkend
and Samarcand, should be so much stronger there than
we are in India, where we have been for a much longer
period ; but I fear that there can be no doubt about the
fact.
74 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
Mistaken It is a pity that false views as to our ability to
notions. attac k Russia in Central Asia, or to defend Northern
Persia against her, should be held and expressed by
persons of great authority, because there is nothing so
dangerous as living in a fool's paradise. One of the
very highest of authorities on this subject, for example,
in writing upon England and Persia, has recently
quoted, with approval, some words of the late General
Jacob about co-operating with a Turkish army "to
drive the Russians behind the Caucasus and to keep
them there" a proposal the fatuousness of which is
inconceivable to those who have seen the military power
of Russia in the Southern Caucasus, and the attachment
to her rule of the population of a district which has been
hers for a long period, and which has never been known
to rise. The districts behind the mountains which were
hostile, and which were annexed at a later period, have
been, as is well known, repeopled with loyal Russians.
Any operations by us in aid of a Turkish army on the
Armenian frontier would be of a less ambitious kind.
Then again this writer says that we must be prepared to
prevent the Shah of Persia from becoming another
Ameer of Bokhara. Our interference in Persia is likely *
to have the same result as Russian interference in
Afghanistan in 1878. We should at any time be unable
to defend the Persian capital against Russia, just as
Russia in 1878 was unable to defend the Afghan capital *
against us ; for Teheran is even more open to Russia
than Kabul to us. Such writers are on safer ground
when they advocate a Chinese alliance. China is not a
Persia, and Pekin is not within a short march of the
Caspian. The Russians have already shown that they
have as high an opinion of the military strength of
China as they have a low opinion of the military strength
CHAP, i INDIAN DEFENCE 75
of Persia ; and there can be no doubt that an alliance
between England and China in Central Asia is a natural
result of the present state of things.
Eussia and China have 4000 miles of common frontier, china,
and England and China desire to maintain the status
quo, and are able to strike powerful blows for its main-
tenance. China will have for some years to come a
considerable superiority over Kussia at certain points
upon the frontier, and could take offensive action
against Eussia more easily than could either Great Britain \^
or Afghanistan. If China were inclined to join an
Asiatic league for the maintenance of the status quo she
would have more temporary power even than England
of enforcing the decisions of the alliance. The alliance
of China, which is very important in a general scheme
of imperial defence, has, however, little bearing upon
the special Indian problem. Yarkand is too distant
from Pekin to afford any prospect of the rapid advance
of a Chinese force into Eussian Central Asia, at a time
when it could have much effect upon the fortunes
of the war, especially as there are no troops in
Chinese Turkestan capable of standing for a moment
against even a Eussian militia force. On the other hand,
in the policy of attacking Eussia on the Pacific, which
for some years to come, until her communications are
complete, will be the most effective way of meeting an
attack by her on us, the Chinese alliance would be of
moment and would paralyse the Eussian advance.
The Indian Government have been advised that the
Chinese alliance is worthless to us, because our spies in
Chinese Turkestan have found no proper fighting force ;
but it is in the north, and not in Turkestan, that the
Chinese could give Eussia trouble ; and it was not the
Chinese force in Turkestan, but that on the north of
76 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
Pekin, which alarmed Russia at the time when she gave
back to China the province of Hi. The weak point in
the Chinese alliance is that, when the Russian railways
have been made and steam communication completed
throughout Siberia, China, unless she moves with extra-
ordinary rapidity within the next few years, will have ^
lost tjie military advantage that at present she does
undoubtedly possess. There is, however, a great point
of superiority in the Chinese alliance over any other
that Asia offers. While the Persians would lie down
before the invader, and the Afghans, after fighting, take
his side, the Chinese would fight on, and in these days
it is difficult indeed, as the French well know, to sign
a treaty of peace with China. In spite of the activity
of the Japanese, the only three powers in Asia which
can be said to count are Russia, China, and Great
Britain. The best defence of India lies, however, in the
completeness of our own Indian preparations.
CHAPTER II
BRITISH INDIA
THE subjects to be discussed in the present chapter con- special im-
nect themselves with those treated in the last through fn the" case
finance, for there seems reason to believe that military 5^^*' of
and financial problems lie at the root of the Indian ^\
difficulties of the present, and will greatly affect the
decisions that must be taken in India in the future.
For that reason I have placed the statement of my views
upon Indian defence before those which I have to
express on India generally, and I now proceed to touch
briefly on questions of finance. Most of our difficulties ^
in India are indeed obviously financial. The fear of
Russia is financial, for no one doubts that the courage
and military aptitude of our race would prove sufficient
for the defence of India were we not hampered by the
difficulties of paying for an army, both efficient and
sufficient in numbers, under conditions of voluntary
enlistment by the difficulty of imposing fresh taxation
upon India. The greatest of domestic drawbacks to our
rule, namely, the occasional corruption of the native
police, may also be looked upon as a financial question,
for a higher class of service could be secured at a higher
rate of pay. In writing, too, as long ago as 1867 I
showed the financial side of the dispute as to the relative
numbers of natives and of Englishmen to be employed
78 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
in the civil administration of the country. As regards
defence, the reply always made to those who insist on
the need for further measures is that India is poor and
overtaxed, and, in the present state of her finances, can- v^
not afford them. A military expenditure of twenty
millions is so large that there could be produced for it
even the costly luxury of a sufficiently numerous white
army, provided that India were not in fact taxed to
provide us for home use with short service, unsuitable v ' f *
to her needs.
Supposing even that the cost of a separate army
of long service should imply increase, instead of that
reduction which I should myself expect, of Indian
military expenditure, or supposing that home resist-
ance, upon political or military grounds, to this change
should prevent the possibility of its accomplishment,
we have to inquire whether in fact India be so poor
that she cannot provide for her defence, or whether
there is still behind Indian finance the possibility of
raising more money by taxes. No doubt it is the case
that taxation under British rule in India is lighter in Jt,
proportion to the income of the country than was that
of the Moghul emperors. Under our regimen profound
peace has given rise to much, if partial, prosperity ; and
most of the money that has been freely spent has gone
towards providing India with the appliances of civilisa- .
tio'n, with roads, telegraphs, railways, vast irrigation
works, and public buildings, and in assistance to public
education, while the fall in the opium revenue has itself
been the result of concessions to the Chinese growing
out of our own sense of the duties we think we owe to
the principles of international morality. In these circum-
stances can the loss under the head of opium, and the
additional charge on the Indian budget by reason of the
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 79
fall in the value of silver, be met from other sources,
and yet means be found for providing against the pos-
sible need of increased expenditure upon men, transport,
strategic roads and railways, and fortification ?
Many suggestions have been made for raising larger Possibility
sums of money for the wants of the peninsula of India.
It has been suggested that the "permanent settlement "
might itself be revised, but at the fourth National Con-
gress the landlord party was strongly represented,
and all but carried a proposal to ask Government to
introduce a permanent land settlement throughout
India. The abolition of the separate Governments of
Madras and Bombay, and the getting rid of the political
governors and of the separate commanders-in- chief, and
ruling those Presidencies through the Civil Service of
India, while an excellent reform, and calculated to
effect a saving, would not produce any large financial
results. Neither would the more doubtful measure of
the abolition of the Council of the Secretary of State.
Inquiry into the home charges of the government
of India, which can at no time do anything but good,
especially if the question should ever be treated
broadly enough to raise that of the separate white
army, would itself not produce considerable results,
although Lord Kandolph Churchill had reason upon
his side in proposing a general parliamentary inquiry
into the position of our Government in India. Par-
liament used from time to time to have the opportunity,
before the transfer of India to the Crown, of instituting
a full examination into the administration of the East
India Company. There is a dread on the part of
the Indian Government of such inquiry, which, how-
ever, in my opinion, is desirable in the interest of
that Government itself, inasmuch as public confidence
of the
revenue.
80 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
at home has been tried by the criticisms of the native
press and of the speakers at the National Congress ;
while the Indian Government should remember that in
these days no institution not supported by the constitu-
encies at home can long survive, and those who think,
as I think, that the government of India by the Civil
Service has been a good government, should not shrink
from public inquiry into its merits. Still, any financial
reforms by reduction of expenditure are not likely to be
large, and, if more money has to be raised in India for
defence, we must extend our survey.
Nature The greater portion of the present revenue of India
is obtained from sources not, strictly speaking, consisting
of taxes proper, and the taxation of India is light in pro-
portion to the population, but that population is poor-
although it does not suffer, in normal years, the profound
misery which afflicts parts of Europe. The risk
of famine, though lessened since the introduction and
extension of railways, is still frightful, and while the
farming people are not, as a rule, so ill fed as is
supposed, they are altogether without a margin of in-
come beyond their expenditure. The great nobles and
the semi -independent princes of Hindostan do not
contribute sufficiently towards good government and the
appliances which it introduces to their own benefit ; fout
political reasons are supposed to exist making it unwise
to rapidly tighten our hold upon them. As regards
taxation of the rich within our own dominion of British
India, we have indeed introduced a slight trace of the
principle of graduation of income-tax, as, in addition
to the exemption of incomes below .a certain sum,
there is in India a higher and a lower scale of charge,
though the difference is merely that between 2 per
cent and 2*6 per cent. Not only is the revenue
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 81
insufficient, and the difficulty of raising new taxes
great, but a portion of the revenue is of an uncertain
kind, and the long continuance even of a decreasing
opium revenue cannot be counted on. While I agree
with many of the suggestions of the native reforming
party, as I shall presently explain, I differ from them
on this important point of taxation, because I think that
Indian defence must be first considered, and that, if a
complete revolution in her military system is not enter-
tained by the authorities, heavier taxation will be
needed, although I am well aware of the difficulty of
introducing fresh taxes in a country where rich people
bear so small a proportion to the whole population as
they do in India. It is the fact, however, that this
main difference between myself and the more moderate
of the reformers is upon the one subject on which they
have with them, on the whole, the European press of
India and a large portion of European opinion in India,
because salaries have been reduced and profits of trade
have fallen since the days of the pagoda tree, while the
silver difficulty has pressed hardly upon many. As even
the present taxes hit the small white population hard,
they, not unnaturally, join their voices to those of the
native inhabitants to oppose the imposition and the
increase of income-taxes and other duties. But it
must be remembered that nowhere has trade increased
so rapidly, since the world- wide depression of 1874, as
it has in India, and, under Free Trade, the growth
of the factory system has almost kept pace with the
general increase of trade.
A large portion of the Indian debt is, like those Nature of
of Australia, a debt for public works which vare re-
turning good interest upon the expenditure both in
direct and in indirect form, and the true debt of India,
VOL. II G
82 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
in the English sense, is small as compared with her
revenue or her trade, far smaller than that of most of
the European states, including her great rival Kussia.
Railways. One of the advantages to India of the British
connection has been the enormous investment of money
in State railroads, and, on a guarantee, in those of the
railroads that are not the property of the State. The
greatest change, indeed, in India since my first visit in
t^ 1867 concerns railways and trade. The development
of railways and trade has been immense ; British capital
to the extent of three hundred and fifty millions sterling
has been sunk in Indian enterprises, on official or quasi-
official guarantee ; and a further vast amount of British
capital is employed by purely private British enterprise
in industry, as Lord Dufferin thinks, " on the assumption
that English rule and English justice would remain
dominant in India." There are more than 16,000 miles
of railway open in India. The Indus has already been
twice bridged, and the Government of India now begin
to look forward to the time when new railways will be
made in India by unassisted private enterprise. The
result of the making of railways in India has been a
. vast development of the grain and jute trades, and a
considerable development of the trade in piece goods.
India has benefited, as Australia has benefited, by the
lines being under Government control, and by the
consequent prevention of the competitive waste which
takes place in the case of the railways of the United
States. One remarkable feature in Indian trade, which
is all to the advantage of India, has been the immense
increase of trade between India and civilised countries
other than the United Kingdom. The increase of the
Indian trade with France, always large, has been con-
siderable. The recent growth of trade between India
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 83
and Italy has been immense, though it has now received
a check ; and a rapid increase is taking place in the
trade between India and the United States. Trade
between India and the great countries of the Pacific
China, Australia, and Japan is large and growing.
The net result has been that the trade of India has
recently been expanding more rapidly than that of almost
any other country in the world ; more rapidly, perhaps,
than that of any country except the Argentine Eepublic.
The other side of this picture is that the railways of
India, though of considerable mileage, are still very few
in number as compared with the population, and that
the Government of India are now beginning to suspend
construction, being a little out of pocket on their present
lines.
Ten years ago opium was by far the largest Indian Trade.
export. Now raw_cotton has passed it in the list,
although the export of raw cotton has fluctuated of late ;
and while ten years ago the export of all the grains
together was inferior to that of opium, both rice and
wheat now almost equal the opium export, which was *
then nearly one-fifth, and which is now less than one-
eighth, of the total exports. The trade in cinchona, in
jute, and in tea has increased with rapidity equal to the
rise in the wheat trade, and is very large. Although in
tea India is now meeting with a serious competitor in
Ceylon, the trade in tea from China to England is
dwindling with rapidity equal to the Indian and
Cinghalese increase ; and India and Ceylon have sent us
in 1889 twice as many pounds of tea as China. India
is also beginning to supply the Australians the greatest
tea drinkers of the world. Indian coffee and tobacco are
already remarkable for their excellence, and are certain
soon to attract notice in the best markets. Her fibres, her
84 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
oils and seeds, her indigo and other dyes, are all playing
a daily greater part in foreign trade. While new resources
have been opened to India in recent years, the ancient
art work of the country has not on the whole undergone
decline : her wrought metal, filigree and inlaid work,
her enamels and precious stuffs, are attracting fresh
buyers without suffering, speaking generally, by deteri-
oration through increased production. No doubt the
muslins have declined in quality, and the use of
European dyes has destroyed the beauty of a portion of
the shawl and carpet work ; but with few exceptions the
native manufactures of India have improved in volume
without losing their perfect Oriental charm. The export
of cotton yarns and of cotton manufactures has grown
rapidly, and in almost every article the commerce of India
must be looked upon as sound, while her manufactures
are thriving under a policy of Free Trade. India still
imports, however, a far greater quantity of manufactured
cotton goods from England than she exports ; and as
a curious example of the old-fashioned ways of the
peninsula it may be noted that a Blue-book records the
fact that an increase in the imports of English cotton
goods in a recent year was caused by " the fact that the
year was considered by astrologers in India an auspicious
one for marriages."
India as a While there is a good deal of doubt among the
factoring natives whether the increase of their export trade in
country. g ra i n i s a rea } advantage to the people, and while they
point out that the landless members of the population
in some parts of the country have suffered through the
rise of prices, there is general rejoicing over the recent
increase in Indian manufactures, not unmixed with some
amusement that Lancashire, which insisted on the
removal of the Indian duties upon cotton goods, has now
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 85
to meet a considerable export of Indian cotton goods to
the east coast of Africa and of yarns to the markets of
China and Japan. India has indeed such considerable
advantages upon her side in textile manufacture, as has
been admirably pointed out by Sir William Hunter, that
it is certain that her export trade in manufactured
articles will rapidly increase. Our government of India,
giving absolute peace to the peninsula, and raising her
credit to a point which provides her with capital as cheap
as is enjoyed by the wealthiest of the continental countries
of Europe, has made Bombay a great manufacturing city,
and Indian mills have doubled their production in the last
ten years. That which has happened with regard to coarse
cotton yarns and cotton goods at Bombay, and to coarse
jute fabrics at Calcutta, will happen also as regards iron
smelting and very possibly as regards many classes of
manufactures. India has cheap labour and cheap raw
material, and as regards the markets of the farther East
less distance to face than has Great Britain in placing the
goods produced in the customer's hands. The cost of fuel
is decreasing as railways open up her coal-fields, and our
manufacturers must look forward to serious Indian com-
petition. Already we see in Lancashire an agitation for
forcing limitation of hours of labour upon the Indian
factories, as well as periodical days of rest action on the
part of England which will be opposed by the Indian
Government, and not carried out without much native
outcry. The bearing of cheap Indian production of
manufactured goods upon the project of imperial cus-
toms union deserves notice. A commercial federation
of the Empire which did not include the most populous
and, after the United Kingdom itself, the most trading
member of the Queen's dominions would be but an
inadequate solution of the imperial problem. Yet the
86 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
highly paid colonial workmen who complain of the
pauper labour of Europe, and drive away the cheap
Chinese, are hardly likely to view with enthusiasm the
idea of admitting Indian manufactured goods to Aus-
tralia and Canada without a duty, and will think Pro-
tection against the goods of Germany or France or
Belgium a very incomplete Protection if they have to
face the free admission of the goods not only of Lanca-
shire but of Bombay.
Future of Sir Kichard Temple has rightly pointed out that in
tauie n and India there is still a vast expanse of cultivable waste,
an( ^ ^ere * s evei T reas . n to believe that her wheat
export will continue to grow rapidly, and that her finer
classes of tobacco will render her a dangerous rival to
Cuba and to the rising cigar industry of our own Jamaica.
The fertile peninsula shut off from the cold winds of
the north by the stupendous ranges of the Himalaya,
which at the same time provide the water for that irriga-
tion which is needed for the production of the heaviest
crops, containing within its limits perhaps a sixth of all
mankind, and possessing all the climates of production,
from that of the equatorial belt to that of wheat districts
with a prolonged if lovely winter is likely to contribute
more and more to the raw material of the world, while
its cheap labour is likely also to give it an increasing
share of manufactures. Irrigation works, although
checked in many districts which might produce an
excellent supply of grain, by the curious Anglo-Indian
prejudice against lands which when treated with water
show saline efflorescence a prejudice which those who
know the irrigated districts of Australia and of the
United States are unable to understand will be extended,
and there will, if only peace be maintained, undoubtedly
come in India a rapid growth of material prosperity, which,
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 87
however, upon the present revenue system of the country,
will not produce a corresponding increase in the pros-
perity of Indian finance.
To the eye of the English commercial magnate no Draw-
doubt Indian progress wears a singular form. He is
disposed to doubt whether the management of Indian
railways 'gives us much of which to boast. A dis-
tinguished Anglo-Indian in writing of the Indian rail-
roads has spoken of the natives as being now " borne on
the wind with the speed of lightning." It is neverthe-
less the case that I myself have done a better twenty-
four hours' journey in Siberia behind Russian "couriers'
horses " than in India upon branch railroads. We have
to compare India in this matter, not with England
or with Germany or France or the United States or
our own colonies, but with countries such as Egypt,
and the advance in material prosperity in the past
twenty years has been amazing. On my last visit I
travelled through hundreds of miles of country which
I had already traversed in 1867, and found that the
wastes of that day had become the corn-fields of the
present. There must be a greater diffusion of wealth
through India, but argument founded on this fact is met
with the statement that the misery of the cultivator *
is greater than it was before. It cannot be said that
the people look unhappy ; on the contrary, the patient
contentment of the natives is as remarkable to the tra-
veller as it always has been since India has been known.
At the same time it cannot be denied that many who
are highly competent to speak upon the question share
the doubts of native critics, and one of the most dis-
tinguished of India Office authorities upon Indian trade
and agriculture, Sir George Birdwood, has told us that
those who write of India "do not sufficiently distinguish
88 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
between the prosperity of the country and the felicity of
its inhabitants." The remarkable material prosperity of
India, and the immense volume of her trade with ourselves,
will no doubt strengthen the feeling among Englishmen fc
of the necessity of providing for the retention of our rule.
Our kingdom and our people together draw from India
some sixty or seventy millions sterling a year in direct in-
come, the greater part of which would probably disappear
in case of Russian conquest, and the whole vanish in
the event of the destruction of the fabric of civilised
administration by domestic anarchy. Moreover, we shall
find that native opinion is with us in resisting unpro-
voked attack on India, and even in making defensive
preparation in advance to meet attack, though still
characteristically Oriental in the rapidity of detecting
signs of fear or weakness in its rulers and turning against
them when it sees such portents. On the other hand,
even English opinion in India is indisposed to fresh
taxation. The increase of material prosperity has not
brought about an improvement, and has possibly caused
a decrease, in the tax-bearing capacity of the landless
portion of the natives, and we are still far from having
found our ways and means.
Need for Under the circumstances which have been described
increased . . , ., . . i i
military ex- it is only vital necessity which can justify further
may/how- inroads upon the Indian budget, and there can be no
avoided. one wno wil1 not shrink from the supposed necessity
of imposing further taxes upon such a country, or that
of suspending the civil works upon which its future
prosperity must depend. As has been seen in the last
chapter, our present provision for defence is virtually
sufficient unless we should tempt Eussia to advance
within striking distance ; and the want of elasticity of
the Indian revenue, and the poverty of a large portion
CHAP. II
BRITISH INDIA 89
of the people of the peninsula, are additional reasons
why we should do nothing to assist in bringing Russia
to Herat or to the Hindu Kush. Should the evil day of increased
further Russian advance arrive, further taxation will
have become necessary, unless we are prepared to levy
large contributions, as I think we reasonably might,
from the native states, as their share in defence.
I cannot but think that the cheapness and increasing Tobacco-
excellence of Indian tobacco offer a prospect of swelling
the revenue by means which have proved efficacious in
a great number of well-governed countries, and that the
Indian Government, by taking the whole tobacco trade
of the country into their own hands, establishing, and
at the same time well advertising their monopoly,
might find millions flowing into their purse from a
source from which as yet scarcely anything has been
drawn.
The question of an Indian tobacco regie was under
discussion for many years before 1871, when a Bill was
actually drafted upon the subject, but withdrawn by
order of the Duke of Argyll. The India Office are
opposed to a tobacco regie, on the ground that it would
not bring in much revenue and might call forth oppres-
sion. The Office consider that the fact that tobacco is
in almost universal use in India, and is grown in every
garden, is a conclusive argument against the regie. But
if such a Government as that of Turkey can successfully
work the regie, and obtain revenue, without raising
price more than proportionately to the improvement in
quality, I cannot believe that it is out of the power of
the Indian Government to do so. The India Office
seem to think that it would be impossible either to
levy any duty upon tobacco where grown for the con-
sumption of the grower or to collect the tax when
90 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
the tobacco was moved. It is a fact that in France,
large portions of the centre and south of which are
mountainous, and where in the south and centre almost
every one of the millions of peasants makes both wine
and brandy for his own consumption, a very productive
duty is levied upon all movement of wine or brandy,
and is collected without the smallest difficulty. I
cannot but think that the Indian Government were
right in the principle of their Bill of 1871, and that the
India Office were wrong in causing it to be withdrawn.
Surely, too, in such a matter the Indian Government
ought to be the judges and not the India Office, as it is
upon the Indian Government that the difficulty and
unpopularity, if any, would be sure to fall.
Sir John Strachey, who is opposed to a tobacco-tax,
has, nevertheless, estimated that, if the difficulties of
detail could be got over, a monopoly of the sale of
tobacco in India might yield between three and four
millions sterling a year. All who know the finances of
Turkey or of Egypt are aware that there is a large revenue
to be obtained from tobacco, even in countries where
the administration is not highly organised. In Egypt
the tobacco revenue has been increased from 80,000 to
450,000 in four years without oppression. A tax of 30
an acre is raised in Egypt on every acre cultivated with
tobacco. Control is found easy, and a customs duty of
Is. 3d. a pound is levied on foreign tobacco. The
Turkish authorities with their own experience of a regie
are not very much in favour of it, and think that the
Egyptian plan of a direct tax on land growing tobacco,
combined with a tax on imported tobacco, is better, as
causing less friction and irritation, and the revenue
produced as great. Such strides have been made of
late years in the manufacture of Indian tobacco that
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA
some Indian cigars are now superior to those of any
district in the world except the Vuelta Abajo of Cuba,
and the best of them are now able to hold their own
with Havana cigars of ten times their price. The
revolution which has occurred in the manufacture of
Indian tobacco is as yet appreciated only by Anglo-
Indians, and not known to Europe, but it cannot fail
shortly to produce an enormous trade. Some indeed
pretend that the best cigars of India are made of Java
tobacco ; but I am assured by those who know that the
tobacco is really Indian, and, whatever it may be, it is
certainly not from Java, as it is free from the peculiar
flavour of the tobacco of the Dutch Indies.
Although Sir John Strachey admits that the poverty other
of the cultivating masses makes it most undesirable to
impose new taxes if the necessity can be avoided with- revenue -
out absolute danger to the State, he is of opinion that
India is the most lightly taxed country in the world. He
has pointed out the possibility of raising three millions
sterling additional taxation on land in Bengal, one
million and a half additional from licenses, and half
a million additional from stamps, or five millions sterling
of additional taxation, besides three or four millions from
a tobacco monopoly if that were, as I think it is, possible
of adoption. We see here eight millions sterling a year
towards meeting further depreciation in the rupee, the
falling off in the opium revenue, and the additional
military charges which would become necessary if Kussia
crossed the present Afghan frontier. These additional
military charges themselves might be reduced if the
separate European army system which I have advocated
were frankly accepted by the authorities at home.
It follows from what has been said above that there Moral as
is reason to suppose that India has made substantial
92 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
material material progress during the thirty -two years of the
progress, fa^ ru i e O f the Queen. There is perhaps more doubt
as to the reality of the moral progress which has been
made in the same time. Change there has been, by
universal admission ; more rapid, however, upon the
surface than in the depths. To attempt to give, in a
work covering the whole of Greater Britain, a complete
view of the moral and material position of India would
be as foolish as to try to do the same with regard to the
United States; perhaps more so, because, while the
importance of a comparison between American and
British -colonial problems has more interest than any
possible direct relation between British India and the
other dependencies of the Crown, such is the diversity
prevailing in India as regards religion, race, and con-
ditions of life, that general observations are less possible
than in the case of the United States. All, therefore,
that can be done in giving India her place in a general
survey of the countries under British government is to
select the points of the most pressing political moment,
which are those of defence (to which the last chapter
has been given), of finance, which is closely connected
with defence, and of the present relations between
Government and people, upon which I have now to put
forward some considerations.
Literature While, as I have stated, there is a singular absence
niustrates. f general political or social books in the English
tongue upon the British self-governing colonies, there
is happily no such want in the case of India. Not
to speak of the well-known works upon its history,
its government, and its resources which have appeared
with frequency for many years, or of excellent works
of travel, such as those of Sir E. Arnold, and to
mention only one recent book, Sir John Strachey's
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 93
volume in itself is a serious and able examination of sir John
Indian problems and principles of government by one of /^ ey
our most skilled officials. If Sir John Strachey writes
(as might be expected from a former member of the
Governor-General's Council, once acting Viceroy, former
Lieutenant-Governor, and present member of the Council
of India) on those general lines of thought which may be
called " Governmental," all that is necessary, in order to
obtain absence of prejudice and a complete view of the
subject, is that the student should find for himself that
there is another side by reading such a volume as the
New India of Mr. Cotton, the articles of Sir William Mr. cot-
Hunter, or the annual reports of the Congress at which
the natives and their sympathisers state their grievances. Sir w - w -
If these works be found somewhat heavy reading by the
trivial-minded, it is possible to relieve their monotony,
and yet to continue to gain some insight into Indian
problems, by the perusal of much brilliant Anglo-Indian Angl
satire of Anglo-Indian rule in the pages of novels such
as the well-known Dustypore, or of the light poems of
Sir Alfred Lyall and Mr. Kipling. Brilliant though it
be, Anglo-Indian poetry, as compared with the fresh
verse-writing of Australia, is dyspeptic, and reeks of
the hot weather.
There is one great difference which I experience in Difficulty
writing with regard to India from the frame of mind in
which I sat down to write of our self-governing Colonies.
With regard to these I was able to feel that the views P roblems -
which I put forward were, generally speaking, those enter-
tained by many besides myself, and that, while I should
meet with criticism upon certain topics, the views
expressed by me as a whole would probably not be
open to serious attack. But when I write of India I
do so knowing that I agree with neither of the great
94 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
parties who hold strong views upon Indian questions :
neither with the official party in India as a whole and
their Conservative friends at home for I differ from
them, or from the more extreme among them, in thinking
that, for reasons which I shall give, it is out of the question
that the Indian Government should long continue to be
a benevolent paternal Government substantially un-
controlled either by organised native opinion in India
or by the House of Commons nor with what are known
as the Congress people and their Eadical friends at home,
because I differ from them as to the absolute necessity
of a vast expenditure upon the army, fortifications, and
strategic railways.
The two There are two commonplaces in the discussion of
places^ Indian problems upon which, though much has been
said, much remains to be said. The one is that general
observations upon India are invariably mistaken, because
India is a continent rather than a single country ; and
the second that, while India is in many matters stationary
beyond the possibility of European comprehension, it is
in other matters a country of rapid change.
India The main contention of the official class of writers is
country one ^ n wmcn they have truth upon their side : that
India is a name given by ourselves to an enormous tract
of Asia containing a great number of people who,
speaking generally, know nothing of one another, and ^
are more separated by language and by national history
than are the various peoples of Europe. On the other
hand, writing even as long ago as 1867, I had to point
out how much our Government has done to create an
India, in the minds at all events of the most active and
thoughtful among the small instructed minority of the
peninsula. Still, the supporters of the Congress move-
ment are inclined to somewhat, overrate the amount of
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 95
unity which has been attained. At the Calcutta
meeting Rajah Eampal Singh spoke, by an extraordinary
confusion of metaphors, of our " converting a race of
soldiers and heroes into a timid flock of quill- driving
sheep." What we have done has been rather, like the
other conquerors of Hindostan, to occupy and rule a
peninsula inhabited by races which, in their aptitude for
war, are partly "heroes" and partly "sheep." The
official writers are able to show too that the District or
Provincial rather than the Indian Government is the
authority which is present to the people's minds, and
that that military union which the Government of India
are trying to bring about is not in itself likely to lead to
the growth of an Indian national feeling. As between
foreigner and foreigner, the native of the Punjab prefers
to be ruled by us rather than to be ruled by a down-
country native, for whom he has as little sympathy and
far more dislike ; and while in no part of the peninsula
is there any feeling that the people are now living under
a national government for even the rulers of the native
states are in most cases foreigners there is no recollec-
tion of a time of national government in the past, and
no regret for a nationality that has been lost.
It may be admitted, then, that the inhabitants of
India are not one people, but a number of diverse races
speaking different tongues, knowing nothing of one
another, and possessing religions which are as hostile'
to one another as the Orangism and the Eoman
Catholicism of Toronto and of Montreal. But although
this is a commonplace, because it is the observation
first made by every fairly well - informed person
who writes or speaks of India, it is a commonplace
of the well informed alone, and is almost as far now
as it ever was from having made its way into
96 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
the minds of the English constituencies. On the other
hand, although still true and likely to be true for a
period of incalculable length, it is not true in so high a
degree as it once was. The tendency of our Govern-
ment is necessarily in many matters to fuse India, and
to cause a steady extension of that process of bringing
the people of India together, and leading them to know
one another and share one another's views about them-
selves and us and the peninsula, which is already in
operation among the native barristers and newspaper
writers. There are some of the half informed who are
willing to admit that there are still great racial, religious,
and linguistic differences in India, but who fancy that
railway communication in itself is putting an end to
them, as it is putting an end to them in France. But
India is a very different country, and its size is so great,
its railways, in comparison to its size, so few, that not
much movement in the direction of a homogeneous
India has been produced by these appliances of civilisa-
tion. The greatest political or governmental change
that has taken place in India since I published Greater
Britain in 1868 has been in the opposite direction.
Decentralisation, which was begun shortly after that
time, has been pushed farther year by year, and India,
so far as it is a state at all, has become something of a
Federal State since 1870. The Provincial Governments
have received, and will receive, greater and greater
powers. Strongly as I myself condemn the exaggerated
autonomy and cost of the Governments of Madras and
Bombay, and absolutely as I condemn the conflict of
separate systems in the case of that service which above
all needs centralisation, namely, the military service, I
am a hearty sympathiser in the general Indian tendency
towards Provincialism, and think it should be much
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 97
extended in connection with schemes for calling forth,
in support of Government, educated native opinion.
The view that India has not yet become a nation, want of
but that Hindostan contains many nations and many t^d'by 8 "
creeds, is illustrated by the able preface to the " official " P rocee ,?;,
-L ings 01 the
report of the proceedings of one of the National Con- National
gresses, which frankly states that most of the delegates
have to leave their homes " to make long journeys into,
to them, unknown provinces, inhabited by populations
speaking unknown languages." If Bengal and the
capital of the Indian Empire form to the majority of the
Indian lawyers and Indian native editors an unknown
country inhabited by people speaking unknown tongues,
what must they be to the cultivators who practically
form the whole population of India, so inappreciable a
part of the inhabitants are the people of the towns ? The
average Punjabi knows less of Bengal or Madras or ^
Bombay than does the average Spaniard about Finland
or the average Norwegian about Sicily. There is, as
yet, not only no community of race in India, but no
feeling of Indian nationality except among the handful
of educated men. In the rural districts, which contain
the vast majority of the people, there is local patriotism.
The Kajput is proud of being a Kajput ; the Sikh of
being a Sikh ; and the Indian Mohammedan proud of
not being what he calls an idolater that is, a Hindoo :
but no one of these is proud of any fancied general
Indian nationality, and our Government is as little un-
popular in these rural districts as any Government is
likely to be, and, as Sir George Campbell has well
shown, most nearly popular when it leaves the people
most alone, India has been the meeting ground of
races extraordinarily diverse, and exhibits still every
phase of racial life, from that of savagery fighting
VOL. II H
98 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
against us with arrows dipped in aconite, up to the
most sublime elevation of spiritual ideas, existing
unfortunately side by side with amazing superstition.
There are among our Indian fellow- subjects men
speaking tongues as rude as those of the Australian
aborigines, and close to them priests learned in the
philosophy and the classics of one of the highest civil-
isations ever known to man. Moreover, the caste side
of Indian religion increases the amount of separation
which would in any case have been marked in Hindostan,
and the only bond of unity which has existed as yet in
British India has been the link of common conquest by ^
outside authorities. The problem, therefore, of the
scientific government of the peninsula is one which
makes high demands upon our powers, for it is hard
to conceive of one more difficult of solution.
Those who attempt to write on India may indeed
stand appalled at the complexity of situation which has
Professor been brought about by her past history. Professor
eey * Seeley, who has written more suggestively and more
profoundly upon the history of British government in
all parts of the world than has any other writer, has
become involved by the difficulties of the Indian prob-
lem in a curious contradiction. He speaks of India as
having been to us "a prize of absolutely incalculable
value," but yet he is obliged to say, in the same
part of his work, that it may be questioned whether
the possession of India does or ever can increase our
power that it is "doubtful whether we reap any
balance of advantage " while he admits that it vastly
increases the dangers of our Empire, and, wearily, almost
hopelessly, goes on to say that when we inquire "into
the Greater Britain of the future we ought to think
much more of our Colonial than of our Indian Empire."
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 99
But if it is the case, as Professor Seeley himself thinks,
that we must keep India and must keep it by force
against invasion, and if the difficulties of our rule are
greater in India than in any other portion of the world,
we should try to face them and to form for ourselves
some notion of what those difficulties are and how they
can best be met. Professor Seeley has pointed, as
among the greatest of our dangers, to our possible
inability to face at the same time a mutiny and an ^
invasion, and has told us that we have little strength to
spare. He has warned us that if there should ever arise
in India a national movement, similar to that which
was witnessed in Italy, the English power must succumb
at once, and that if even the feeling of a common nation-
ality began to exist there only feebly, without inspiring
an active desire to drive out the foreigner, but merely
creating the notion that it was shameful to assist him in
maintaining his dominion from that time our rule
would cease to exist. It is that glimmering of the idea
of nationality that some find in India at the present
time, and there can be no more urgent problem in con-
nection with the Empire than that of tracing its extent ^
and seeing how far we can meet or guide the movement.
The danger, however, of a common internal move- India not
ment against our rule is as yet far from us. Just as y(
the proceedings of the National Congress have illustrated
the difficulties in which the delegates have found them-
selves, through the diversity of tongues and races, so,
too, in another instance has it served to display racial
jealousies. At the Calcutta Congress the separate feel-
ing of the extreme North West came out, and a warlike
frontier-man from Dera Ismail Khan cried to an audience
largely consisting of Calcutta clerks and shopkeepers,
" Do I look like a Bengali Baboo ?"
ioo PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
The second great commonplace of which I spoke is
one a l so to b e noted : that, while in many matters
India is stagnant beyond conception, in other matters
it changes so rapidly that even those who knew it well
twenty years ago are apt to commit grievous errors
when they write or speak of its condition at the present
time. The change, however, which has occurred of
recent years is such as was certain to come about and
might easily have been foreseen. To merely rail against
the Congress movement, and all that excitement of the
educated native mind of which it is an outcome, is
doubtless idle, because they are but an inevitable result
of the nature of our rule. When we decided, mainly
under the influence of Macaulay, to impart to the people
of India a modern and largely Western education, for
^/ which they did not ask, we settled for good or ill the
character, and to some extent the pace, of their social
and political development. Macaulay prepared our
minds for this " proudest day in English history," and
it has come. Moreover, to the practical Englishman,
even if he be deeply steeped in official prejudice, the
fact that it is impossible to put down the movement
is one that should commend itself to notice.
interfer- Just as dislike of the Congress movement will
ence by the . .
House of not stop it, so too interference by the House of
Commons in the details of the government of India
cannot be checked by a mere statement to the House,
on the part of the home Government, that the inter-
ference is undesirable. In a Parliament with no
Kadical majority, and in the teeth of strong declara-
tions by the representative of the Government of
India that the motion was uncalled for and would
weaken the hands of Government, a resolution censur-
ing the Government of India was lately carried;
CHAP, ir BRITISH INDIA 101
and indeed on two recent occasions the Indian
Government has been forced to reverse its policy by
parliamentary interference. On both these occasions
native opinion in India was on the side of those who
moved ; but in the case of the abolition of the cotton
duties, which was, more gradually, forced upon India
by the constituencies of England, native opinion was
hostile to the change, and the same is the case as
regards the proposed interference with labour in India
by fresh factory legislation. It is possible that inter-
ference by the House of Commons, which may have
been right on the various occasions on which it has
already occurred, but which may probably be wrong on
future occasions, as the House of Commons and the con-
stituencies must necessarily be ignorant in Indian affairs,
might be checked by consulting that very native opinion
in India of which officials wedded to past traditions are
inclined to be afraid. But native control itself is, for
other reasons, difficult of introduction. However willing
they may be to accept our rule, it cannot be supposed
that the educated natives are inclined willingly to submit
to grinding taxation in order that we and not the
Kussians should be their masters ; and here is a danger
against which it is of course difficult to guard. At the
same time the Government of India enjoy the advantage
of having two sets of critics and opponents with whom to
deal parties which, agreeing as they do upon some
questions, and upon these all-powerful, may upon others
take different views. But a mere bureaucracy, however
able and however well informed, must necessarily have
great difficulty in maintaining itself against House of
Commons censure unless backed by something more
than the mere dumb acquiescence of the less intelligent
portion of the Indian people.
102 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
Not pre- In Greater Britain I threw doubt upon the value
theCouncii to India of the Indian Council, though there is much
of India. ^ j^ ga ^ or ^ f rom S0 me points of view. The Council
is out of touch with the House of Commons, and adds
no element of security to the side of the Indian Govern-
ment in contests with that House, which has little
regard for its opinion. When Mr. Bradlaugh or Mr.
Caine, or any members of the House of Commons who
have given some attention to Indian affairs, bring
forward resolutions, the opinion of the Council, even if
unanimous, weighs not one feather's weight in the balance.
The Viceroy and his Council in Calcutta are face to
face with the House of Commons with little to protect
them except the single voice of the Under- Secretary of
State, or of the Secretary of State when he happens to
be a member of the House of Commons ; and even their
official representative himself is subject to pressure from
his constituency which may render him upon some
questions but a half-hearted friend.
its result. Interference with the Government of India by the
House of Commons may indeed become a cause of a
closer connection between the policy of the Indian
Government and native opinion than has hitherto been
often observed. When Mr. Caine's views upon the
subject of the liquor excise prevailed over Sir John
Gorst's opposition in 1889, several of the Indian native
newspapers, and of the English newspapers in India
circulating chiefly among natives, foresaw the danger
that the House of Commons might on other subjects,
in which it had not native opinion with it, commit itself
to decisions in ignorance of facts, and they pointed out that
after all the House of Commons was a House in which
the English people were represented anil the inhabitants
of India were not, and that there might be many
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 103
subjects upon which the Government of India might
take a view far more free from British prejudice than
would be taken by the House of Commons.
Moreover, the House of Commons, which interferes its partial
where there is either a British interest involved or some
social question on which there exists strong feeling in
England itself, does not interfere in questions not so
recommended to it. The repeal of the duty, for ex-
ample, upon Indian silver plate a tax the effect of which
is to check and hamper what might be an important
Indian trade is refused by the Treasury, without effect-
ive protest by the House of Commons, although the
repeal would involve the loss of only a small amount
of money to the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.
At the time when the Indian cotton duties were given
up in the name of Free Trade, but against Indian native
opinion, the opportunity should undoubtedly have
been taken to sweep away the silver duty, which tells
heavily against India. But the House of Commons
effectively took up only the one side of the question,
and not the other. The repeal of the cotton duties
was in my opinion wise in the interest of India, but we
must face the fact that it was carried out in the teeth
of an almost unanimous local native opinion that is,
opinion among the comparatively small number of people
in Hindostan who have any knowledge of, or take any
concern at all in, public affairs. The application to
India of more stringent factory laws might also be
beneficial to India, but would have to be carried from
London in the teeth of a similarly unanimous local
opinion. These are questions of the class, which day
by day will increase in number, in which the Govern-
ment of India would have a general local opinion upon
its side ; and as we should not dream of imposing our
104 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART iv
ideas in such matters by force upon self-governing
colonies, and as we do not in fact impose them upon
many of the Crown Colonies, there is a great deal to be
said for allowing Home Rule to India with regard to
them. As it is not easy for a Viceroy and his Council
in Calcutta or in Simla to stand up against the House
of Commons, they will be tempted to call in organised
native opinion in their support. There is, however,
a difficulty in trusting largely in India to native
opinion, caused by the consideration that it is impos-
sible to call out the opinion upon public questions of
the great majority of the Indian people, who are not
in a sufficiently advanced state of political development
to have, and consequently to give one, and a danger
which arises from the importance in India of the taxa-
tion question.
Municipal The recent development of partly representative
municipal institutions in India is connected with both
the great commonplaces which I have named, and with
all the subjects which we have been discussing. The
want of unity in India, and the non-existence of an
^ Indian nationality, suggest both the difficulty of calling
out native opinion for India as a whole, and the
expediency of obtaining it by municipal institutions in
the districts. The rapid change in modern India is
illustrated by this greatest of all changes of recent years
the successful growth of representative municipal *
institutions ; and the taxation difficulty itself is in part
relieved by our calling upon those chosen by the people
of the various districts to vote taxes for their own local
public needs. As day by day the facilities of travel lead
the English rulers of India to live less in their districts ;
to send their wives and children to Europe or to the hills,
and themselves to be more often absent upon leave : as
institu-
tions.
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 105
the race of officers who were well-versed in the tongues
of India and never went home becomes extinct ; and as
the English in India grow daily more into a separate
caste, so facts force on us the continual development of
municipal institutions. We seem indeed in India to be
experimenting on the plan of which Eussian autocracy
made trial under Alexander II, with temporary success
of the development of local representative institutions ^
under central autocratic rule. The fact that Alexander
III has taken steps in the other direction, and has
deprived Russia of a large part of her local elective
freedom, does not imply that our attempt will break
down, because it is far from certain that even in Russia
herself the system of the father had proved a failure, or
that there was any real necessity for the change which
was brought about by timidity in the son.
There are now in India about 3500 elected members
of municipal bodies, and a still larger number of elected
members of rural district boards ; but in the latter case
the electoral bodies themselves are, generally speaking,
nominated a system which is curiously at variance with
the ordinary British ideas upon the subject of election.
It has, however, been proposed by the last National
Congress to extend it a suggestion thrown out no doubt
with a view to conciliate opponents. One of the main
objects in view in the establishment of that amount of local
self-government which exists in India was to train the
community in the management of their own local affairs ; *
but another object was to relieve the Government of the
odium of petty interference and of small unpopular acts,
and in fact to place a buffer between the people and the
British administration. There can be no doubt that local
government upon an elective system has had, in the parts
of India where it has been freely applied, this result.
io6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
wisdom of I confess that, after hearing all that the Civilian
thfsyttem, objectors have to say, it seems to me that there can be no
question that the time has come when, looking to the
success of the elective local self-government system, it
might be extended to the greater part of the districts
of India, if not to the whole of those inhabited by a
settled village population. A gradual extension was
long since recommended by Sir Eichard Temple, who
is a Conservative, but who probably feels the value of
municipal institutions in enabling us to gather the local
feeling of the ruled, which Oriental courtesy makes it
hard to learn from individuals.
but dim- Many indeed of the difficulties with which in India
extension. & we have to deal seem at first sight to be solved by
handing them over to municipalities elected by local
majorities, but there is in India a danger in this matter
from which Russia with her all but complete religious
unity is wholly free. The Hindoo majority have been
in the past inclined to ill-treat or to neglect the interests
of the Mohammedan minority, and if we were so to
extend the municipal system as to force ourselves to
carry out the decrees of municipalities by our police, we
might possibly appear as the oppressors of the Moham-
medans, and alienate the powerful support of a popula-
tion in some parts of the country warlike, and amounting
in numbers to over fifty millions. The Congress speakers
will honestly deny the existence of the risk, and they
have now with them a large number of Mohammedans,
who are among their most active and enthusiastic
members, and to whom they are giving a leading
place. After the Delhi riots of three years ago
(unfortunately renewed in September 1889) and the
hanging of a pig in the Jumna Musjid, we had
firmly to take the side of the Mohammedans, and
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 107
did it with success, but under free municipal institu-
tions might have found great difficulty in so doing.
Otherwise there is but little religious difficulty in the
government of India, because the religions are mixed
together throughout the country, and nowhere in British
India do we find a compact Mohammedan Quebec.
We may wisely give the go-by to this consideration,
but must not ignore it, although the supporters of
the Congress contend that the majority of the Moham-
medans are on their side. At present Indian elective
institutions are under our control, and the district
officer in some cases, and the Commissioner in others,
has over them something of the powers of a Continental
prefect. The municipal system is fairly popular with
the natives, although they undoubtedly regard it as
bringing trouble as well as conferring dignity. One old
native gentleman, who had had the working of municipal
institutions in his town carefully explained to him,
observed that he thought he began to understand. " It
means, does it not," said he, " that, while you formerly
got out of us rupees, you now hope to get both rupees
and work ? "
When it is proposed not only to extend elective Extension
,,...,, of the
local institutions, but also to at once make use ot those system to
which already exist, as constituencies for the election of
some of the members of the Councils of the Provinces,
it must be remembered that in India, as in Kussia, the
towns contain but a very small percentage of the
population, and that in the Punjab and some other
Provinces the inhabitants of towns do not form even an
appreciable proportion of the people. In the rural districts
outside a portion of those of the North- West Provinces
and of Bengal the elective system has not yet been carried
far, and to rely, therefore, at present upon the municipal!-
io8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
ties to elect representatives to the various Provincial
Councils, would be to govern a vast rural majority
through an insignificant urban minority, having in some
cases conflicting interests, and in all very different ideas.
Federation The spirit of decentralisation which has presided
vines' over the creation of the modern municipal system of
India has in itself suggested the increase of the self-
governing character of the Provinces.
General In his most able work, Indian Polity, published
v^wT 78 now more than one-and-twenty years ago, Sir George
Chesney recommended a more distinct and definite
recognition of the form of organisation of the Indian
Empire, which already exists in fact, as a number of
separate civil Governments, with a more equal relation
of the general Government towards them. He proposed
that the great difference between Madras and Bombay,
and such Provincial Governments as those of Bengal
should be done away with, while the fiction of
three separate establishments for the army should
be abolished and the troops of India placed under one
Commander-in-Chief, without the intervention of local
Governments and their separate departments. As
far as names went he suggested levelling up rather
than levelling down, and proposed that there should be
ten Presidencies with Governors, instead of abolishing
in name the Governors of Madras and Bombay. No
importance need be attached to the question of name,
but it is indeed an amazing example of the routine
conservatism of British Governments that so necessary
a change as that recommended by Sir G. Chesney and
many others should not yet have been carried into
Expediency effect. The cessation of direct correspondence between
onthem g tne India Office and the Governments of Madras and
Bombay as regards military matters is, as I have shown,
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 109
essential ; but as regards all matters it would be in the
highest degree convenient, and the time has certainly
come for formally recognising the fact that the Govern-
ments of the North West and of the Punjab are even
more important in these days than are those of the
Southern Presidencies. Subject to the necessity of pro-
viding upon a uniform system for military matters and
for finance, we have little imperial interest in Indian
unity, and may well push decentralisation to the utmost
limits, taking care that there should be a strong central
Government armed with powers over Madras and
Bombay equal to those which it possesses over Bengal,
the Punjab, or the North West. Bengal, Madras,
Bombay, the North -West Provinces, the Punjab, the
Frontier, and possibly some other subdivisions, would
under this system have complete local freedom except
in military jmatters and in taxation, the Viceroy and
Commander -in -Chief having supreme power over all.
Provided that military and financial unity be secured
we have much to gain by not attempting to reduce
India to one dead level in other matters, and may be
glad, not sorry, that linguistic and racial differences, a
varied history, and diverse extent of social development,
form obstacles to unity. There is indeed little prospect
that, for a great time to come, either the English
language or the Hindostani camp tongue will estab-
lish itself throughout rural India. Neither, in spite
of the efforts of the missionaries of many Churches,
does there seem a prospect that Christianity will rapidly
spread throughout the peninsula, and no native creed is
in the least likely to establish itself as even approximately
universal.
It would of course be possible, if it were wise, to Provincial
push farther in India the federal idea, and to do so U p<m an
no PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
aristocratic consistently with safety to our rule (provided always
sTbTe,butoi -that military and financial supremacy were complete)
doubtful -fay governing in the name of native rulers of good
enc y- family. The government of the Provincial groups upon
a democratic basis would present dangers from which
a highly developed local government of an aristocratic
type would certainly be free ; but, on the other hand,
the latter form of government, if applied throughout
India, would be open to the charge of being a mere
pretence, veiling a completely English system. At the
same time it is well to remember that there is much
to be said for the system of selection of the best
native talent, as suitable to the present condition of
development reached by India, in contrast to the
elective system, of the working of which upon a
large scale there has been but little example as yet
in Asia. Any purely elective system may be found
in practice to be unfair to the large Mohammedan
minority.
Provincial Given that unity for defensive purposes, under a
consistent single will and single hand, to which we have unfortu-
British nately not yet attained, given also fiscal and corn-
interests. merc i a l unity, no British interest opposes the gradual
development of local self-government in the Provinces ;
and the loss of a few salaries, in the time of the next
generation, is as nothing when compared with the call-
ing out of our full defensive strength, and securing the
permanence of our Empire by rendering it more accept-
able to the people. Given, too, the fact, frequently
admitted by ourselves, that the happiness of the people
should be the first consideration, it must be held to be
doubtful whether it is better secured by direct British
rule or by a system which makes a place for the ablest
native administrators trained under our educational
CHAP. II
BRITISH INDIA in
system, such as may be found already existing in the
best of the feudatory principalities.
Those among the natives and among our own Political
politicians who advocate the general introduction of atFvTln^"
political representative institutions into India argue stltutlons -
that the native is more intelligent, more accustomed
to the idea of government, more docile, more patient,
than vast numbers of those who exercise the suffrage in
European countries, and that is so ; but what is not
sufficiently borne in mind is the fact that, while natives
are as intelligent, they are quite different, and that as
regards the vast majority the cultivating class they
neither demand nor understand the political franchise. *
It is, too, possible that, in its gradual development,
modern Indian thought may strike out some system
more suited to Indian needs than the parliamentary
system of the United Kingdom ; and the example of
Russia, where the popular party itself is for the most
part opposed to parliamentary institutions, is a warning
against the complacent British belief in the existence of
an absolute best in government, combined with the
possession of that best in our own constitution. I may
perhaps find a careful study of Russia, in the course of
five journeys in that country, of some use in connection
with this topic, as it cannot but familiarise an observer
with the condition of a patriotic and advancing country
in which the idea of the value of parliamentary institu-
tions is as generally rejected by Radical reformers as by
Conservatives. While then after three visits to India,
two of them very short, I must necessarily be almost as
ignorant of India, so far as personal observation goes,
as are those who have not been there at all, yet
having given time to the study of authorities, native
and British, upon the subject, I favour the general
ii2 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
development of the representative system for local
purposes, but continue to be as strongly opposed as I
was when writing Greater Britain and discussing
the question as regards Ceylon, to the creation of
parliamentary institutions for India treated as a whole.
The Native Congress does not ask for them. If it were
to do so we should at present have to answer that the
vast majority of the people the cultivating class-
would not find their lot improved by a system which
would form at present but a mere pretence, and which
would commit their interests to the people of the towns,
intelligent, and rapidly improving in European educa-
tion, but having in many matters an interest opposed
to that of the far larger rural class.
French The great authority of M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu may
imp e. - n( ^ ee( ^ | 3e q U0 ^ e( j U pon the side of the extension of repre-
sentative political institutions to people commonly
supposed to be unfitted for them by their social condition
and their history. He thinks the introduction of repre-
sentative government among the Arabs of Algeria certain
at a much earlier date than is generally expected by his
countrymen, and considers it impossible long to refuse
the franchise to those who speak French and have
served France in the army. Under the pressure of
such feelings the French Eepublic has granted electoral
representation, not only on a Council General, but
also in the Chamber of Deputies at Paris and in the
Senate, to her Indian natives, and at Pondicherry
that wide political franchise is given to the dark-skinned
inhabitants for which the Allahabad Congress did not
even so much as ask. M. Leroy-Beaulieu declares it
impossible in these days to refuse political representa-
tive institutions to persons, not savages, on account
of religion or of race. He follows Macaulay in the
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 113
view that the conquering race must spread its tongue
throughout the conquered country, and that conquest
upon any other system must be precarious. It is difficult
to look forward to the time when the English tongue
and English education will have spread through
India, although the complete substitution of the religion
and language of the Spaniards or Portuguese for those
of all American people south of the boundary of the
United States is an example of a still more startling
change. We have little to learn from the Algerian
French, and the conditions of India and of Algeria
are so different that even the great authority of the
French political philosopher forms an insufficient guide
for us. Neither is the Pondicherry precedent of much
value, for in a small community a representation may
be freely given without that chance of faulty expression
of public feeling which is risked by the representation
of two hundred millions of people, of many tongues
and creeds and races, in one Parliament. As Dr. Gust
has admirably shown, the vast superiority of our rule in
India over the French government of Algeria has lain
in the subordination among ourselves of the military
to the civil power, although sometimes in the frontier
districts, and especially during some warlike expeditions,
the principle has been pushed by us too far. In spite of
our having refused all political authority to our soldiers,
we have been far more successful in completely pacifying
great fighting nations like the Kajputs and the Sikhs
than the French .have been in managing a very small
native population in Algeria, consisting only of between
two and three millions of people, of whom but a part
are warlike. The French have been inconsistent and
uncertain in their dealing with the subject of the exten-
sion of parliamentary institutions among dark-skinned
VOL. II I
ment.
114 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
and conquered peoples. They represent the blacks of
Martinique and Guadeloupe, of Keunion and French
Guiana, in their parliament at Paris, as well as the
Hindoos of French India, while, on the other hand,
they at present refuse all representation to the great
mass of their Algerian subjects, as well as to the natives
of Senegal and Cochin-China.
inevitable There are many strong imperialists among ourselves
of repr who think that the Empire would be better governed
govern without giving votes in any form to British subjects \-
belonging to what they look upon as inferior races.
They point to the occasional burlesque of English political
fashions by those Hindoos of the towns and of the
commercial classes whom they lump together under the
title " Bengali Baboos," and they ask whether these men
can be anything but a source of weakness to the Empire.
Without arguing the question as one of right or wrong,
and without entering upon any of those considerations
of justice which are often impossible of satisfactory
decision, it may be permissible to ask such men whether
in these days it is possible to contemplate the prolonged
exclusion from all political power in any form of races $
which are extraordinarily numerous, which are becoming
rich, and which are receiving in many cases the best
education that the world can give. Is it not certain
that, not as regards the British Empire only, but as
regards all countries, the subject races will make their
influence felt, and win their way to some real share of
power ? No people are more jealous of the privileges of
colour than the French, who are admitting, as we see, to
political power the native population of their " Indian"
and West Indian colonies, though not of Cochin-
China and Tonquin. As the peoples of British India
learn the English tongue and become powerful in
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 115
trade, it seems certain that in a greater or less degree
they will be admitted to take part in Government ; and
a democratic House of Commons, whether under the
leadership of Eadicals or of Tory Democrats, will not
long refuse to the whole Indian dark-skinned population
all share in political power simply on account of colour.
I would say, to those who would wish, were they able to
have their way, to remain as we are, that it is better to
prepare ourselves for that which it is impossible to prevent. *
It may be said that the Americans, in nominally granting
political privileges to the blacks of the Southern States,
have managed to exclude them from all real power ; but
in America it has been difficult for the Federal Govern-
ment, or for the American people as a whole, to impose
their views upon the whites of the Southern States, pro-
tected as they are by a Federal system. In the case of
the British Empire, where India is in the long-run
governed directly from home, and where the handful of
whites in India will have little voice in shaping its
political future, I am convinced that the Imperial Parlia-
ment, when it grants some political privileges to the
dark-skinned majority of British subjects, will insist on
the powers dealt with by legislation being actually, as
well as nominally, conferred. The question that lies
open is not whether the Indian natives should receive
a share in the government of the peninsula in which they
live, but what form that share should take. I have
shown why we are not driven by considerations which
touch their happiness to work towards the unity of
India ; but in the development of the Provincial system,
which ought gradually to create a federal India, except
for fiscal and military purposes, the natives must un-
doubtedly play a leading part. At the present moment
the Councils contain native members, and a demand is
ii6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
made for their election. That demand may be resisted
for a considerable time if it is thought necessary to resist
it, provided that the men selected for membership of the
Councils possess real governing capacity.
Native It must be borne in mind that we do not declare,
and have never held, that subjection to direct British
rule throughout the peninsula is necessary for the safety
or good government of the people. We leave sixty
millions of the population, without counting Nepal and
Afghanistan, under native rulers, advised by ourselves,
and removed when they commit great crimes. Our
general military and financial control over the native
states is in various forms preserved, although it is far
from being so effective and complete as I would make it ;
but in all the affairs of purely domestic concern the
native states are free. As an Englishman, who knows
Asiatics as thoroughly as any one who has ever held
Indian office, has well said, " Extensive provinces are
left with native sovereigns," who " are deemed capable
of exercising the highest offices of State over " peoples
"who are of precisely the same" religions, races, and
tongues as our own subjects. He has warned us
that, in some cases, in Provinces of British India
natives of high ability, equal to those who form the
distinguished body of Prime Ministers of the native
states, are from a narrow jealousy too often excluded
from their fair share of high civil office for which they
notoriously are fit, and that no nation that hopes to
perpetuate its rule can safely act in this way. The
attitude of haughty exclusion must lead sooner or later
* to expulsion, and the successful government of Akbar,
who made great use of the conquered people in high
office, of the Eomans, who gave their citizenship to
the picked men of all the subject races, and of the
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 117
Russians, is held up to us as an example. I have read,
on this last point, in a moderate Indian paper, a biography
of the famous Russian Colonel Alikhanoff, with the note,
" We feel proud of Ali Khan Saheb as an Asiatic. But
it is the ' barbarous Russ' that has given him the
opportunity for greatness. Which of us Indians has had
anything like the same chance of distinction at the hands
of the liberal and enlightened British ? " The retired
Civilian from whom I just now quoted might add that
such statements are called by us " seditious/' but that
they are in a measure true, although Mr. Curzon has
well shown that there is some exaggeration prevalent
as to the general treatment of Asiatics by the Russians.
It is a remarkable fact that many of the most Native
experienced of our own civilians are, against their 1 "
personal interest, very willing to admit that the fairly
well governed or average native state makes its people
happier than we can by our more scientific but more
rigid system. This fact points to a possible future for
our Indian Government, if it is to be a lasting system,
through its gradual conversion into a federation of pro-
vinces governed as a rule by natives, and on their own
plan, with the concentration in the capital of the organ-
isation of taxes and of defence. The unchangeable side
of Hindostan is curiously illustrated by the native states
of Rajputana and of Central India, incomparably more
interesting to the traveller in search of the picturesque
than any portions of our Empire. In the heart of India
we seem to find the despots, the courtiers, the retainers,
the capitals, described by our ambassadors in the time
of Elizabeth, or even those found by the Papal legates
in their memorable journeys in the days of our Norman
kings. Yet these native states are mere bits of India,
chosen as it were almost at random, with no barrier of
Il8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
race or
we
_ of relioion between them and the countries which
directly govern, and with no definite natural bound-
aries, while their kings are commonly late comers and
mere strangers, "more modern than the British power,"
as Sir Lepel Griffin puts it ; differing often from their
people in the two essential points of creed and blood.
The native states are in many cases the mere creatures
and almost the fictions of our own Government, and,
built up as they are by us for portions of the country,
might be built up equally throughout the Bombay Pre-
sidency or the Punjab. If the rulers of the native states
are often tyrannous and corrupt, as Sir Lepel Griffin
thinks, it can hardly be our duty in cases where states
have long been administered by ourselves to hand them
over to fresh sets of native rulers, and it is difficult to
explain why statistics do not show a more general
emigration of their people into adjoining provinces under
our direct rule than is the case. But, while we may
look forward to an increase rather than a decrease in the
number of people in India living by our permission and
their own choice under native rulers, yet, just as I would
tighten our rule over the native states for army and
finance, and put down their separate military forces, so
I would go with Sir Lepel Griffin in taking even farther
steps than those which we take at present for securing
good government, by the removal of corrupt judges and vy
tyrannous subordinates.
Kashmir. As regards one native state, indeed, I agree with
Sir Lepel Griffin. Already in 1867 I pointed out how
great was the misgovernment of Kashmir. In the
hands of its present Maharajah that government has
not improved. Sir Lepel Griffin has proposed the
introduction of European settlers into portions of Kash-
mir, and it is certain that there are districts, not only
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 119
in that state, but along the Afghan and Baluch frontiers,
which are at present unoccupied by man, yet suited
for European settlement. If there is military danger,
too, in native Governments, it is on the Kashmir side
that that danger is the most acute. But if Kashmir is
to be settled by a European population it cannot be
left under native rule, or difficulties with the settlers
will arise. A preferable scheme would be to make it the
headquarters of that separate frontier district the crea-
tion of which I have recommended in the last chapter,
and over w^hich there should be a large measure of
authority left in the hands of the Viceroy and of his
Commander-in-Chief.
A great Oriental scholar, the latest and one of officials of
the ablest of writers upon India, has described our states on
position in Hindostan as it is viewed by some of his
native friends concerned in the administration of semi-
independent states. With the exception of a little
cheap satire upon the commercial nature of our relations
with the princes (such as the communication of a bill,
duly dated and payable in rupees at the rate of exchange
for the day, for 36 Ib. of powder used in firing a salute
at "your arrival," "ditto at your departure," with an
item for "wear and tear of guns") the observations of
the sirdars were based upon the feeling with which they
had witnessed at Tashkend the wearing of the ordinary
uniform of Russian officers by the Mohammedan gentry
of Central Asia. The friendly foreigner, who has much
praise for our rule, reports a comparison, drawn by one
of his native friends, between the Russians and the
English, in which the Indian native says that by the
side of the first he finds his comrades of the same colour
and the same religion holding equal rank, whereas in
British India, he complains, the attitude of the con-
120
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
queror towards the representatives of his race is one of
haughty disregard.
Foreign I had carefully read for myself and noted the works
ers ' of the foreign observers of our Indian rule when I first
saw an article, excellent, though too governmental to
be strictly accurate, on India under the Marquis of
Dufferin, in one of the great Keviews in 1889. Its
author has undertaken the same inquiry into the
opinions of foreign writers as that on which I had
entered, but we have come to different conclusions.
On the whole the attitude of our foreign critics is one of
admiration for what we have done, combined with
much doubt as to the possibility of our continuing to
proceed upon the same lines. Baron von Hiibner has
pointed out that the fact that the white man can travel
by day or night in perfect safety from Cape Comorin to
the Himalaya, and from Assam to the Khyber pass,
under the talismanic protection of his white skin, even
through districts where native travellers are molested by
thieves, is conclusive proof of the total absence of
resistance to our rule. There is no hatred of British
government, but no special feeling in its favour, and *
this although Mr. J. S. Mill was right in thinking that
there never was on the whole a better government of
the autocratic type. To say so, however, is not to
maintain that it is therefore necessarily possible to long
continue to conduct Indian government upon its present
lines, and the reasons for and against that view are
perhaps as deserving of attention at the present moment
as any matters connected with the Empire.
It is undoubtedly of interest to note the fact that
the great majority of foreign observers of our rule in
India take a most optimistic view with regard to its
past and present, and French and German travellers
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 121
vie with one another in their expressions of admiration
for the government that we have established in the
peninsula. The opinion expressed by the great majority
of foreign travellers who have written upon India is
that the country is not only prosperous from a material
point of view, but governed with an integrity and a
wisdom which are recognised by the population, and
that the countries under the direct rule of Great Britain
are visibly more happy than the countries under the
administration of native princes. They point out how
much has been done by the moral effect of missionary
effort ; the liberality of the Government in allowing a
freedom of speech and of the press greater than that
whiclTexists in Ireland and in most" of the continental
countries of Europe ; and the success of the British
Government in securing perfect order without inter-
ference with religious prejudice or with the usages of
the people. While we are apt, with our curious habit
of self-depreciation, to think our own rule costly, foreign
observers generally pronounce it singularly cheap, when
account is taken of the value of the expenditure upon
public works and railways. As to the material pros-
perity of India under our rule there can be, they think,
but little doubt. The whole of the ancient trade of the
country has been retained, while an immense develop-
ment has been given by railways to branches of com-
merce which until lately did not exist ; and considerable
as has been the recent increase of taxation, there is, they
tell us, much evidence that the condition of the people
has, in spite of it, improved.
Foreign observers are, however, given to severely
criticising our pretence that our government of India
is not a despotism ; and, on the contrary, they defend it
as the perfection of an autocracy, a benevolent and
122 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
intelligent rule which in their opinion suits the people
governed more closely than is the case with any other
government on the earth's surface. It is indeed difficult
to see upon what ground it can be contended that our
Indian government is not despotic. The people who
pay the taxes have no control over the administration.
The rulers of the country are nominated from abroad.
The laws are made by them without the assent of
representatives of the people. Moreover, that is the
case which, as has been seen, was not the case under
the despotism of Eome, or in India itself under the
despotism of the Moghuls, namely, that the people of
the country are excluded almost universally from high
military rank, and generally from high rank in the
Civil Service. The nomination of a few natives to
positions upon the Councils is clearly in this matter but
a blind, and it cannot be seriously contended that the
Government of India ceases to be a despotism because it
acknowledges a body of laws. On this principle the
Kussian Government is not a despotism, because the
Emperor never takes a decision without some support
for his views in the Imperial Senate.
Such, generally speaking, is the view taken by Baron
von Hiibner, by M. Darmesteter, by M. Anatole Leroy-
Beaulieu, by M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, and by the other
foreign students and observers of our rule, while the most
friendly of all our critics is one who, though he writes
after profound study, and with an accuracy that is
remarkable, has* never visited the Indian peninsula.
M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire says of our rule, " India
never knew its like, . . . never obeyed a Government
so gentle, so enlightened, so liberal ; " and declares that
for Eussia to interfere with the British rule of the
peninsula would be "the greatest and most odious
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 123
of disasters." The view which is taken by foreign
writers of such standing is better deserving of atten-
tion than can be the criticisms of many travellers,
whose state of information is generally illustrated by
the old Anglo-Indian story of one of them asking to be
helped to the wing of a "Bombay duck." While,
however, we may quote with complacency the praises of
our rule by foreign critics, we must in so doing re-
member that most, if not all, of them point out the
difficulties of the future.
M. Darmesteter, the ablest, on the whole, of all M. Bar-
foreign writers upon India while he speaks of our rule m
as based on kindness and on justice, giving to the
peninsula that boon of peace which it had never
previously known, suppressing thuggism and suttee,
diminishing infanticide and famine, and covering India
with a network of railways and irrigation canals
says that the natives know all this, but do not love
the English, although they believe in the truth of
the Englishman, and respect as well as fear him. M.
Darmesteter tells us that it would be impossible to find
in a foreign Government more conscience, more straight-
forwardness, more sincere desire to do good, and that
" there never was in the Koman provinces, even under
the Antonines, so much power, so much temptation, so
little abuse of power"; but the high qualities of
British rule are unfortunately, he thinks, accompanied
by a total lack of that true sympathy without which
inferiority cannot pardon superior strength. The
English are unable "to enter into the heart of these
vast multitudes, so gentle, so weak, so ready to open
and to give themselves if only one could speak with
them. ... As India becomes more European the
gulf between the races grows deeper, for the apparent
124 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
drawing together only brings out more strongly the
natural antipathy profound and incurable." At the
same time M. Darmesteter thinks that without us India
would merely go to pieces, and that the Sikh and the
Bengali, the Hindoo and the Mohammedan, could not
live side by side under a single native rule. India is
destined to remain English unless or until Kussia beats
us ; Kussia can never be a peaceful neighbour to India ;
the great fight will one day come, and come with
doubtful chances, and if Kussia wins, India will not be
the gainer by the loss of her " silent and haughty but
conscientious masters." Such are the words of no
ordinary observer, who spent a whole year in the
country, and whose language is the more noticeable
because he agrees generally with the other foreigners
who have written upon our rule. That able traveller,
M. Bonvalot, agrees with M. Darmesteter's view as to
our unpopularity.
M. Bar- M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire has, as I see is pointed
saint 7 ut in the Review article which I have referred to
Hilaire - above, entitled his first chapter " England and Kussia,"
and has begun his book by declaring that every lover
of mankind and of civilisation must wish the English
success in the task that they have set themselves in
India, but asks whether England will be allowed by
Kussia to complete her work. The belief, then, of foreign
observers is that our Indian Government has been one
of the best Governments in the world, but that it needs
to place itself in closer sympathy with the natives
in order that it may be free to turn its attention in
undisturbed strength to military defence.
^oTegood 8 - Jt is the case tllat the vast majority of the men who
ness of our take part in the government of India have a sincere
ment. desire to promote the welfare of that country, but it is,
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 125
as has been seen, also true that, with modern facilities
for coming home and for reaching the hill stations, the
present generation, both of soldiers and civilians, are
less identified with India than was the case with their
predecessors ; and as regards soldiers, there is less
sympathy between them and the natives because less
knowledge on their part of the natives than was the
case under the former system. Moreover, it must be
constantly borne in mind that the great majority of the
people of India are credulous and superstitious, and
given to believing the most extraordinary inventions
without the smallest evidence, and that there constantly
circulate in India rumours as to the actions and the
intentions of the Government, which are generally
believed, although entirely without foundation, and
which affect prejudicially the view taken of the rulers
by the ruled. For example, incredible though it may
seem in England, it is a well-known fact in India that
it is thought by the majority of the population that the
English are in the habit of killing natives by way of
sacrifice at the inauguration of new works.
It must also be borne in mind that government The police.
comes closest to the cultivators, in the uniform of. the
police ; and the memorandum published by the India
Office in 1889, upon the Indian administration of the
past thirty years and results of British rule in India,
frankly admitted that " the police department is now,
as heretofore, a weak point in the administration," and
stated that " from time to time cases of extortion or of
oppression by the police come to light." As a fact, the
practice of torture by the police for the purpose of
obtaining evidence, to which I alluded in Greater
Britain, still exists, and was proved in a recent case in
Calcutta itself, while in the rural districts it is certainly
126 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
easier to practise without detection than in the Bengal
capital. The administrative report for the North-West
Provinces for a single year records four cases of torture
in which nine police officers were concerned and prose-
cuted to conviction, to which must be added the larger
number of cases in which the police may have so acted
as to secure their own safety. The Bengal Government
in their annual report for the same year (the latest)
state that the working of the town police system con-
tinues to be unsatisfactory, while amending Acts do not
seem to have effected much improvement in the village
police ; that two cases of torture and four of ill treatment
of accused prisoners were brought against police officers
in the year ; that in two of the cases convictions were
obtained; in two others the officers concerned were
dismissed or degraded, while in two only were they
exonerated. A very large number of false charges are
also reported in Bengal. While, then, no Government
was ever more benevolent to begin with than the
British rule in India, by the time its, good intentions
have filtered down to the peasant majority its benevo-
lence has become so corrupted in its agents that there is
not much to choose between it and the government of
a bad native state.
Unpopular- There is also a fresh crop of difficulties caused for us
retrench- by retrenchment. Great efforts have been made in
recent years to reduce expenditure, and unfortunately
the reduction achieved has in some degree fallen upon
useful objects of the public care, whereas dissatisfied
natives are able to point with justice to the scandal that
in some matters where reduction of expenditure would
be positively useful to the State, but where it would
cut off patronage as, for example, in the crying cases
of the separate political Governors and Commanders-in-
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 127
Chief for Madras and Bombay no reduction has been
made.
Other grievances which are much put forward by other
native writers concern the imposition upon India of 51
English ideas and some matters connected with the
pastimes and pleasures and habits of the ruling class.
The abolition of import duties in India has been a
triumphant success, but unfortunately it was carried, as
has been shown, by interested pressure from Lancashire
and against a considerable amount of Indian feeling;
and the objectors have been able up to the present time
to continue to point to the retention of the English
duties upon Indian gold and silver plate as a remarkable
example of self-contradiction upon our part. The virtual
preservation of wild beasts for sport in shooting, in a
country in which the population are disarmed, is also
a grievance, as is, with less obvious reason, the State
provision made for the religious worship of the English
official and military settlers.
The existence of these and other grievances and of a inquiry.
powerful movement for reform makes it in my belief
desirable that we should adopt the proposals of Lord
Kandolph Churchill for a general inquiry, which, on the
one hand, would bring home to our own people the
wisdom of. our Indian government, and, on the other
hand, should prepare the way for those changes which
are needful to enlist in its favour a larger measure of
popular support. The committee proposed in 1886
by Lord Kimberley, but not appointed, was of too
official a nature, and its inquiries would have been of
too limited a scope. Sir Koper Lethbridge was, in my
opinion, right in his action in preventing its appoint-
ment, as such a committee could not have fully dealt
with the demand of the natives for a larger share in the
I 2 8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
administration. Inquiry, moreover, will be useless
unless the reforms recommended are carried out ; and it
must be remembered that the report of the army com-
mittee, known as the Simla Committee (which was one
of the strongest committees that ever sat), was vetoed
by Lord Kimberley himself. Sir Kichard Temple has
suggested sufficient limitations upon a general scheme
of Indian inquiry, and the best course would probably
be to appoint a commission in India with the Viceroy
for president, to prevent its detracting from his
dignity or undermining his position which should
inquire into finance in the widest sense, into the extent
to which natives should be employed in the administra-
tion, and into the extension of representative institutions,
either upon a universal district system or in Provincial
government. The fact that our government of India
has been a success up to the present time, which must
be looked upon as an undoubted fact, is by no means a
proof that no change is needed ; and that very danger of
the advance and close neighbourhood of a great military
power which I have discussed in the last chapter makes
it a concern of urgent importance that the better order
of native opinion should receive satisfaction.
Baron von Baron von Hiibner, who is a strong Conservative,
has summed up the question upon each side in the words
of leading Civilians whom he consulted. On the one hand
he shows how since the days of Macaulay's famous minute
we have passed two generations of natives through our
schools, imparting to them the highest European instruc-
tion in our colleges and universities, and yet continuing
to leave nearly the whole administration in the hands of
a dominant class of foreigners. Baron von Hiibner proves
indeed that, whether we were right or wrong in adopting
the system of education that we chose, our course was
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 129
deliberately taken, and that the results of that educa-
tion are a solid fact which must be recognised, for it is
too late to retrace our steps or to destroy the ideas
which we have long been implanting. The pressure
brought to bear, through the native press, by the
educated natives who have passed through the State
colleges and universities, backed as it is by the social
grievances of the Indian upper classes and by a large
amount of Radical support in England, is irresistible.
Baron von Hlibner points out that we had in fact no
choice ; that we could not adopt an Oriental system of
teaching, because we should have had to teach the
mutually destructive doctrines of the Koran and of the
sacred books of the Hindoos. In Cairo I believe
there are at present two universities, of which one
teaches that the earth is circular and goes round the
sun, and the other teaches that the sun goes round the
earth, which is as flat as any pancake ; but it was
doubtless difficult for us to adopt a similar scientific
impartiality. Given the fact that we introduced
English teaching into India, we could not do otherwise
than create an educated native class, who could not in
turn do otherwise than oust us from a large part of the
administration .
In all these controversies as to the past, present, and Mr.
future of our rule I find little reason, a/part from the
risks of ultimate foreign invasion which we have discussed
in the last chapter, to anticipate that we shall ever be
forced to leave India. A distinguished writer, whose
knowledge of India was at one time profound, but who
has perhaps hardly kept pace with the latest changes in
that country, has tried to prepare the English people for
the ultimate loss of the peninsula. No doubt the hold of a
nation at a great distance over a vastly more numerous
VOL. II K
1 30 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
people, to the great mass of whom it has failed to teach
its tongue, and whom it does not entrust with power,
must at first sight seem precarious. But the statesman-
ship of our race will, so far as civil difficulties go, cope
with them, and the nature of our rule will change with
the times sufficiently to enable us to preserve our hold on
India. No doubt we are a mere handful. There were at
the last census under 90,000 British -born subjects in
India ; or, omitting the army, 34,000, of whom half were
women and children. If from the 17,000 men that
remain the members of the Civil Service are deducted,
it will be found what a small number of railway
labourers, merchants, tea - planters, pilots, teachers,
servants, and others are left. Since the date of the
census the white army has been increased, but the civil
white inhabitants have remained almost stationary in
numbers. In enormous districts inhabited by many
millions of natives a European population, other than
soldiers and " Civilians," that is, members of the Civil
Service, may be said to be non-existent, and the
English tongue, spoken as it is chiefly by the half-
castes, stands twenty-second in the list of the languages
of India. Though a mere handful, we are, however,
necessary for the purpose of keeping the peace between
rival creeds and rival races. Mr. Meredith Towns-
end, in his brilliant paper, seems to think that the
proof -of the feebleness of our numbers and of the
separation that exists between the rulers and the
ruled is a sufficient demonstration of the precarious
nature of our tenure of the country, even if we put out
of sight the possibility of invasion ; but Mr. Townsend
himself admits that as regards the vast majority the
agricultural people their attitude towards all Govern-
ments has always been one of passive acquiescence, and
CHAP, n BRITISH INDIA 131
that we may leave out of account the probability
of their taking part actively against ourselves. The
educated people we have trained, while they have every-
thing to hope for from our rule, and while many think,
with myself, that we should put them frankly upon our
side by a large measure of concession to their views, are
men whose very existence depends upon our government,
for in such a period of anarchy as would ensue upon our
defeat they would be crushed by the hatred of the
fanatics. Mr. Townsend's article will have done good,
however, even though its conclusions be incorrect, if,
as can hardly fail to be the case, he has suggested to
his readers the weakness of our rule, and has directed
men's minds towards plans of remedy. The one danger
is the threatening neighbourhood of the forces of a
great European military power. Lord Lawrence himself
said of the native army that it cannot be supposed
that mercenaries of wholly different race and religion
will "sacrifice everything for us"; that there is a
point up to which they will stand by us, "for they
know that we always have been eventually successful,
and that we are good masters ; but go beyond this
point, and every man will look to his immediate
benefit."
Our rule in India, giving peace, the absence of dis- The future,
turbance, increasing manufactures, and flourishing trade,
is insecure upon one side only, and not mined by any
new dangers having to do with the relations of the two
colours, provided those modifications in our system of
government which wisdom and prudence suggest are
made from time to time. There would be danger if
English opinion were to prompt the continuance, in face
of the education of picked natives in European learning
and ideas, of the treatment of all natives as inferiors
1 32 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
by a handful of virtually unprotected whites. When it
has been recognised that the natives form in fact an
admirable working population, having among them
magnificent fighting men, and trained administrators
who must be given that fair share in government
which they may claim to have won by reason of
their prowess and of their talents, there will be no
home or internal risk. The wealth which has been
brought to the Indian towns by the opening of the Suez
Canal a doubtful gain to England, but an undoubted
gain to India has caused a growing belief among rich
natives that the material prosperity of India is best
secured by British rule, and this, as well as the influence
of a system of education created by ourselves, must be
taken into account. It is not necessary to urge the
wisdom of reform upon the grounds of justice or
injustice. It is not necessary to point out that, if
entrance to the services is to be by examination,
regard to our solemn promises demands that exami-
nations should be held under conditions equal as
between native and European, and that all the Queen's
subjects who can pass them should be treated alike,
whatever their colour or religion. It is sufficient to
argue from mere considerations of expediency that the
time has come when it would be hopeless to expect to
remain with perfect safety as we are. I do not contend
that mere examination is necessarily the best way of
finding Indian natives whom other Indian natives will
obey ; but that Indian natives must be found, and the
highest local power enlisted on our side, is to my mind
certain.
Position of Whatever may have been the merits of the Ilbert
natives.' Bill, much of the agitation which arose upon it was
mischievous in its effect, tending as it did to delay
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 133
inevitable concession in the direction of throwing open
more responsible posts to natives, a change which, owing
to interested opposition, will necessarily come rather too
slowly than too fast. While the writings of men like
Sir John Strachey, who sincerely desire the good of
India, but who are imbued with officialism, suggest that it
is possible to maintain an attitude of resistance towards
the aspirations of the educated natives (though the
writers are willing to admit not only that our govern-
ment of India is not popular, but that it is impossible
that it should ever become popular), non-official English-
men, trying to discover for themselves where lies the
wisest course, are likely to come to the opposite conclu-
sion. These will believe that, for the sake of the per-
manence of our rule, we must bend in a considerable
degree before the breeze of the new opinion, and also
that it would be possible to do so in such a manner as
to strengthen rather than weaken our hold upon the
country. In the first place it must be remembered that
there is nothing before the native mind to replace our ^
Government, and that even among the wilder spirits of
the Opposition there is no intention of attempting to
replace it, although there may be that of altering it to
an extent which it will not bear. It is for us to see in
what degree it is possible to give satisfaction to the
critics, without weakening, although we may modify,
the nature of the fabric. Above all, it is essential to
the continuation of our rule under the changed con-
ditions that the individual Englishman in India
should behave towards the people as the best
behave at present. Sir John Strachey himself has
written, " It cannot be denied that the ordinary
Englishman is too rough, and vigorous, and straight-
forward to be a very agreeable person to a majority of
134 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
the natives in India ; " but, while straightforwardness
and vigour are admirable qualities, roughness, such as
would not be for one moment borne by the meanest
man at home, is less worthy of imitation when we are
dealing with a population courteous and submissive
'beyond the conception of home-staying Britons.
sir John In what I have said I may perhaps have made it
165 ' seem as though Sir John Strachey were a representative
of non- progressive officialism. That is not so. He
represents, on the contrary, what is best in the Govern-
mental school, and I have named him both for that
reason and because his book is the most recent as well
as, with those of Sir Kichard Temple, the most able upon
that side. Sir John Strachey has written in favour of
virtually giving to the natives the whole of the judicial
appointments of India a change for which the greater
number of officials are far from being prepared, although
the number of natives admitted to high judicial rank has
increased since the assumption of the Government of
India by the Queen. On the other hand, the tone in
which he has written of the National Congresses which
have been held for some years past is unfortunate, for
on the whole those meetings have been characterised by
remarkable moderation, and, as they are an inevitable
consequence of the nature of our rule, it would seem
better to consider dispassionately the views put forward
by those taking part in them than to point out the
weakest side of the gatherings in the strongest language.
It may be true that the native reformers do not
sufficiently denounce what Sir John Strachey calls " the
atrocious practices which, under the cover of imme-
morial custom, are followed throughout India" ; but to
attack "political agitators" for "sedition and hatred
of the British Government, thinly veiled under frequent
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 135
and fulsome expressions of devotion and loyalty," is not
to advance matters, but, on the contrary, only to in-
crease the want of sympathy between our Government
and those who have been trained by our own acts to be
our critics.
The National Congress movement is based upon The
our declarations of 1833 and 1835, and 1858. The
spokesmen of the natives point out that in 1833, after
much debate, Parliament declared "that no native
of India shall by reason only of his religion, place of
birth, descent, or any of them, be disabled from hold-
ing any place," and that in the proclamation of 1858
these words occur : " Our subjects, of whatever race or
creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in
our service, the duties of which they may be qualified
by their education, ability, and integrity duly to dis-
charge." The natives declare that these promises have
been violated in the past, and assure us that if in these
days of extending education we alienate the educated
class, and force them to believe that as long as the
English remain in India there will be no place in
Government for them, we shall weaken our hold upon
the country, and our ability to tax it sufficiently to
provide for military defence against the armies of a
first-class power.
Lord Macaulay in his minutes and his speeches foresaw
all the difficulties of the present time, and was for facing
them. After the Mutiny, when the country was crammed
with British troops, we were tempted to withdraw from
the position of 1833 and of 1835; but, instead of
withdrawing from it, we deliberately reaffirmed it.
Since that time we have extended English education
and the use of the English tongue, but looking to the
present diffusion of administrative power among natives
136
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
The other
view.
it must be confessed that we have in some degree dis-
regarded our own promises. This is shown by the
class of men who go from our Indian colleges to take
part in ruling native states, because they have not
sufficient openings under us. The result is a natural,
though a partial, discontent, and in creating a single
India for governmental purposes we have not only
erected a fabric which in itself does much to unite
native discontent throughout India, but have, in our
own tongue, given the discontented a common language
known to all journalists and barristers and most clerks-
known, that is, to the whole of those likely to furnish
the spokesmen of discontent.
The reply that is made takes the shape of criticism
in detail of the proposals put forward by the reformers ;
opposition by a section of Mohammedans ; interested,
though not consciously interested, opposition by some
of those who would be displaced by a more free employ-
ment of natives ; and some sarcasm and some bad
language. One critic, who deals largely in such words
as " agitators " and such phrases as " revolutionary propa-
ganda," seems to think that it is a condemnation of
the Congress movement that it " must receive much
pecuniary support from natives of high position who
do not choose publicly to avow their sympathy with the
movement ; " a fact making it the more necessary to pay
attention to the proceedings of the Congress, which,
however, the writer proposes to put down by force. In
the meantime the Congress goes its way, and meets
with increasing success each year. The fourth Congress,
which was held at Allahabad in the winter of 1888-89,
was interesting as taking place in a centre of European
and Mohammedan opposition to the movement ; but, of
the 1400 delegates, more than 200 were Mohammedans,
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 137
there was a large attendance at the meetings, a European
president an ex-sheriff of Calcutta and ex-president of
the Bengal Chamber of Commerce who made a most
able and moderate speech, and every sign of general
adherence among the educated classes. The Congress
of Christmas 1889 was of a similar nature. One attack
which has been made upon the spokesmen of the native
movement, charges them with being indifferent to the
moral evils which exist among their own community,
while alive to those which are found among ourselves.
As Sir William Hunter, a friendly critic, has pointed out,
improvement in the position of women in India has not
kept pace with general progress, and he condemns
harem seclusion, enforced celibacy of widows, and child
marriage. The Zenana Medical Missions meet with
opposition from Indian gentlemen, who fear propa-
gandism and espionage. But the Congress is not
specially to blame, and it was evident at Allahabad last
year that, concurrently with the demand for political
advance, there was a movement among the delegates in
the direction of social reform.
By far the ablest work in the anti-Congress literature
is a pamphlet which bears the name of Oday Pertap
Singh, Eajah of Bhinga, a landowner in the North- West congress
Provinces, of Eajput race. I say " bears the name,"
because while the native races produce men who, under
immense difficulties, attain to a high standard, judged
by our Western tests of scholarship, Indian land-
owners are seldom found in the first ranks of writers of
English. It is the fashion throughout the Civil Service
to declare as an article of faith that the Rajah of Bhinga
wrote his pamphlet with his own hand, but, as no declara-
tions on this subject have been sufficient to remove my
doubts, I think it better to state them. At all events
138
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
the pamphlet is there, and forms a most able English essay
against the Congress. The title is " Democracy not suited
to India " a phrase which in itself seems to have the
ring of a Lieutenant -Governor's study. All must agree
that Hindostan does not form at present a promising
field for certain democratic experiments, but to declare
that democracy is not suited to India is by no means
necessarily to pronounce in favour of a centralised
administration of a foreign type; nor is it to reject
a large amount of native help in offices of trust.
Government through native gentlemen may prove to be
government of an aristocratic and Conservative type.
It is at least possible that the form of government which
may best " suit" " India" most conduce to the military
and financial strength of the British Indian Empire, and
best tend to secure its permanence will be one in which
the natives feel themselves secure under the rule of
their own gentry, in their own districts, assisted by
their ablest men ; we looking after India as a whole in
the matters of the taxes and the army. Even those,
then, who think that " Democracy " is " not suited to "
the India of our time, may possibly find themselves able
to go a long way with the Congress, which in many
matters is far from " Democratic " in its ideas. All men
who think must recognise the unwisdom of suddenly
overturning in an Oriental country a long-existing blend
of an ancient Asiatic civilisation with excellent adminis-
tration from the West. The doubt is whether gradual
change, such as is advocated by the Congress, will not
in the long-run conduce to the happiness of the people
and to their more uniform advance, as well as to the
wealth and strength of our own Empire. Greatly as I
differ upon many points from "the Kajah," I agree with
him in thinking that the cultivators of, for example, the
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 139
Punjab, would prefer the rule of their own gentry to
that of a native clerk from Bengal. It is, however, in the
badly paid Bengal clerk, useful to the English because he
speaks and writes our tongue, that the Punjabi knows
British administration now, while the proposals of the
Congress would give the Punjab its autonomy under
the civil direction of people of Punjabi race con-
trolled by us. Even to those who do not share its
ideas the Congress movement should be useful as a
reminder and as a counterpoise, and this was the
view taken of it in its early days by a Conservative
Indian statesman, Sir Kichard Temple, and said by
him to be that generally held by his friends concerned
in Indian government.
The recent attitude of the leading Anglo-Indians Attitude
towards the Indian National Congress has been con- congress of
fused, and we gain no certain guidance from it when Hunterand
considered as a whole. The general position has others ^
been hostile, but some of the thoughtful men, as, for
example, Sir William Wedderburn, the President of the
National Congress of December 1889, have given,
under the form of benevolent neutrality, a full and
general approval. The high authority of Sir William
Hunter has been set upon the side of approbation, and
his pen has conferred upon the last three Congresses a
considerable publicity the meetings of 1885 and 1886
having passed almost unnoticed. Sir William Hunter's
support outweighs much opposition. His unrivalled
knowledge of India makes him a most trustworthy
guide, in everything, may I say, but spelling. The
attention which was excited in the United Kingdom by
the Congress of December 1888 was, curiously enough,
aroused by Mohammedan opposition to it. Some lead-
ing Indian Mussulmans, able to write an excellent letter
140 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
of the orthodox English type, stated their views in
opposition to the Congress through the most influential
English journals. The result of this opposition was
to attract much notice in England, which led to
an examination of first principles that had not the
result that the Mohammedan gentlemen intended, and a
study of Sir William Hunter's letters and articles has
completed the educating process. He has conclusively
shown, with the calm of the historian rather than with
the partial spirit of a contemporary writer, that the
present native movement is the necessary outcome of
the principles on which our rule of India has been
based, and that it is to our interest, as much as it
would be to our honour, to satisfy it in some measure.
Policy and The Congress of 1885 was small, and the repre-
demands
of National sentative nature of a true congress was at that
time wanting. It was a first attempt, and, like all
first attempts in a new direction in such a place as
India, was necessarily somewhat of a failure. The
Congress of 1886 at Calcutta was a more con-
siderable undertaking : all the religions were repre-
sented, and all parts of the country, although the
nobles and the leading Mohammedans held aloof. The
Congresses of 1887 at Madras, and of December 1888
at Allahabad, were even more remarkable, and consider-
able sacrifices of time and money were necessary to
secure the large attendance of delegates from great
distances. The object of the Congresses, as officially
put forward, has been excellent. The leaders have
asked the delegates to give a popular countenance to
the empire of Great Britain in India as the bestower of
peace and order ; they have expressed their determina-
tion to promote friendliness between the races ; but, in
urging the delegates to discuss the lines upon which it
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 141
is desirable for native politicians to work, they have
demanded that the basis of government should be
widened. Just as when the Slavonic delegates from
all parts of the Slavonic world came together on
two occasions, once at Prague and once at Moscow
as it was said, by their critics rather than by them-
selves, to denounce Germany German was found to
be the only language in which they could communi-
cate their ideas to one another so of English at the
Indian National Congresses. The language used in the
Congress is often necessarily English, because that is a
tongue which the lawyers and the newspaper editors
from all parts of India understand, and though it is
not spoken by all the delegates, it is the tongue in
which a majority can most easily communicate with one
another. The Congress, by the speeches of its leading
men, has asked that a portion of the members of the
Legislative Councils should be elected by the natives
in electoral colleges by classes, care being taken to
represent all the various interests. One base which
has been proposed for the future councils is that one-
fourth should consist of ex-officio members, one-fourth
of selected members, and half of members elected by
classes. But power is given to the executive Govern-
ment to select a portion of the electorate, as well as
overrule the decisions of the Councils. It may be
safely conceded that a constitution of this kind would
be workable, and would not produce any revolutionary
change in India ; in fact, bodies so composed would
probably be excessively Conservative ; but opponents are
inclined to think that these proposals may form but a first
step, and that the idea behind them is the adoption of
those parliamentary institutions for which the peninsula
of Hindostan, with its extraordinary diversity of races,
I4 2 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
tongues, and religions, appears to be unfit or unprepared.
Another main proposal of the Congress is that natives
should no longer be practically excluded from com-
petition for the Indian Civil Service. In regard to this
matter there can be no doubt that promises made to the
late Professor Fawcett have not been kept. It would,
however, be better to leave this matter for the present
as it is than to tantalise the feelings of educated natives
by the adoption of some transparent fraud. It is no
fulfilment of our promises to invite gentlemen to come
to England from Hindostan (which creed forbids many
of the best of them to do) in order to compete with *
Englishmen in subjects specially chosen to exclude
them. Affairs of a different kind are touched by
the Congresses in the proposal, not made, however, in
the last one or two of them, that there should be no
future increase in military expenditure a matter on
which the Congress may have voted in order to please its ,
electors, without any very real regard to the nature of / '
the military necessities of the country. A vast number
of topics of less importance, or less interest to ourselves,
have also been dealt with by motions.
The great Sir William Hunter in his wise articles has shown the
transition. . i T f T
impossibility ot governing India either by an absolute
despotism or by parliamentary forms, and the necessity
of treating the present period as one of transition
and development. He points out that if the question
is whether the United Kingdom, supported only by a
white garrison and a small close Civil Service, can per-
manently hold India, Mr. Meredith Townsend is justified
in thinking that it cannot; but Sir William Hunter
believes that we have already taken some steps in the
direction of reconstitution on a broader base, and that,
proceeding steadily in the same direction, we can make
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 143
our rule more lasting. He shows how the people of
India having been promised admission to public office,
their education, ability, and integrity, to use the words
of the Queen's proclamation, are now such that no
ground can be found under these heads for refusing
them admission. He points out how we have trained
the picked youth of India in the literature of English
freedom and inspired them with British political ideas,
and how impracticable it is to continue to refuse all possi-
bility of growth, even though we may think that growth
of free institutions in India should naturally be slow.
Sir William Hunter also shows how we have modernised
the intellectual class of India, without leavening the whole
mass of the population with modern ideas, and how
therefore we have two peoples in India in the sense of
civilisation a great mass unchanged, and a small number
highly trained in British notions. Sir William Hunter
maintains silence upon what may be called the political
demands of the Congress, but he supports its view with
regard to the reform of judicial procedure, the production
of an Indian budget in legislative council, the modifica-
tion of the Arms Act to prevent the destruction of the
population by wild beasts, and a partial admission of
natives to the Covenanted Civil Service. Sir William
Hunter knows, however, as well as any one, that reform
could not long stop here, and that the political demands
of the Congress for some introduction of the representa-
tive system into the Provincial Governments are the
demands which lie behind the rest and upon which the
future in India turns.
It is curious in this connection to read the comments views of
of the Anglo-Indian newspapers upon Mr. Meredith pJLshi 18
Townsend's article on the retention of India by England Il]
which I have named above. Many of them seem to
144
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
think that England can easily hold India by arms, and
that no change in the form of government is necessary,
and they differ widely from Sir William Hunter in these
respects. The native papers, and some of the English
papers published in India, agree in declaring Mr. Towns-
end wrong ; they think that England will retain India,
but naturally assume that it will retain it by having that
regard to the wishes of the governed which Sir William
Hunter proposes. One English weekly newspaper of Cal-
cutta summed up the question very plainly when it said
that the leaden dulness of British rule constituted its most
serious danger, and that it was a disaster that we should
" deny a career to the ambitious youth of the country,"
and "jealously exclude the people from participation in
the government." An excellent journal, the Voice of
India, which gives extracts from the native papers of
all types, should be closely studied by those who wish
to keep themselves informed upon the changing aspects
of Indian problems.
The That gatherings in the nature of the National
moTment Congress should take place was to be expected, and
natural. wag ^ n f act i nev it a ble, and the demands which have been
made both those which are reasonable and those which,
though made in reasonable language, are unreasonable-
are also such as might have been foreseen. As has been
pointed out by Sir Henry Leland Harrison (who has had
great experience, as Chairman of the Corporation of
Calcutta and Commissioner of Police, and also by reason
of his membership of the Legislative Council of Bengal),
much of the opposition to Congress ideas arises from the
personal unpopularity of those who advocate them
men who in a Conservative country have been branded
by the repellent name of " agitators." Although it may
be true that the Indian " agitator " is unwarlike ; that
BRITISH INDIA 145
he is despised by the fighting classes, and disliked by
the religious ; yet, as he is the advocate of principles to
which concessions must undoubtedly be made, it is
worse than useless to attack the agitator while we are
daily yielding to the agitation. The agitator may be
admitted to be ambitious, but I fail to see why the
possession of ambition should be denied to him. That
those who are disagreeably criticised by agitators, and
who may conceivably be thereby displeased, should be
jealous of the notice which has been accorded to them is
natural, but can form in itself no reason for denying
claims which apparently are in a large degree consistent
with the interests of the Empire. As has been well
shown, men who speak better English than most
Englishmen ; who conduct able newspapers in our
tongue ; who form the majority on town councils which
admirably supervise the affairs of great cities ; who, as
native judges, have reached the highest judicial posts ;
who occupy seats on the Provincial, the Presidency,
and the Viceregal Councils, or, as powerful ministers,
excellently rule vast native states, can no longer be
treated as hopelessly inferior to ourselves in governmental
power. These men look upon the Queen's proclamations
as their charters, and point out that, while there is no
legal reason against their filling some proportion, at all
events, of the highest executive posts, there are as a
fact virtually no natives high up in the Covenanted
Civil Service. That service, although an admirable-
instrument of government, is becoming more, instead of
less, of a close service, and its members less and less
Indian and more and more English in their lives. To
those who take a purely selfish view it may be urged
that we can hardly long go on as we are, refusing to
proceed further in the direction of the employment of
VOL. II L
, 4 6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
natives in high office, with the Russians at our door
pursuing the other policy, although pursuing it in a less
degree than is commonly believed. The unshared rule
of a close bureaucracy from across the seas cannot last
in the face of widespread modern education of a people
so intelligent as Indian natives. On the other hand,
British military supremacy sufficient to preserve peace,
and British control sufficient to raise the necessary taxes
and to prevent the imposition of customs duties, can be
more easily maintained if a large measure of local in-
dependence is conceded to the Provinces.
It is after all only a question of degree that
difference 1 separates the two sides, not one of principle. It is
upon the -possible to combine the views of men who at first
question as -L '
generally sight appear to hold most opposite opinions Sir
William Hunter, Sir William Wedderburn, Sir H. L.
Harrison, Mr. Yule, and Mr. Cotton on the one side, and
Sir Lepel Griffin and Sir John Strachey on the other.
The former support and the latter attack the National
Congress ; but nothing that its opponents have said
runs counter to the idea of local representative institu-
tions, while the class of outside supporters do not pro-
pose to govern Rajputs and Mahrattas and Sikhs by
Bengalis, or to constitute an Indian Parliament. Un-
popular as was Lord Ripon with the English official class
in India, his policy of increasing the powers of munici- *
palities was a mere expansion of Lord Mayo's policy, and
is generally though not universally approved.
spirit in Argument upon the matter is to be desired, but not
which the , i i i -i.iti
congress invective, and there is so much reason to think that the
Congress movement really represents the cultivated
intelligence of the country that those who ridicule it do
harm to the imperial interests of Great Britain, bitterly
wounding and alienating men who are justified in what
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 147
they do, who do it in reasonable and cautious form, and
who ought to be conciliated by being met half-way.
The official class themselves admit that many of the
natives who attack the Congress do so to ingratiate
themselves with their British rulers and to push their V&
claims for decorations : and, while I am on this point, I
may add that it is an almost universal opinion among
officials themselves that some of the recent appointments
in the various classes of our orders have been unfortunate.
Our first duty in India is that of defending the country
against anarchy and invasion, with which I have dealt
in the last chapter ; but our other greatest duty is to
learn how to live with what is commonly called the
Congress movement, namely, with the development of
that new India which we have ourselves created. Our
past work in India has been a splendid task, splendidly
performed, but there is a still nobler one before us, and
one larger even than that labour on the Irish problem
to which our public men on both sides seem too much
inclined to give their whole attention.
When last I came from India I did so with a feeling Great
that my third visit had been paid at the end of the old
period ; at a moment when little real change had yet
taken place in the state of things which had previously
existed, but when great changes were in view. In the
matter of Indian defence I have shown how the presence
of Kussia upon our frontier has modified the problem,
and how, while our means of meeting attack have grown,
they have grown as yet upon old lines. Our army in
India is essentially an army of the same class as that
which I had found there before. It is the same army
with modifications ; in those days strong for its work,
and now weak for its work; but with the probability
before it that a complete change of system is at hand,
'
I4 8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN
PART IV
although it may come too late. So with Indian
politics. We still find the courteous and able Civilian
ruling India upon the same system in all essentials which
existed when I was there before, but with a general
admission among all who have come unprejudiced to the
matter that the system cannot long endure unchanged;
and I have thought it wise to devote this chapter to the
consideration of the alterations proposed and likely soon
to come, their advantages and their dangers.
Persons in Persons do not count for much in India. The Indian
Important governmental system is too regular, the codes are too
f* complete, traditions too strong, to give much room to
human personality. No one man can really change the
policy, and the greatest alterations of recent times have
taken 'place gradually by the help of scores of distin-
guished men. While in young colonies a single governor
or a single minister may bring about a change which will
alter the whole future of the country, in India talent can
expect no such results. Climate, too, shortens the time
during which men can remain in the Indian service after
they have reached high rank, and they are inclined to
answer in the affirmative Sir Alfred Lyall's question
" With the sweets of authority sated,
Would he give up his throne to be cool 1 "
Statesmen who have completed their Indian career, and
left the country never to return, come home and spend
another twenty years of useful life serving their country
in Parliament, or their counties or their parishes at Quarter
Sessions or on Boards of Guardians, or themselves upon
directorates. The most interesting man in India at the
sir present moment is Sir Frederick Eoberts ; but he is an
Roberta, exception among soldiers on Indian service in having a
close connection with the country his father having
been an Indian officer and he himself having served in
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA 149
India almost all his life. Hence his personal popularity
is as great with the native army as with that white
army to which he commends himself as a fine specimen
of an Etonian. The influence of his name among the
natives generally is considerable, even in the remotest
parts of India. Supplies were wanted once in the neigh-
bourhood of the Khojak pass when "Sir Fred" was com-
ing, and appeals were made to the local chiefs and head
men of villages, in which the title of Commander-in-Chief
and its native equivalent " The Lord of War " were
freely used with no result, when at last a staff officer
happened to say " Eoberts." Then in chorus the chiefs
broke in to say that if the great personage was " General
Lobbet Sahib " it was a very different matter, and that
the stores should be forthcoming. A man of will, a man
of action, and a good writer all in one, it could not but
be that Sir Frederick Eoberts would make his mark in
India, and for the sake of the relations between all
classes it is to be wished that others like him, if possible,
may be found in the future.
There is in India no more striking scene than one Indian
of those great reviews which foreign writers have fre-
quently described, and on which Lady Dufferin has lately
written with much success. An ancient city stands
near by, with grand Moghul walls ; the parade ground is
covered with masses of men of the most martial aspect,
in costumes of gorgeous colour, with a background of the
great elephants of the siege train, and behind all are the
snow crests of the Himalaya ; but the military strength
which is exhibited upon the field is in itself, except as
against a foreign enemy, less valuable to our rule than
the perpetual courtesy, cheeriness, and good humour of
the old Indian generals in command, which explain the
delight with which the white-headed native officers,
1 5 o PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
with whom the generals are personally acquainted, step
forward to touch swords when visited at the quarters
of their regiments. But India is full of striking scenes.
Nothing can be more different from a grand review than
an early service at a Christian mission church in a great
town, where all are natives the preacher, the verger,
and the congregation. Hundreds of thousands of dark-
skinned people live round the church within the gates
of a walled town guarded by dark-skinned police, and
one may walk for hours through the streets about this
church in which are sung the familiar English hymns
without seeing a white face.
The enormous size of India is brought home to us
by the variety of the pictures offered to the traveller's
gaze; for the peninsula presents us in the south and
centre with the perfection of the scenery of the tropics ;
in the north centre with plains uglier than the ugliest
of Australia, more destitute of shadow, more parched,
green in the winter only, and sun-baked by far the
greater portion of the year; and then in the extreme
north with the grandest mountain landscapes that are
known. As the country varies from a sterile waste to
a natural garden, so does the climate from almost the
hottest of the globe to that of cold table -lands and
frozen peaks. The driest and the wettest parts of
the whole world are both in India, and the colour of
the people varies from the black of the peasantry of
the Ganges delta to the white of the aristocracy of
Kashmir, while the features range from the low types
of the Mongolians, and of the aborigines of the Bengal
hills, to a purely classic type in the far North West. I
have described in Greater Britain the river front of
Benares, the Golden Temple at Amritsir, the Taj
incomparably the finest building in the world
CHAP, ii BRITISH INDIA
and the walls of Agra, the pearl mosques of that
city and of Delhi, and the scenery of Central India.
I have written of the street life, of the water-
carriers and the pariah dogs, of the crows and the
screaming kites, of the cream-coloured humped cattle,
of the strange music, of the green parrots in the trees,
of the never-ending sunshine, of the bronze- statue-like
figures of the women bearing loads ; and all that I at
that time saw I have seen again, except that the
cantonments, which at my first visit were so many
brickfields, now resemble Batavia in being so many
cities of trees in which one can hardly find the houses
for the forest the only change to the eye in India.
But in my last visit I was able twice to realise the
feeling with which the successive waves of conquerors
have seen the dark plains of India from the grand
passes of the Afghan hills, with the glittering serpent
streaks of the Indus and its tributaries standing out
before them in the dust and smoke.
The English tourists who visit India each year in
increasing numbers, which would grow, I am sure, j
more rapidly were it not for the fear of overtaxing the
hospitality of Indian friends, resort to the interior of proble in
J the cold
the peninsula in that cold weather when the fields are weather.
green, the towns a garden, and the air in the soft
sunshine the most balmy that can be found. They can
bring back with them but little notion of the real
terrors of an Indian life, and those who would judge for
themselves of one of the greatest difficulties of Indian
rule should follow the example of Professor Kobert
Wallace, recorded in his India in 1887, and visit the
country in the other two-thirds of the year. The idea
of the possibility of British settlement, unless it is in
the hills of the North- West Frontier or in Kashmir,
1 52 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART iv
will be speedily dispelled. From March to November
in the south, from April to October in the north, the
plains of India are a furnace from which all who can
escape.' The only relief is in the rain storms, and the
rain storms are more unhealthy than the heat. In the
hot weather there are delights, however, which make
the joy of travellers, but which have a different aspect
to those who are condemned to dwell in the plains
unceasingly. Dawn is beautiful, and sunrise with its
flecks of scarlet, and at night the Eastern russet moon
rising from the smoking plains, heavy with their
perpetual dust, until it becomes silver as it bathes them
in its light and extinguishes the starlight from over-
head ; but from sunrise until the hour when the brick-
red sun sets in a black strip of sky there is nothing
before even travellers except the deadly monotony of
the long Indian hot-weather day. Beautiful as is India
in its cold season, there are few Englishmen who would
not prefer to live amid the colossal masses of the silent
hills of the North West, rising range upon range from
the steaming plains, rather than in the more fertile
country, with the flowery winter season, but destructive
through its summer to the English race.
PAET V
CROWN COLONIES OF THE PRESENT
AND OF THE FUTURE
PART V
CROWN COLONIES OF THE PRESENT AND OF THE FUTURE
UNDER the convenient popular name of " Crown Popular
Colonies " I have to treat of those colonies, depend- sdentmc
encies, protectorates, and spheres of influence of t ^;?
Great Britain which remain for notice after India and Crown
Colonies.
the North American, Australasian, and South African
groups have been disposed of. We have dealt with
the present position of colonies possessed of responsible
government, in which the Crown has only a veto on
legislation, and the Colonial Office no control over
any public officer except the Governor. We have
now to deal with the position and prospects of the
Crown Colonies proper, in which the Colonial Office
possesses the control of legislation and administration,
and with those of an intermediate class of colonies,
which possess representative institutions, but not re-
sponsible government, while the Colonial Office retains
control over their public officers. The Crown Colonies
proper include some in which laws may be made by
the Governor alone, while in others they are made by
the Governor with the concurrence of a nominated
Council. In a portion of the latter class, as, for
example, in Ceylon and Mauritius, the authority of the
Council rests only on prerogative. In others, as, for
example, the Straits Settlements, it is based on statute,
1 56 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
though in most of these a power is reserved to make
laws by Order in Council. The intermediate class of
colonies which, so far as they have not already been
described, will, for the sake of convenience, be dealt
with also in this chapter, as, like the others, they are
chiefly tropical plantations are considered "Crown
Colonies" by the public though not by the Colonial
Office. In these the Crown cannot, as a general rule,
legislate by Order in Council, and laws are made by the
Governor with the concurrence of one or two legislative
bodies, of which one at least is wholly or for the most
part representative. In Bahamas, Barbados, and Ber-
muda, for example, there is a nominated Council and an
elective Assembly ; while in Natal and Western Australia,
already named, we have specimens of colonies possessing
representative but not responsible institutions, in which
there is a single Legislative Chamber partly elective and
partly nominated by the Crown. The public, however,
are substantially in the right in classing the interme-
diate group as " Crown Colonies," inasmuch as executive
power is in fact in the hands of persons selected by the
Colonial Office.
varieties It will be seen that even before we come to consider
Colonies! dependencies of colonies, possessions of the Crown
which lie altogether outside of the colonial system,
protectorates, and spheres of influence, we have to
do with settlements of many kinds. In some Crown
Colonies the primary object in the occupation is the
maintenance of a fortress or of a coaling station. In
others the matter in view is plantation, or foreign trade.
In some the population is all white ; in others the white
population is considerable, but there is a large native
black or "coloured" population to whom representative
institutions, if limited by a high franchise, might be un-
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 157
favourable ; in others the population is almost wholly
black. The West Indies present us with examples of
colonies formerly possessing a large share of self-govern-
ment, but a share virtually confined to the white race,
in which the constitutions have been surrendered and
the power of the Crown brought in for the protection of
the blacks. In some of the colonies possessing repre-
sentative but not responsible institutions the local
Parliaments are very strong, but represent only the
white minority the imported blacks or the natives
being almost unheard while in others power is passing
to the dark-skinned races.
Besides, then, the great colonies and India, which Depend-
have been dealt with, we find British colonies and de- Depend-
pendencies scattered over the whole earth and admini- er
stered on every system known to political man. India
has her dependencies. Burmah, which is sometimes
mentioned as though a separate dependency, is politically
a part of India, as are the Andamans and Aden ; but
Perim is a dependency of Aden, the Laccadives are
a dependency of India, and the protectorate over
Baluchistan so real as to make the country virtu-
ally British is an Indian protectorate. As India has
her dependencies, so have New Zealand and New South
Wales, Mauritius, the Straits Settlements, and Ceylon.
Lord Howe Island, 600 miles from Sydney, is part of
New South Wales, while Norfolk Island and Pitcairn
are British territory, and under the Governor of New
South Wales, but do not form part of that colony.
Chatham Island and the Kermadec Islands, even farther
removed from Wellington and from Auckland respect-
ively than is Lord Howe Island from Sydney, are
dependencies of New Zealand. Chatham Island, on
which there is both a white and an imported native-
I 5 8
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
population, is governed by a representative of the
New Zealand administration, who has lately had his
difficulties, caused by the worrying of flocks by dogs
belonging to the decreasing Moriori tribe, and has had
to send for troops. The Seychelles are dependencies
of Mauritius, from which they are distant nearly a thou-
sand miles ; the Maldives are tributary to Ceylon, and
the Cocos dependencies of the Straits. In South
Africa the dependencies of the Cape and of Natal have
been mentioned, as have the new British colonies, pro-
tectorates, and sphere of influence, and the detached
colony of St. Helena and the Admiralty post of Ascen-
sion.
British More peculiar than even the dependencies of depend-
se'aratT enc i es are tne parcels of British territory separate from
fl JT the United Kingdom, and yet altogether outside the
Kingdom, Colonial and Indian systems, such, for example, as the
and India. Isle of Man with its curious constitution, and the
Channel Islands, the most ancient of the dominions of
the Crown, the inhabitants of which declare that the
United Kingdom is a dependency of theirs.
Tropical In this chapter I shall have to deal mainly with
Crown Colonies in the popular or wider sense of the
term, but must mention our protectorates and our
"spheres of British interest," "British influence," or
" British activity," to use the cant phrases which came
in in 1885, after the African Conference at Berlin ; and
I shall also name the new chartered companies, such as
those for the Lower Niger, the Zanzibar coast, and for
North Borneo, to which indeed, on account of their
novelty and of the future which they seem to have before
them, I shall assign priority over the old Crown Colonies.
As I have been dealing hitherto with the Empire of
India, or with our offshoot the United States, or with
PARTY CROWN COLONIES I 59
colonies in which white men of our race can work
on the land and bring up healthy children, so now
I have to investigate the condition of what are called
tropical colonies, in which the white men induce others
to do their work. The British, the Russian, the
Hispano-American, and the Chinese races hold between
them almost all the temperate lands of the globe outside
of Europe. Germany and France in their recent occu-
pations of territory in Africa and the Pacific have been
driven to found ^colonies of the tropical type ; while the
Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese, as well as the French
themselves, already had great dominions of the kind.
By their population, their extent of territory, their trade,
and their resources, the British tropical colonies outside
India form only one (ranking at present fourth) of
several groups which from year to year may vary in
relative importance. When books are written, as many
have been, upon the colonies of France, they naturally
give enormous space to the discussion of problems which,
except so far as they concern comparatively small parts
of Hindostan, are for the British Empire of secondary
importance. The masters of India, the explorers of
Australia, cannot give so great a share of their atten-
tion to the British West Indies, Ceylon, Mauritius, and
such dependencies, as Holland gives to Java, or France
to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion, and Cochin-China.
Among the English-governed countries there are TWO classes
i m ^i i i n J of English-
then two great groups. To the one belong Canada, governed
Australia except its northern coast, New Zealand, Cape
Colony, and Bechuanaland ; to the other India, a large
part of the British African coast, the Northern Territory
of Australia, as well as Ceylon, Mauritius, Labuan, and
North Borneo, British Guiana, British Honduras, the
West India and other islands, and the territories under
160 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
the control of the Niger Company and of the East
Africa Company. The former group are the temperate
colonies, where, even as near to the equator as Queens-
land, the English race can labour in the open air, and
where the native races consisted mainly of peoples like
the Ked Indian or the Australian aboriginal, of small
numbers, who lived by the chase and made little or no
use of the soil. In the other group, of which India is
the great example, the English find themselves ruling
nations and races that they cannot hope to replace.
We may indeed try to change them in the islands or
the small peninsulas ; to substitute one black or yellow
people for another, as the negroes have been substituted
for the Caribs in the West India Islands, and as Hindoos
are being in turn substituted for negroes as labourers in
some of these; or as the Chinese in parts of British
Malaya have taken as workers the place of the
Malays ; but we cannot do without the coloured man,
nor conveniently till the soil. Most of these countries
of dark-skinned labour which are under British rule are
Crown Colonies (except India, of which we have already
treated, and which is indeed in a similar position),
and most of the Crown Colonies consist of countries of
this description. There are a few military stations and
a few trading posts, some of which lie outside the tropics,
where Englishmen could work if the local resources
were sufficient to attract them; but in the main the
Crown Colonies and the habitation colonies form two
separate classes. In some parts of India, as, for example,
in the tea districts of Assam and the coffee districts of
Madras, we encourage English and Scotch planters, but
in the old settled districts of Hindostan the native land-
lords will continue to exist, and the social problems there
presented to us are different from those of our Crown
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 161
Colonies, or of the tropical colonies of France, Holland,
Spain, Portugal, and the German Empire. The advance
made during the Queen's reign by the self-governing
colonies of the Empire has been so remarkable, in regard
alike to the growth of population, the development of
resources, and intellectual and social progress, that the
Crown Colonies, on which in former days was concentrated
most of the interest that was felt in British enterprise
beyond the seas, have been thrown by comparison into
the background.
The colonies and dependencies of which I have
now to treat do not at first sight seem to illustrate
the expansive power of our race to the same extent
as do Australasia, North America, or South Africa.
The old tropical colonies, as, for example, those of the
West Indies, appear to the eyes of some observers to
have exhausted their vitality and entered upon a
period of decline. There are, however, new fields open
to British energy in tropical Africa which present us
with an early view of the colonial problems of the
twentieth century, for the development of Africa by
railroad enterprise must be the work mainly of the next
generation. As regards the older tropical colonies, it
would be unfair to apply to them the same standard by
which we measure the growth of the self-governing
colonies. With the exception of those military or
naval stations to which I have referred, the Crown
Colonies are either situate in low ground within the
tropics, or, like Cyprus, Bermuda, and the extra-tropical
portion of Bahamas, possess a similar climate. They
are unsuited to European labour, and in some degree to
permanent European residence, inasmuch as upon their
rich low lands European children pine or die.
Moreover, instead of having wide fields for settlement,
VOL. II M
1 62 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
our older tropical colonies are either small or densely
inhabited by dark-skinned races. In most of them the
British planters incurred in the last generation great
slavery, losses in consequence of the cessation of slave labour, and
found much difficulty in obtaining an efficient substitute,
while the consequent increase in cost of production was
followed by so heavy a fall in the price of the chief
sugar. among the articles which they produced as seemed to
have consummated the ruin of the colonies themselves.
Observers at home naturally turned away from the
contemplation of what they thought was a picture of
decay to the consideration of the brighter prospects of
the larger colonies, inhabited, except in the cases of
South Africa and of Quebec, by a homogeneous popula-
tion, and having about them infinite power of develop-
ment life, hope, and promise. At the same time the
Crown Colonies are important to us still, and their decay,
of what if decay there was, is at an end. They include in Europe
Sonies^ the stations of Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, and Heligoland,
consist. ^ e c hief O f which w in be dealt with under the head of
Imperial Defence ; in America little besides British
Guiana, British Honduras, and the West-India Islands ;
in Africa the West Coast Settlements, Mauritius with its
dependencies, and Natal and others which have been
described under the head of South Africa ; in Australasia,
Fiji and British New Guinea, besides that Western
Australia to which responsible government is imme-
diately to be given; and in Asia, Ceylon, the Straits
Settlements, Labuan, and Hong -Kong. If even we
exclude from view the British spheres of influence, or,
as the Germans say, of " interest," upon the Niger, in
East Africa, in North Borneo, and in Northern Bechu-
analand, as well as the protectorates, the population in
Crown Colonies under direct British rule is almost equal
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 163
to the population of all the rest of the colonies put to-
gether, and the volume of external trade of the Crown
Colonies greatly in excess of that of the other colonies
if those of the Australian continent be omitted.
I have already foreshadowed the view that in our Protector-
new protectorates, and in the spheres of influence which jJS^fof
have been reserved to us in Africa, are to be found the influence -
more important Crown Colonies of the future, in which
the problems that have been presented by the older
tropical plantations of the West Indies, Mauritius and
Ceylon and the West Coast settlements will be solved in
the next century upon a larger scale. As the interest,
then, of our new African and Pacific tropical dependencies
is greater than that which attaches even to the West
Indian colonies with their romantic history, I deal first
with Africa and with the Pacific. No apology is needed
for omitting from consideration here those groups which
have been already dealt with in the South African part,
and Western Australia included in that Australian con-
tinent which has been treated as a whole. Fiji too has
been already named as represented on the Federal
Council of Australasia, and New Guinea as a dependency
of Australia, although I shall have a few more words to say
of the Papuan island. Among the protectorates, which I
have as yet left out of account, are the protected States of
the Malay peninsula ; the protected islands of the Pacific ;
the northern Somali Territory, or southern shore of the
Gulf of Aden from the mouth of the Eed Sea towards
Cape Guardafui ; as well as Sarawak and Brunei, which
have also lately come under our protection. More im-
portant, however, are the vast " spheres of influence,"
full of the possibilities of the future, new Indias of the
next generation, like the Niger; twentieth -century
Australias, like the tablelands of the Zambesi banks
i6 4 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
and the high lands of East Africa. Eecent annexations,
proclamations, and treaties of delimitation have given
indeed to Great Britain, in Southern, and in Eastern
Africa, and between the Gulf of Guinea and the Soudan,
as well as in the South- Western Pacific, regions which
possess the highest prospective value, and two out of
four of which may ultimately be found to have the
advantage over India of being better suited, as regards
their vast tablelands, to the health of the white race.
change of Great Britain has been forced by stress of circum-
stances to suddenly alter her policy in Africa. Up to
the winter of 1884-85 she had refused as a rule to
make annexations of territory, and preferred to deal by
treaty with the savage chiefs, insisting only upon order
and free trade. As late as 1883 it was laid down in a
text-book upon the subject, 1 " that the policy of England
discourages any increase of territory in tropical countries
already occupied by native races." We had allowed the
French to occupy New Caledonia, and other Pacific
groups and single islands, which had been discovered,
named, and taken possession of for the British Crown by
British navigators. We had declined a protectorate of
Zanzibar : we had refused the heirship to the late
Sultan of Zanzibar, with the reversion of his dominions.
We had repeatedly declined the Cameroons. We had
declined to ratify the annexation by the Australians
of half New Guinea. We had refused to accept the
Cameron treaty yielding to us the Congo basin of
Central Africa. Both political parties had followed
this policy : Mr. Disraeli had refused the Congo and the
Cameroons ; Mr. Gladstone had refused the Cameroons,
Zanzibar, and half New Guinea. The annexation of
Fiji, as I shall have to show, was, under the circum-
1 The Colonies, by E. J. Payne. Macmillan and Co.
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 165
stances in which it happened, hardly an exception. In
consequence of French and German annexations, and
the fear of the possible exclusion of our trade from the
countries taken by our rivals, a change of policy began
in the time of Mr. Gladstone's second administration.
After refusing the Cameroons and half New Guinea, and
while refusing Zanzibar, he ended by hoisting the
British flag in more than a quarter of New Guinea.
The question of the acceptance of the Cameroons was
reopened, and was actually under the consideration of
the Treasury at the moment when the Germans occupied
that district. A sudden change of policy had occurred
on the part of two other powers, and we followed suit.
For some time before 1884 there had been but little
seen of the annexation of whole countries for the sake
of trade, and the grant of the North Borneo charter at
the end of 1881 was a curious exception to a general
rule, in which at first the responsibility of the United
Kingdom and of Government was purposely made
small. The British Empire and the Eussian Empire had
spread rapidly no doubt, but the annexations had hardly
been made with the deliberate design of subduing new
countries for commercial reasons. By their attack upon
the regions of the Upper Niger, by their annexation of
Tunis and Tonquin, and by their war in Madagascar the
French, and by the annexation of the west coast of
South Africa the Germans, gave the signal for what has
been called the "scramble" of 1885, which seems to
have swallowed up all Africa and the Pacific islands, at
all events as far as the map-makers are concerned, for
the profit of North- Western Europe. The change of
policy on the part of the United Kingdom was the con-
sequence of the action of her would-be colonial rivals.
The administration which had refused all eastern New
166 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
Guinea was glad to secure the south-eastern portion of
that island ; and its successors the same men who had
declined the Congo basin when it had been offered in the
treaties of an explorer were glad to receive European
acknowledgment for spheres of influence on the Lower
Niger and the northern part of the Zanzibar coast.
Results. On the whole, we have probably been no losers by
not being among the first when the European Powers
rushed upon Africa and the Pacific like so .many birds
of prey. In Western Africa, indeed, we lost by our
delay the mountains of the Cameroons, which had twice
been ceded to us, and where alone in Western Africa a
station might have been formed for white inhabitants ; but
our South African and East African spheres of influence
contain high and healthy plains, and if the Niger banks,
North Borneo, and south-east New Guinea be unhealthy,
the first two at least are rich, while some of the
Pacific islands within our sphere are habitable by
whites. It is difficult to decide to which of the two
groups of countries named above pertain the high lands
in the territory within the limits of the charter of the
British East Africa Company, for it is asserted by
explorers that, in spite of their nearness to the equator,
they may be placed in the category to which Australia
and Canada belong. It is, however, to my mind doubtful
if it will prove possible to bring up white children in
such a country.
The Berlin I have used language not altogether complimentarv
Conference. J _i i i J
with regard to the recent action in Africa of the European
powers ; but that action has been of a mixed nature.
The motives put forward and the principles proclaimed
at the African Conference at Berlin were satisfactory.
It is only when we find the nature of the measures by
which the powers have been forced in many cases to
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 167
make good their paper annexations, and when we note
how large a proportion of the commodities which their
subjects send to the black people of Central Africa con-
sists of arms and spirits, that we must confess that the
facts are not in accord with the views officially avowed.
Free Trade and total absence of import duties for many
years to come are excellent things for us ; but the ex-
isting free trade of Africa largely takes the form of
free trade in muskets and in drink. Great portions of
the countries which in various parts of the globe
have been wantonly disturbed by European interven-
tion are inhabited by industrious natives, and there
are no white settlers in them to protect. In the
Pacific, annexations may be necessary, if only for
the purpose of preventing criminal acts being perpe-
trated against peaceful tribes by white aggressors ;
but in the greater part of the African countries which
have recently come under some slight European control,
with a view to the creation of European government in
the future, it would have been difficult indeed to make
out a fair case for annexation. When the process had
begun, however, it was equally difficult for our Govern-
ment not to claim its share, for fear that the exclusion
of our goods by means of differential duties, which
had been already seen in many of the colonies of
France, should be imitated in other portions of the
world. It would doubtless have been difficult in the
long-run to keep white men out of Central Africa,
and we may be thankful that an immense tract,
running from sea to sea, and including the whole
centre of the continent and a vast portion of the east
coast, with, on the west coast, a strip sufficient to con-
trol the waterway of the Congo, has been freed from
commercial barriers, thrown open to missionary effort,
1 68 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
and given a fair chance of obtaining neutrality in the
event of general war. Some of the principles laid down
for Central Africa were indeed so excellent that one can
only wish that they may be applied to all parts of the
world not under regular government.
Present Africa is about ten times as large as British India,
of Africa an( * far more than half of the vast continent almost
two-thirds of it is now in some degree attached to
one or other of the European powers. The north and
north centre are greatly occupied by desert, and thinly
peopled, and on these portions of the Dark Continent
the French, Spaniards, and Italians have set their
eyes. South of the deserts of the Soudan, Africa may
be said to have been divided between England, France,
Germany, Portugal, and the Congo State.
The special interest which we have in Cape Town
and its neighbourhood, on account of one route to India,
Egypt. we have also in Egypt on account of our other route to
India through the Canal. It was, indeed, universally
admitted at the time of the expedition that we had a
high interest in the preservation of domestic peace at
Cairo, although there was ground for much difference of
opinion about the wisdom of our remaining there after
peace had been restored. By our occupation we have
improved the government of Egypt, have weeded out
adventurers, and have caused Egypt to be well served,
and as well governed as is possible in the case of a
country which has to bear so fearful a burden of foreign
debt; but we find ourselves in a vicious circle. We
are to stay until our work is done and Egypt is fully
able to stand alone, but as long as we stay the certainty
that Egypt will be able to stand alone can never be
made apparent. It would have been easy to have left
the country immediately after Tel-el-Kebir, placing
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 169
there a few good officers to organise a small picked force
to defend the country against attack from the south ;
and it was owing to the obstinacy of the Egyptian
statesmen, in insisting upon sending an expedition to
reconquer the Soudan, that the Hicks disaster followed,
bringing all the later evils in its train. Great Britain
finds itself with a " temporary " occupation of the
country upon its hands, which, although temporary, is
apparently meant to last as long as there are fanatical
Mohammedans in the Soudan. The pledges as to the
temporary nature of the occupation, which were given
in 1882 by Mr. Gladstone, were virtually renewed in
1885 by Lord Salisbury; but we continue to stay on
in Egypt, although some of those who are not unmindful
of the necessities of our military and naval position, as,
for example, Lord Charles Beresford, believe that the
Canal route is one which could not be made use of
in time of serious war, and seem to think that our
occupation is rather a source of military weakness than
of strength in time of danger. Considered from a
military point of view, it is an occupation which too
much reminds observers of that French occupation of
Borne which lasted from the time of the Second Ke-
public through the whole life of the Second Empire,
but came to an end the moment that France was plunged
into a dangerous war and had need of the two regiments
that were employed there.
As we pass from Egypt round the African coast we East Africa,
reach our Somali protectorate a paper annexation of
the feeding-ground of Aden and Perim. The Somali Somali
coast was occupied in 1887 in the form prescribed by c<
the Berlin Act of 1885, and the Consul who looks after
it is paid by the India Office. In 1886 a treaty was
concluded between the Viceroy of India and the Sultan
1 70 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
of Socotra for a protectorate, and the British flag was
hoisted by General Hogg, the political resident at Aden.
Soon we come, as we journey southward, to the
sphere of influence which is occupied by the British
imperial East Africa Company, the most favourable part of all
EasfAMca tropical Africa for European enterprise. This district
company. j g cer tain to be well developed under the chief pro-
prietor of the British India Steam Navigation line
(possessed of the whole traffic of the coast north of
Mozambique), who is President of the company. The
best port in the sphere of British influence is Mombassa,
familiar to readers of the Lusiad of Camoens, where there
is an excellent harbour. The principal trade of this part
of the coast has hitherto been in ivory, but such vast
quantities are yearly secured by Arab hunters that,
unless the British company should be successful in pre-
serving the elephant in a portion of their territories, no
ivory is likely to be obtained after the next fifteen or
twenty years. The summit of Kilimandjaro is within
the German sphere of influence, but the best parts of its
slopes are said to be those upon the north, which are
within our sphere and capable of cultivation of all kinds.
Mount Kenia, which lies on our side the border, is more
lofty than the German giant, and rears a snowy summit
to the height of 19,000 feet exactly under the equator.
Of the less known among British tropical countries,
destined in all probability to great prosperity in the
future, the sphere of influence reserved to us in East
Africa by the arrangement come to concerning the
Zanzibar coast is, indeed, probably the most important.
The charter of the company follows generally the lines
laid down by the Foreign Office and the Law Officers of
the Crown in the North Borneo case. It contains a
stipulation with regard to the slave trade which shows
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 171
one of the conveniences of such charters from a political
point of view. The 10th article binds the company to
" abolish by degrees any system of slave trade " " in the
company's territories." In Province Wellesley and other
parts of the British dominions much difficulty has been
caused by the necessity for the complete and immediate
abolition not only of the slave trade, but of slavery.
Still, the anti-slavery party may reasonably think it is
" going a long way" to countenance the temporary con-
tinuance of the slave trade itself in territories under the
control of a company chartered by the British Crown,
and flying a " distinctive flag indicating the British
character of the company."
The government of territories by merchant organisa- chartered
1 . ... . Companies.
tions contains, according to some observers, in each case
within itself the seeds of its own ultimate dissolution.
" The self-interest, however enlightened, which brings
a dividend to stockholders is opposed to the high
impartiality and absence of individualism which should
characterise a true Government," as was said of the
Hudson Bay Company; and of the companies generally
" They must either insensibly measure their dealings
by consequences, as affecting gain, or be suspected of
doing so." A Government which buys and sells, which
is the great merchant and storekeeper of the country,
but which appoints governors and commissioners, judges
and magistrates, and virtually administers the law even
against its rivals and trade competitors, is in an unsound
position and one not likely to be permanent. If, too,
the expectations of the companies which have been
formed for the East African and the Northern Bechuana-
land spheres of influence should be realised, and a white
population should settle within their territories, the
example of the Hudson Bay Company goes to show that
172 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
their difficulties would only become the greater. By our
grant of charters during the last eight years we have
been trying to keep out other powers from valuable fields,
while avoiding direct responsibility for the maintenance
of peace ; but it is questionable whether the House of
Commons has yet faced the difficulties in which the
charters may involve us. If the companies embark in
war, strong pressure will be exercised to make us fight
for them. If their native agents engage in or aid the
slave trade, an outcry will arise at home which may lead
to the destruction of the companies, and the substitution
of direct British government. The Congo State seems
to employ Tippoo Tib in the way in which General
Gordon wished to employ Zebehr Pasha ; but, as Mr.
W. E. Forster prevented the employment of Zebehr, his
successors will probably make the employment of such
agents by the British East Africa Company difficult.
On the other hand, it has been already said that this
company is supplying guns (to be used in collecting
ivory) to Arabs, who are engaged in the slave trade ;
and it is a fact, though one for which the East Africa
Company are in no way responsible, that the rifles of the
Arabs who are fighting against our mission stations on
the Lakes are British-made. There are those who agree
with the able writer of an article in the Edinburgh Re-
mew of October 1889, that the "caricature of sover-
eignty" recently set up under the Great Powers in
Central Africa is likely to lead to a widening rather than a
contraction of the area of slave-raiding and devastation.
Value of Whatever may be the wisdom of setting up such com-
the country ,, , n ..
dealt with panics, there can be no doubt as to the value of the
Africa e n East country which in the case of the East Africa Company
charter, \^ ] 3een h an d ec [ over to a mercan til e Government. The
territory within the control of the chartered company
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 173
may on the whole be looked upon as one of the natural
outlets of the Soudan. So vast is the size of Africa, and
so curious its shape and the nature of its navigable
streams, that there is much doubt which of several points,
removed from one another as regards sea journeys by
distances almost as grea't as any in the globe, will
be chosen as the port of the equatorial provinces and
central portions of the continent. At the present
moment some of the trade from Central Africa comes
out through Tripoli to the Mediterranean ; some by the
tributaries of the Niger to the Gulf of Guinea; some
by the Congo ; some by the Lakes, and through the
Portuguese territory of Mozambique ; and some by
Zanzibar. More natural roads for commerce would be
the old routes down the Nile, or by the Nile and across
the narrow strip from Berber to Suakim, if peace were
restored and the railway made ; or by Abyssinia to
Massowa ; but we can hardly count upon tranquillity at
Khartoum, and British East Africa reaches the Victoria
Nyanza lake, and taps for the Indian Ocean the sources
of the Nile. In the days of Ismail Pasha Egypt so
clearly saw the resources of the Mombassa port as an
outlet for Central African trade, and as a door to the
equatorial provinces, that she tried to seize it. Just as
in the battles between the fleets of Chili and Peru the
ironclads on both sides were largely manned by Britons
from the Clyde, so, also, when two Mohammedan powers,
represented by the Turks of the Egyptian dynasty and the
Arab Sultan of Zanzibar, were face to face upon the East
African shores, the forces of each were commanded by a
Briton. A Scotch Pasha was kept out of Mombassa
by our Consul- General, Sir John Kirk. Once a settle-
ment of the Portuguese, and afterwards, under their
Arab conquerors, a station of the Church Missionary
174 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
Society, Mombassa is now virtually a British station.
East Africa is likely to be the home of the Alpine
Club of the next century, containing as it does scenery
which is probably as grand as any in the world.
German South of the British sphere of influence comes the
ica ' larger, but probably less valuable, German sphere, in
which there are at present but few signs of German
occupation, and the whole trade of which is now in the
hands of Asiatics, chiefly British subjects from Bombay.
Indeed the commerce of East Africa from Natal northwards
may be said to be in the hands of the people roughly
described in Swaziland as Arabs, and from Delagoa Bay
to Guardafui known as Banyans, who are in fact Hindoos
and Mohammedans from the west coast of India ; and
throughout the whole of this vast stretch of coast
whether sovereignty be in British, in German, in Arab, or
in Portuguese hands the currency consists of Indian
rupees. It is not generally noticed that the German
sphere of influence upon the Zanzibar coast contains
within it an actual German protectorate over a more
limited district. While the Sultan of Zanzibar has
conceded to the British and the German companies the
levying of duties, a rent out of them being payable to
the Sultan, as regards the German protectorate there
is a separate arrangement. It is understood that the
German company is not successful, and that the German
Government are resolved not to send German troops to
Africa, and are half-hearted in its support. Although
the concession of 1888 nominally leaves the adminis-
tration under the flag of the Sultan of Zanzibar, with-
out detriment to his sovereign rights, in practice his
people are in arms to defend their independence against
the Germans; and as we are popular upon the coast,
and our Indian traders are its merchants, and our Indian
PARTY CROWN COLONIES
175
money its circulating medium, it is not impossible that the
German may ultimately give way to the British company.
East of the German sphere lies the Nyassa region, The Lakes.
the trade of which is in the hands of a Glasgow company
called the African Lakes Company, possessing a steamer
upon Lake Nyassa and carrying on its communications
through the Portuguese harbour of Quilimane, where
Yasco da Gama stayed a month, as related in the
Lusiad. This company, which has a reputation for
repressing the sale of drink, is intimately connected with
the Scotch Free Church Missions, and less closely with
the Established Church of Scotland Mission, all of which
are seated in the neighbourhood of the southern lakes.
In 1889 there was an idea of declaring the territory
under the control of the missionary societies and of
the African Lakes Company, from Pambete on Lake
Tanganyika to the junction of the Shire and the Zam-
besi, a sphere of British influence, and so endeavouring
to join hands between the Nyassa and Matabeleland
across the Zambesi and behind the Portuguese. The
Germans, who foresaw the immense importance of the
future of the waterway between the Lakes (connecting
itself, with short land transits, on the north with the Nile,
and the south with the Zambesi, and again, by another
short land transit, with the Upper Congo), somewhat
favoured the Portuguese opposition to the British scheme.
The Portuguese set up a claim on paper to stretch across
the continent from their territory at Mozambique to their
territory upon the Guinea coast ; but.it is 2000 miles in a
straight line from Quilimane to Benguela, and the Portu-
guese were not able to make good their right to set a
toll bar across the northern road from South Africa to
the Lakes. The territory, however, if declared British,
will be without a British port, for the coast is undoubtedly
i;6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
Portuguese. The British South Africa chartered com-
pany, named in the third part of this work, has promised
to pay the African Lakes Company the sum of nine
thousand pounds a year, but it is not clear for what
advantages the payment is to be made, and there are
difficulties in the way of actual amalgamation. There is
a good deal of difference between Germany and Portugal
and ourselves with regard to the boundary upon the lakes.
The Germans claim the southern half of Lake Victoria
Nyanza, and we deny the justice of that claim. The
Portuguese claim the greater portion of Nyassa ; but we
do not recognise their title, and our Consul there is ac-
credited to the chiefs. Portugal was engaged in fortify-
ing a post at the southern entrance to Lake Nyassa when
Lord Salisbury warned her off. The Arab slave hunters,
who are powerful upon the Nyassa shores, have lately
come into collision with the missionaries and with the
African Lakes Company, which, obtaining some support
not only from all sections of Scotch Presbyterians, and
from the Universities Mission of the Church of England,
but more or less from all the missionary bodies, have a
powerful combination at their backs. We have ourselves,
in the past, laid down the principle that arms should not
be introduced into Central Africa, and when lately, upon
several occasions, we have had to ask the Portuguese to
allow the passage of arms for use by British subjects upon
the Nyassa, they not unnaturally have placed some diffi-
culties in the way, but have ended by allowing them to pass.
Portuguese The Portuguese . have conventions with France and
claims. ^ i i
brermany which recognise m some measure the claim of
Portugal to stretch from sea to sea ; but these Powers
point out to us that they have merely recognised Portugal
as against themselves, or, in other words, have stated to
Portugal that it is not their intention to interfere with
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 177
her in this sphere, but have not presumed to settle
questions of right between ourselves and the Portuguese.
Upon our side we are able to contend that the con-
ventions of Portugal with France and Germany, so far
from causing difficulty to us, may make things easy
for the expansion of British influence towards the
north, as it is difficult for Portugal to seriously attempt
to hold territories where no Portuguese official is ever
seen, while the conventions have the effect of preventing
Germany from herself standing in our way. But for the
question of access to the coast the interior is of far more
importance than the low-lying lands, for the malaria
makes the latter all but uninhabitable by whites. More-
over, in whatever hands the coast may be, there can be
no doubt that the trade will belong to the Hindoo and
Mohammedan subjects of the British Crown, and that
goods sold will be chiefly goods of British or Indian
manufacture.
While it is certain that Portugal will have to come German
c . claims.
to terms with us as to the free navigation of the
Zambesi, and with regard also to a route northwards
to the Nyassa, and so to Lake Tanganyika, there may
be more difficulty in making an arrangement with
Germany as to the district lying between the latter
lake and the Victoria Nyanza, and allowing of through
communication between our north-eastern and our
southern spheres of influence. It is perhaps lucky
that there is a good deal of room in Africa, and that
white men there are as yet few in number, inasmuch as
there is some chance that these questions may be settled
by negotiation before they lead to actual conflict upon
the spot. When the offer of our Arab friends at
Zanzibar, to make over to us the whole of their dominions,
was refused, it was declined only on the ground that our
VOL.. II N
1 7 8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
interest on the Zanzibar coast and the lakes behind it
was so well established that no Government would
dispute it. Not only, however, do we seem to have
lost to Germany on the east coast a territory as
large as Egypt or Algeria or Morocco, and on the west
coast, at the Cameroons, a door to the Soudan, but
we have to take care in the south that our Northern
Bechuanaland sphere of influence is not curtailed. I
have already described, in the chapter on South Africa,
a Portuguese map of Africa ; but it is also interesting to
contrast the German and the British maps. The former
extend the eastern boundary of German Damaraland to
Bamangwato and to the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi,
and it is possible that we may be one day told that the
African Niagara was named, not after a Queen of Great
Britain and Ireland, but after a German Empress. The
German map-makers leave us but a narrow neck of
Khama's Land to connect our Bechuanaland protectorate
with our Matabeleland " in terest^ sphere." So general
has been the " scramble " of the last five years that in
the whole of Africa south of the equator the only bit
which is at present recognised by map-makers as truly
belonging to the dark-skinned races is a tiny morsel,
about one-third the size of the South African Eepublic,
which lies in the dangerous neighbourhood of " German
East Africa," Portuguese Mozambique, and the Congo
State, but which is crossed by our own road of the future,
already known to the African Lakes Company as the
Stevenson Eoad, between the Nyassa and Tanganyika
lakes. Even this patch too is included in the territory
dealt with at the Berlin Conference as within the control
of the European diplomatic world, and is not unlikely
to be handed over to a British chartered company.
As upon the north-east, so upon the west of Africa,
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 179
England has no reason to feel dissatisfied with the share The west
which she has obtained in the recent " scramble." Upon C<
the Lower Niger we have a sphere of influence which
affords as valuable a route towards the centre of the
continent as that offered by our East African sphere ;
and upon the coast we hold in our old colonies some of
the best trade stations of the continent. Of the total
present external trade of Africa the United Kingdom and
British India have almost one-half, and France, which
shares with us the best stations of the west, comes next
with a quarter of the trade.
Of the old colonies not much needs to be here said.
The Gambia has indeed been cut off from the interior The
by recent extensions of French territory, and can never G!
receive much development. Sierra Leone, the Gold sierra
Coast, and Lagos, though valuable, are territories of coast
no large possibilities, and the greatest British interests Lagos<
of the future on the West Coast are those which
concern our protectorate of the basin of the Lower
Niger. Our West Coast settlements do a consider-
able trade with England, but also a large trade with
Hamburg and with Marseilles. The Gambia sends
its products more freely to France than to ourselves,
and Lagos appears to export its produce more largely
to Germany than to the United Kingdom, according
to the tables of Sir Kawson Eawson, although it is
not quite certain that the figures are exact. We have
not, it would seem, fully done our duty in our old settle-
ments of the West Coast, which possess no railroads,
although the Portuguese, who are looked upon as the
most backward of European powers having settlements in
Africa, are constructing railroads in their West African
possessions, as are the French. The climate, no doubt,
makes government and progress difficult ; but the French
i8o PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
and the Portuguese have also a bad climate to contend
with on the coast, and, as the interior is more healthy,
the very unhealthiness of the low-lying tract is an addi-
tional reason, besides those of trade, for pushing on
inland communication. On the other hand, the French
have spent national money freely upon Senegambia, while
the Imperial Parliament is not likely to follow the
example by entering on a fresh course of national ex-
penditure on Sierra Leone. Still, it seems strange,
looking to the fact that at a short distance from the
coast there are vast tracts of grassy country, high, and
not unhealthy, that the people who have made the success
of Northern Queensland as a cattle country should not
have started cattle stations ; and the secret must be found
in the dread of that Mohammedan invasion from the
north, which, although it has avoided the coast tracts
where the Arab cavalry cannot act, has conquered the
inland country. We have, however, upon the coast
a large force of Mohammedan negroes doing excel-
lent service in our military police, and the English-
man or Dutchman of the Cape, or the Englishman of
Queensland, would have taken them on a long journey
into the interior. The West African colonies must have
been paralysed by the feebleness of Government, caused
by the unhealthiness of the coast tracts from which that
Government has been conducted. The settlements have
been looked upon as mere trading stations, and planting
has not been largely pursued upon the coast, nor cattle-
raising in the interior, and as the French sweep round
the back country, defeating/ the Mohammedan invaders,
our coast settlements, unless extended inland, must be
starved.
The Niger. The Eoyal Niger Company, as it has been called
since the date of its charter, formerly the National
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 181
African Company, already carries on a large but not-
very profitable trade, limited only by an amount of
hostility and suspicion existing between the company
and the German traders, which is happily unknown else-
where. The Lower Niger forms so valuable a portion
of our new fields of activity in Africa that the recogni-
tion of the British company, as in exclusive possession
of the Niger trade, by the Conference at Berlin, was to
us one of the most useful outcomes of that meeting.
The freeing of the navigation of the Lower Niger by
the Conference is no loss to us, as we only seek for a fair
field ; but the freeing of the Congo in a fashion still more The Congo,
complete is a gain to us inasmuch as France and the Congo
State, which have ousted Portugal from her historic place
upon the Congo, are now bound to give us there that
fair field for which we ask. It may be said that the
Congo State, at least, would by its constitution always
have given freedom ; but we know how near its territories
have once already been to passing into the hands of
France, and it is far from unlikely that at some future
time they may pass to either France or Germany, and
but for the Berlin Act they might easily have become,
like Senegal, subject to protectionist legislation. The
House of Commons took a short-sighted view when it
refused to accept pur treaty with Portugal, recognising
the historic Portuguese claims upon the Congo, and pro-
viding for the virtual freedom of trade, because there
was every reason to suspect at the moment that the
choice lay between Portugal under her treaty with us
and an unfettered France, which means a protectionist
France. Germany at the Conference at Berlin saved us
from the ill consequences of the Manchester dislike of
Portugal.
The Oil rivers, so called from their export of palm
1 82 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
The Oil oil, are those rivers or branches of rivers which lie
between the British colony of Lagos and the German
protectorate of the Cameroons. The greater portion of
the country is the delta of the Niger. The main stream
of the Niger and a good deal of the country on either side
of it are under the administration of the chartered com-
pany ; but the greater portion of the delta and the
whole of the remainder of the country between the
boundary of Lagos and the boundary of the German
protectorate are administered by British consular officers
under various Orders in Council.
On the whole, our commercial position upon the
West Coast is satisfactory, and if the King of the
Belgians should succeed in his attempt to develop the
Congo region, it is certain that the greater portion of
the trade will fall to our own share.
spheres of In dealing with protectorates and with territories
become within the sphere of British influence, or included within
tne territorial limits named in charters to British subjects,
we must contemplate the possible future hoisting of the
British fla g b 7 tlie Imperial Government in all of
them. Protectorates of uncivilised countries tend
to become national territory ; spheres of influence tend
to become protectorates ; and chartered companies
sooner or later get into trouble and are absorbed.
The difficulty of dealing with offences committed by
foreigners against natives, which was the reason for
rapidly converting the protectorate of New Guinea
into annexation, operates powerfully in all parts of the
world. The only class of protectorate which is free
from considerable difficulty is that exercised over
countries possessing settled government, such as Johore
and Sarawak. At one time the set of opinion was against
chartered companies, and the old English system under
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 183
which not only had companies of adventurers occupied
great portions of what are now the United States, but
others had founded, in the Hudson Bay Company and
the East India Company, bodies of immense power which
lasted to our time became all but extinct. The fashion
now sets the other way, and while we have lately
granted charters to four new companies, the Ger-
man Government have handed over the whole of their
quarter of New Guinea to one company, the German
East African sphere of influence to another, and Damara-
land to a third. It has been reserved for our time
to try the experiment of the occupation of vast terri-
tories by a sort of colony of no known nationality, ob-
taining by treaty a nationality for itself; and if it be
possible to secure the continued existence of the Congo
State, and to prevent the ultimate absorption of its
dominions by sale to France, the experiment will well
suit the interests of Great Britain. The territories of
the Congo State, as well as those annexed by Germany,
Portugal, and France in the same neighbourhood, are
declared by the powers to be free from import duties
and from the possibility of differential treatment of the
subjects of particular states, and form, therefore, a vast
district in which British traders will receive all that they
demand " a fair field and no favour." The fact that
the Germans have complained of the non-observance by
our Niger Company of somewhat similar stipulations
shows, however, that difficulties may arise which would
have been avoided if we had ourselves accepted the pro-
tectorate offered us of the whole coast at that time
claimed by Zanzibar, and the sovereignty of the
Cameroons, and carried through our Congo Treaty made
with Portugal a weak power, amenable to our influence.
There can be no two parts of the world more different
1 84 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
The than Africa and the Pacific islands, but since 1885,
Pacific. ag j k ave s j lown? the same fate has attended both, and
partition between England, Germany and France has
gone on fast until almost every island in the Pacific has
been coloured by the map-makers with the tints which
denote protectorate or annexation, or has been the
subject of agreements between the powers. The
countries dealt with in the Pacific are geographically
small, but they have, -owing to considerations connected
with naval warfare and with the coaling and telegraph
requirements of trade, a special importance of their own.
Had the Australian colonies combined freely among
themselves ; had New South Wales and New Zealand,
which do the largest trade with the Pacific, joined the
Federal Council of Australasia when it first came into
existence, it may be safely asserted that our share in the
partition would have been larger than it is ; but just as
in Central Africa we have secured through German
action that advantage of the absence of differential
duties which may render us indifferent to actual geo-
graphical extension, so in the Western Pacific a
similar immunity has been secured as between Germany
and the United Kingdom by an agreement between
those two powers. The right to trade freely in the
German islands is one which may become to us of
considerable importance, for New Ireland and New
Britain which have been born again as New Han-
over, New Mecklenburg, and New Pomerania, in the
Bismarck Archipelago, attached to Kaiser Wilhelm
Land or German New Guinea are islands of great
value. It is curious that, in the recent division
of the Admiralty group, the Solomon group, and the
Louisiade Archipelago, Germany has obtained the islands
with English names, and England the islands with
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 185
French names ; but New Ireland and New Britain were
better worth taking than the Louisiades. Australians
should remember that there is still some danger of the
French seizing the unoccupied portion of the southern
isles, inasmuch as they lay claim to them by right of
discovery, and are being strongly urged by the New
Caledonian colonists to dispute the possession of those
in which no British settlements as yet exist.
I have already mentioned some of the circumstances New
connected with our annexation of south-eastern New
Guinea. It is a country with an unhealthy coast, and
has been annexed apparently to content Australian feel-
ing and in order to protect the natives against outrages
on the part of white men. We have long had in the
Pacific a High Commissioner with elaborate powers ;
but the system of jurisdiction has been a failure,
and international agreement for the Pacific, as for
Africa, ought to have been resorted to a long time ago,
for a frank agreement between Great Britain, Germany,
France, and the United States would have been the
means of preventing much crime, and much suffering to
the natives. The difficulty is as to jurisdiction over
foreigners. White criminals always declare that they
are foreign, and it is difficult to prove to what nation-
ality they belong, and impossible, without annexation
and consequent rights of sovereignty, to punish them.
The British Parliament has passed more than one Act
for the protection of Pacific islanders, and the High
Commissioner is armed with a code of portentous magni-
tude ; but his jurisdiction in New Guinea under the
protectorate was so complete a failure that annexation
became necessary almost at once. Protectorates may,
as has been pointed out, be useful in the case of
countries possessing settled government, in order to
1 86 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
prevent annexation by other powers ; but they are use-
less in cases where we have to deal, as in New Guinea,
only with a tribal system. Our present government of
south-east New Guinea must be looked upon as an
interesting experiment ; it is paid for by the Australians
of Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales, but
they cannot be said at present to get much for their
money. The great Tamate (the Eev. Mr. Chalmers) is
all-powerful, and he has declared that, while he is as
anxious as the Australians to keep out the foreigner,
the country is not suited for white settlement, and that
the coast is unhealthy and densely inhabited by natives,
who possess a system of settled cultivation. We have
indeed in New Guinea fully recognised the right of the
native inhabitants to the soil, and we seem occupied in
trying to undo the recollection of the deeds of the white
ruffians who in the past have sullied our fame by acts of
cruelty. At the same time there have been two recent
attacks on British parties by the natives upon the main-
land, and the Governor has been forced to hang a
number of the inhabitants.
FIJI. In Fiji we have adopted a somewhat different system.
We have imported immigrants, and we have introduced
a culture system, worked through the chiefs, which has
produced considerable trade results, but is of doubtful
political wisdom. Still, even in Fiji we have given great
powers, by the institution of village, district, and pro-
vincial councils, to the native race, and may claim to
have conferred upon them a fairer chance for life than
is extended to Polynesians by the French or Germans.
If we contrast the manner in which we have treated the
natives of Fiji with that in which the French have dealt
with the natives in New Caledonia, which lies in the
direct line between Fiji and Queensland, we shall see that
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 187
the French, as has been shown by Mr. Julian Thomas,
who is friendly to them, have displayed utter disregard
of any native rights or property, seizing the fertile
valleys in which the natives had their arable settlements ;
while we have recognised native property. It is not
strange that the natives of the Pacific islands should
detest the " We-wes," as they call the French. Through-
out the Pacific the Polynesian race is dwindling under
contact with the whites. In the Fiji group we keep out
liquor and forbid war, but, in spite of the trouble that
we have taken with regard to sanitation, European
epidemics are committing frightful ravages among the
population. Fiji is, as regards plantation, a favoured
land, because able to grow tropical crops of the most
varied kinds, and crops for which the neighbourhood of
Australia and New Zealand will give in future, as for
those of Mauritius, a ready market. We were, no doubt,
forced to annex Fiji which we did very much against
our will, for it was before the commencement of the
annexation period of the last four years by the fact
that the islands had become, as New Zealand had been
many years before, the Alsatia of the Pacific. We are
able to show in some points excellent results, for,
although the natives may be declining in numbers, they
seem happy enough, and the white population has
become one of a very different kind from that which, on
the whole, disgraced the islands a few years ago.
I said in Greater Britain that in the relations of Future of
. Tiii ic PI the Pacific-
America to Australia lay the key to the iuture 01 the
Pacific, and the Americanisation of Hawaii the most
important group of islands in Polynesia, and one
by its central situation destined to become more and
more flourishing as time goes on as well as the recent
action of the United States with regard to Samoa, go to
1 88 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
show that I was not far wrong. Germany in 1868 had
hardly been heard of as a Pacific power, but even now
her hold upon the islands that are mainly under German
influence is rather commercial than political, and caused
by the enterprise of the Hamburg houses, which, at the
time when Greater Britain appeared, already had their
branches in the Western Pacific. We may possibly one
day obtain by exchange New Caledonia, which lies in
the very centre of the sphere of British influence in the
Western Pacific, or, at all events, bring about the
neutralisation of the group with stipulations against
differential duties, and that cessation of transportation
for which we have successfully bargained with the
Germans. Australia and New Zealand and Fiji form
neighbours too powerful for the continued independence
of the French settlement in their midst, unless it should
become wholly harmless, after the manner in which the
French settlements in the neighbourhood of Calcutta
and Madras and in other parts of India have been
brought within the British Indian system.
Protector- While at one end of the Malay Archipelago we have
Malay Ar- annexed south-eastern New Guinea, at the other end
we j iave obtained a dominant position in the northern
portion of the island of Borneo. The first of the modem
charters to great trading companies for the occupation
of territorial dominions, as I have pointed out, was that
granted by Mr. Gladstone's second administration to the
British North Borneo Company in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of our island colony of Labuan. More recently
we have obtained protectorates over Brunei and Sara-
wak, chiefly for the purpose of preventing the possibility
of the interference of any foreign power in those
countries, which lie close to our great commercial settle-
ment of Singapore and upon the track of our Australian
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 189
trade through Torres Straits. In the Malay peninsula,
off which Borneo lies, we have also recently undertaken
the protectorate already, in fact, virtually ours before
that time of Johore and other of the Malay states.
The western states, which face India and lie upon our
track of trade, have long been within our influence ; but
our direct action in the north-eastern Malay country is
more recent. The extraordinary development of trade
at Singapore is a matter rather for statisticians than for
me, except as regards mere mention ; but I may point
out the not altogether encouraging fact that the increase
appears to be with foreign countries (and with our
colonies and dependencies) rather than with ourselves.
Our great success in the Malay peninsula has lain in
enlisting upon our side the warm and even enthusiastic
co-operation of the Chinese. We may congratulate
ourselves upon the fact that, while the French have
failed to sufficiently conciliate the Chinese race to induce
them to confer prosperity upon the French colonies in
Further India, we, on the contrary, have tempted the
Chinese to settle in the Malay peninsula now for many
generations. I have seen Chinese magistrates at
Penang whose ancestors have been magistrates there
since immediately after the foundation of our settlement
one hundred and five years ago, and who have com-
pletely identified themselves with the interests of Great
Britain. The latest of the Malay states to come within
the circle of our protection has been Pahang, which
will follow Perak and the others in the growth of culti-
vation and of trade. In no part of the world can
we point to more obvious results from good govern-
ment than throughout the Malay peninsula, where Eng-
land in fact presides over a federation of Malay princes
to whom we have taught the arts of success, but to
190 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
whose former subjects we have added a vast immigrant
population of Chinese. In Upper Burmah, recently
annexed to India, the Chinese are pushing their way at
every centre of activity. They have flowed into the
country since our troops have occupied it, and many of
them have married Burmese women, who much prefer
to be kept in plenty by the Chinamen to being the
drudges of men of their own race. The future of the
Burmese Provinces of India, as that of Malaya, lies in
the development of great natural mineral and agricul-
tural wealth by patient Chinese labour.
Policy of In summing up what we have discovered with regard
of Territory * our new protectorates and our recent annexations, we
sibiiTt P n kave ^en to note ^ iat unt ^ a bout 1884 we had for
some time almost consistently refused offers of territory
which had been pressed upon us. Lord Palmerston had
declined such gifts as firmly as had Mr. Disraeli or Mr.
Gladstone. The semi-annexation of Cyprus was defended
solely upon military grounds. In the case of Fiji the
annexation had been forced upon us, as had, at an earlier
time, the annexation of New Zealand, by the impossibility
of putting down ruffianism in any other way. The grant
of a charter to the North Borneo Company had been a
remarkable exception to the rule of abstention from fresh
responsibilities, and, to judge from the debate which
occurred in the House of Commons upon the subject,
Mr. Gladstone himself was, although Prime Mioister,
personally as much opposed to the grant of the North
Borneo charter as he had been to the annexation of Fiji.
While Mr. Gladstone minimised the effect of the charter
in his speech, Mr. Arthur Balfour and Mr. (now
Sir John) Gorst condemned it. The Conservatives,
who had refused to ratify the treaties by which the
centre of Africa had been conferred upon us by the
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 191
explorer of the Congo, seemed by no means anxious
to censure the Liberals for refusing the immediate
possession of Zanzibar as a protectorate, or the rever-
sion of that country as a colony. But the quarrel
between the Colonial Office and the Australians over
the annexation of that half of New Guinea which has
since been divided between the Germans and ourselves,
and the action of Germany at that moment in the Pacific
and at Angra Pequena, coming after that of France
in Tunis, Madagascar, and Tonquin, brought about a
sudden change of feeling which could not but influence
the politicians upon both sides. A necessary change of
policy followed on the discovery that Germany and
France appeared to intend to lay hands between them
upon almost all those territories in the globe which did
not belong to the European races. The movement of
Germany and France seemed to foreshadow the possi-
bility of large markets being gradually closed to our
trade by paper annexations, followed, certainly in the
case of France, and probably in the long-run in that of
Germany, by the imposition of differential duties.
M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, who has discussed the whole
question with much fulness of detail in his work on
modern colonisation, has argued that the "foundation
of a great African empire and of a lesser Asiatic empire
is the only great enterprise which destiny permits
us," that is, to France. "At the beginning of the
twentieth century Eussia will have one hundred and
twenty millions of prolific inhabitants occupying enor-
mous spaces ; sixty millions of Germans, supported by
thirty millions of Austrians, will dominate Central
Europe. One hundred and twenty millions of Anglo-
Saxons will occupy the finest countries in the world, and
will all but impose on civilised man their tongue, which
192
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
is already dominant at the present day in territories
inhabited by more than three hundred millions of men.
Place by these great peoples the Chinese Empire, which
by that time without doubt will recover a new life. By
the side of these giants what will be France ? Of the
great part which she has played in the past, of the
influence, often decisive, which she has exercised over
the direction of the civilised peoples of the world, what
will remain ? A memory, dying day by day. . . . Either
France will become a great African power or, in a
century or two, she will be only a secondary European
power; she will count in the world about as Greece
or Roumania counts in Europe." Under the influence
of these sentiments even moderate and reasonable
men, like the author we have been quoting, have been
driven, first in France and then in Germany, to think
it necessary to hoist the national flag upon all the
"unoccupied" countries of the globe. M. Paul Leroy-
Beaulieu is so honest that he left standing in the last
edition of his book, in the text, his proof of how much
better it would have been, even for the English in India,
to have only held trading stations and not to have
established political authority, and in his note the
diametrical and admitted contradiction by himself of his
own views. In the text he said : " Taught by the errors
of our fathers, become ourselves more practical and more
moderate, less taken with the idea of a false glory, more
respectful of the principles of justice, we are trying to
found in the East, on a policy of good faith, of European
solidarity, and of non-intervention in native affairs, that
commerce which it was formerly thought possible
to establish and to develop by deceit, violence, and
oppression only." In his note he says : " We reproduce
without change the opinion given by us in the first
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 193
edition. But we must not hide the fact that our ideas
have undergone a modification. We approve the
principle that the European nations should establish
an effective rule in the countries of peoples who are
either barbarous or have fallen into anarchy, and have
not th ; principle of regular and progressive government."
Henc|M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, who once talked of the
French becoming "more respectful of the principles of
justice," became himself the apologist of the attempted
conquest of Madagascar and destruction of the inde-
pendence of a most interesting black Christian people
who were trying the experiment of self-government
with every prospect of success. England could not well
but follow the lead given, as she has done since 1884,
and a more monotonous uniformity than would otherwise
have existed has been prepared for the twentieth
century.
Starting as we did after France and Germany to take Value of
part in the " scramble " in the Pacific and in Africa, we hav*
have not been less successful than those powers, and, as ot
far as our present knowledge goes, have no reason to be
dissatisfied with the regions which we have appropriated,
or those over which we have proclaimed our influence
or granted charters. Our South African "sphere"
seems better suited for European settlement than is the
Tunisian protectorate of France ; and the territories
included in the charters of the three new tropical com-
panies are probably about the richest tropical countries in
the world. If, as regards East Africa, it is still a puzzle
why Lord Salisbury so easily abandoned the Sultan of
Zanzibar, looking to the virtual protectorate over his
dominions which we had long ago assumed, it may
nevertheless be admitted that our share, although smaller,
is better than the German, and that the doors which we
VOL. II
i 9 4 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
have gained to the African lakes give us the fairest
possible opening to the interior. It is nevertheless
difficult to restrain a feeling of regret that in African
partition we have been forced to follow France and
Germany upon a path which we had in former times
deliberately abandoned. The Germans already, both in
Western Africa at the Cameroon s and in East Africa
on the Zanzibar coast, have had to fight the natives,
who, formerly glad to receive foreign travellers bringing
foreign trade, are now banded together against all white
men, to defend their country from seizure. It is hard
to say what reply we can make to those who charge us
with having taken away the territory of others ; with
giving to France and Germany that which was not ours
to give ; and with receiving, in other cases, by agree-
ment with Germany and France, that which was not
theirs to bestow upon us. It is easy, no doubt, to say
that the native tribes have not made the best use of
their own countries. Perhaps we have not made the best
use of our own either ; but when we speak of bringing
the blessings of civilisation to these peoples, we must
remember that we are not dealing with small savage
tribes wandering about over an enormous country,
like the Australian aborigines, or even with hunting
tribes, somewhat more numerous, like the Indians of
North America, but with a dense settled village popula-
tion, having its own municipal and general government ;
and that these people will not even work for us, but
will have to make room as labourers for the Hindoos
who will follow in our train. The only excuse that we 1
can make is that if we had not laid hands upon their
territory France or Germany would have done so.
At the Berlin Conference we even failed to prevent the
destruction of the natives by an unchecked liquor traffic.
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 195
If we turn from the new protectorates and spheres ow Crown
of influence from Africa and from the Pacific, full of
the possibilities of the future to the Crown Colonies
that have long been ours, we may begin by passing over
for the present those which, like Gibraltar, are merely
naval or military stations, and must be named later The
. . . Military
when we consider imperial defence, and those which, like stations.
Singapore and Hong -Kong, are partly naval stations Naval and
and partly trade posts, possessing vast commercial P os ts e
importance but little territory. Some of the Crown
Colonies, like the Falkland Islands, are too limited in
population and resources, some, like Heligoland, are too
small, to possess much interest from a governmental
point of view, although even the least important of our
dependencies, such, for example, as Pitcairn Island and
Tristan d'Acunha, lost in ocean solitudes, make up for
their smallness by the romance of the history of their
settlement.
During the last few years there has been dis- The West
cernible a certain revival of interest in the old Crown
Colonies, and the rapid growth of that interest is due,
in no small degree, to Mr. Froude, whose writings
on the West Indies have excited controversy. On
the other side there have appeared from the pen
of Mr, Salmon several volumes which have been
largely circulated by the Cobden Club, and a book
by a gentleman of colour the late Mr. Thomas.
The West Indies, by Mr. Washington Eves, 1 may
be looked upon as impartial. In these works and ,
others, of which the latest in date have been called into
existence by The English in the West Indies of Mr.
Froude, the relations that subsist between the Govern-
1 Sampson Low and Co., 1889. (Published under the auspices of
the Royal Colonial Institute.)
I 9 6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
merit and the people, the methods of administration,
and the system of taxation in force in Crown Colonies,
have been discussed. It is to be hoped that the result
of some effort to understand will be a corresponding effort
to redress the grievances of which complaint is made in
the West Indies, and to prepare the way for changes
which will prove of social and economic advantage to
these colonies.
Results of After the loss of cheap labour by the abolition of
emancipa- g j aver y fa e blight or the curse of the former system lay
upon the planters, who seemed stunned, and wholly
unable to strike out new methods, while the emanci-
pated negro showed, and indeed still in a great measure
manifests to this day, disinclination to labour upon
the large estates. In his mind such work is, and not
unnaturally, associated with the bitter memories of the
past. Another matter which told against the planter,
though it benefited the West Indian merchant, was a
priority given by the Encumbered Estates Court to the
lien of a consignee over charges previously laid on the
estate, a point to which great importance is attached by
Mr. Salmon. Capital was driven away from the West
Indies by this provision, inasmuch as no sufficient
security could be obtained for advances upon mortgage.
It was only in 1886, long after the steed was stolen,
that the stable door was shut and the liens of consignees
finally abolished. In the meantime efforts had been
made to reduce the cost of production by the importa-
cooiie tion of Indian coolies, an immigration which had the
tiT. lgr ' effect of somewhat interfering with the well-being of the
negro population, but from the planter's point of view
met with success, as it produced a period of comparative
prosperity. A fresh depression was soon, however,
brought about by a fall in the price of sugar caused by
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 197
increased competition on the part of the beetroot-growing Beetroot
countries of the Continent of Europe.
It would be of little use to discuss at length the The sugar
probable effects of the passing of a Bill founded on the tioT en
Sugar Convention of 1888-89, inasmuch as there seems
but little prospect of such a measure becoming law. If it
should at any time do so, we should soon find ourselves
engaged in commercial warfare, not only with France,
but even possibly with New South Wales and some
other of our self-governing colonies, to which we should
be forced to apply differential treatment, on account of
their very probable refusal to accept the Convention.
As regards the West Indies, legislation based on the
Convention would confer an immediate boon on the
owners of sugar estates, but it is not altogether certain
whether the advantage would long continue. If, under
such laws, England were to direct differential duties
against the goods of the United States the chief
market for West Indian sugar, as well as the largest
market for West Indian fruit and other produce
retaliation would be the inevitable consequence, and the
last state of our West Indian colonies would be worse
by far than their present condition. The depression in Process of
the West Indian sugar trade, while, no doubt, in partScture.
due to the existence of bounties upon beet sugar, is also
in some degree accounted for by the failure on the part
of many planters to adopt the best methods of cultiva-
tion and the most recent improvements in machinery.
Where the planters have moved with the times as, for
example, in British Guiana they have, comparatively British
speaking, prospered.
In St. Lucia, loveliest of lovely islands, the Govern- The st.
i Lucia ex-
ment of the colony have tried for some years past the
plan of taking a large pecuniary interest (30,000 worth
I 9 8
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
of shares) in a central sugar factory an imitation of a
policy which has long prevailed in the French island of
Martinique. The experiment in St. Lucia has been a
financial success, and other islands are expressing a
desire for the introduction of similar establishments. It
may be doubted whether, as a general principle, the
Governments of the West Indian colonies should be
encouraged to share in enterprises of a speculative nature,
the failure of which would be attended with deplorable
consequences to the community as a whole. The present
benefit, however, to the planters of St. Lucia is incon-
testable, for, like those of the other islands, they had
continued to use small and antiquated machinery, instead
of combining together, as we have seen is the custom in
Queensland, to send the sugar to one large factory, fitted
with the most recent improvements of all kinds. It is
stated upon good authority that the amount of sugar
extracted from cane might easily be increased by a large
percentage, were means adopted analogous to those
which have been employed in the case of beetroot.
Mauritius. If we turn from the West Indies to another sugar-
growing colony, we find that in Mauritius a strong
demand has arisen for imperial aid in the form of the
systematic diffusion of information relating to sugar
manufacture, and of the sending out of men of science
who have turned their attention to the recent inventions
and discoveries connected with the sugar industry. The
same result that is looked for might perhaps be attained
if a larger number of planters would send their sons to
Europe to study the progress which has been made.
The Mauritian planters have derived from the existence
of a silver standard a slight temporary advantage, inas-
much as in the British " Isle of France " the planters
have been able to pay their labourers in the depreciated
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 199
rupee, while selling at least a portion of their sugar in
markets where the standard of value is gold. That
advantage, however, which cannot last long, has been
neutralised by a certain exhaustion of the soil.
Although sugar still constitutes the staple product other
of several of the British West Indian colonies, such as colonial
Barbados and British Guiana, it no longer occupies the P roducts -
position of universal predominance which it once held.
Cacao competes with sugar in the large plantations of Cacao.
Trinidad and other islands, while in Grenada it takes
the foremost place. Jamaica and Dominica possess vast
resources, as yet almost wholly undeveloped, and, while
coffee cultivation may be extended, there is a possible
future for many of the islands in the growth of cigar
tobacco upon the low grounds, and of tea in the moun-
tain districts. As tea has partly replaced coffee in
Ceylon, and fibre, under the auspices of Sir Ambrose
Shea, is making the prosperity of Bahamas, so in the
West Indies also a transformation of estates as regards
their produce is now in progress. Oranges, bananas,
and other fruits, mostly sent to the United States, form
the chief articles of export from Jamaica. In Mont-
serrat the lime reigns supreme, and in British Honduras
logwood and mahogany, though fruit cultivation is fast
extending.
The rapid increase in the growth of fruit production Fruit
has been partly caused by that depression of the sugar
industry to which I have referred, and is in part also
the result of the division of property among negro Negro
peasant owners, to whom fruit growing presents no proprietors.
difficulty. As has been well shown by Mr. Morris (in an
admirable paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute),
to the late Sir Anthony Musgrave belongs the credit
of pushing the fruit trade of Jamaica, with the result of
200
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
giving an immense impulse to the prosperity of the
small landowners of that colony. The very natural
land hunger of the sons of the emancipated slaves has
led to the rise of a class of small proprietors, whose
existence seems likely to become in the British islands,
as it is already in the French, the dominant factor of
the West Indian problem. The white population of the
islands, both British and French, is on the decline ; the
black and " coloured" population is increasing upon
the whole, though in some of our own colonies there is
a falling off. But the colonies that show prosperity of
any kind exhibit an increase in the numbers of the
people seated upon the land. The great majority of the
Jamaica holdings are now under five acres each, and
four-fifths of them are under ten acres each. The
statistics do not give the number of those who work for
wages on the estates of others besides cultivating their
Crop-time, own plot of land, but except at crop-time it is not large.
If the estimate quoted by Sir George Baden-Powell and
Sir William Grossman in 1884, in the Keport of a Eoyal
Commission, be correct, " thirty days' labour on an acre
of good land in Jamaica will, in addition to providing
a family with . . . food for the year, yield a surplus
saleable in the market for from 10 to 30." It is no
wonder that, under such conditions, the small holders
who own their land, and till it by their exertions, should
thrive where great proprietors, who have to make use of
hired labour, too often fail. It is chiefly to the success
of the small holders that must be attributed the remark-
able increase in the revenue of the West Indian colonies
during the last half-century, in spite of the losses which
the planters have incurred. It has been computed by
the Kev. George Sargeant, President of the West Indian
Wesleyan Conference, that, while the revenue of the
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 201
slave colonies at the time of emancipation amounted
to less than 450,000, it had, in 1887, risen to two
millions sterling, or far more than four times as much
as in the days of slavery.
The revenue is raised mainly by means of import Taxation
duties, the burthen of which falls upon the mass of the
negro people, and were it not for the immense improve-
ment in their condition, consequent on the firm hold
which they have acquired of the land, no such increase
would have been possible.
In almost all of our Crown Colonies taxation falls upon
largely upon the necessaries of life, and were it not for
this fact we should see among their people a more con-
siderable amount of comfort and of savings, and a
greater expenditure on British manufactured goods.
Some of these colonies have also export duties, and that Export
upon articles of which they possess no monopoly ; but
the export duties of Jamaica on rum and sugar have
lately been reduced, and the export duties of Grenada
and some other West-India Islands, as well as those of
several of the colonies of the West Coast of Africa, have
been suspended or abolished.
The taxation on land in the Crown Colonies is, Taxes on
generally speaking, light. In the great island of a
Jamaica some 12,000 a year only is raised by land-tax
and property -tax together. In British Honduras a
considerable revenue is obtained by letting Crown lands
on lease, but such a system is not of general application.
It has been already stated, in the chapter on the Trade,
relations of Canada and the West Indies with the
United States, that the West Indies trade more largely
with the United States than with us. This fact
constitutes indeed a remarkable difference between
the group consisting of India, Australia, and South
202
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
Africa on the one side, and the group consisting of
Canada and the greater portion of the Crown Colonies
on the other. While the West Indies do nearly double
as much trade with foreign countries (that is, mainly
with the United States) as with the United Kingdom,
and while many other of the Crown Colonies, and the
Dominion of Canada itself, trade as largely with others
as with us, Australia and South Africa do nearly all
their trade with the United Kingdom or with the
British colonies. The intercolonial trade between Mauri-
tius and Australia is represented in the Atlantic by the
trade between Canada and the West Indies ; but although
a customs union between the latter colonies has sometimes
been proposed, it is in the United States that the West-
India Islands find the market for their commodities.
The Commission which I have already named re-
ported strongly in favour of an extended use of
" indentured " labour, and quoted the beneficial results
which had been obtained in Trinidad and Demerara as
reasons for a spread of the system. The Commissioners
Effect of believed the importation of coolie labour good not only
miration" f r the planters but for the negroes. Without immi-
negroVo- gration, the great estates, they thought, would all be
prietors. broken up, or go out of cultivation, and the negroes
would lose their harvesting work, or " crop-time " as it is
called. But the great plantations no longer form the
chief interest in the West Indies, and by the importation
of East Indian coolies the earnings of the people of the
islands are cut down, mainly for the benefit of immi-
grants with a low standard of comfort, who have no
permanent interest in the colonies. The more enlightened
Governors, such as Sir William Kobinson the Governor
of Trinidad, who must not be confused with his name-
sake the Governor of Western Australia and the late
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 203
Sir Anthony Musgrave, have done their best to dis-
courage the system.
As the government of the British West India Islands The negro
becomes with the lapse of time more democratic and these
more in the hands of the inhabitants, it is probable that que><
the Indian immigration, which seems necessary to the
cultivation of large estates in the hands of white owners,
will cease, and that the estates will be day by day
more and more cut up into smaller properties in the
hands of blacks or " coloured " people. M. de Lanessan,
who has given attention to the labour problem as it
affects Martinique and Guadeloupe, believes that Indian
immigration will in those islands speedily be sup-
pressed, with the result of breaking up the remaining
large estates ; but he considers that the change will be
for the benefit of the colonies and their people considered
as a whole. There can, indeed, be little doubt that if
the mass of the people of our West-India Islands had a
direct voice in the management of their own affairs, as
have the inhabitants of the French islands, they would
.soon remove those of their grievances which are con-
nected with the taxation upon necessaries of life, and
the artificial supply of cheap labour.
Some who think the negro unfitted for self-govern- Negro de-
ment point to Hayti : they might, however, reflect that m
Liberia presents a different picture, and that in the
French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe power is
in the hands of the " coloured " population, while the
islands prosper. The experience, indeed, of those islands
in which the negroes and " coloured " people have been
entrusted with a large share in government, and the use
which they make of representative institutions, seem to
show that their detractors are in the wrong. The
friends of the negro are able now to point to the progress
204 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
effected by West Indian peasant proprietors, to the spread
of education, to the undoubted rise in the standard of
comfort, and to the prominent place already taken by
individuals of the African race. The Chief Justice of
Barbados and the wealthiest inhabitant of Jamaica are
both what some would call "black men," and in the
West African settlements negroes are being increasingly
employed in government, with excellent results. It
stands to reason that between the interests of the large
landowners, whether resident or absentee, and the in-
terests of the peasant cultivators of the soil, points of
divergence exist, and that, owing to the almost complete
non-representation of the latter outside Barbados, their
wants and wishes have hitherto not received the atten-
tion they deserve. The example of Martinique and
Guadeloupe under French democratic institutions goes
to show that it is time that we should make trial of a
more liberal system.
Represent- The most democratic of our dependencies is Norfolk
tution s nstl Island, which is under the Governor of New South
Wales, but not a part of that colony. A popular.
Assembly, which includes every male over twenty -five
years of age, meets four times a year; and Norfolk
Island is also peculiar in another respect, for I
believe that it excludes immigrants of all kinds, un-
less they buy their way into citizenship. Bahamas,
Barbados, and Bermuda are the only Crown Colonies
in which the legislative assemblies are wholly elect-
ive at the present time, and in the former two the
franchise rests on a fairly wide base, especially in
Barbados, and the contentment of the population affords
an indication of the benefits of self-government.
The "Bims," as the people of Barbados are called,
have enjoyed representative institutions since the days
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 205
of King Charles the First, and by the free extension of
such institutions among the black majority race hatreds
have been extinguished, while race prejudices are fast
dying out in this old colony. In British Guiana there
exists a curious and complicated survival from the days
of the Dutch rule in the Court of Policy, which consti-
tutes the legislative body, and half of whose members
are nominated, while the other half are elected by a tiny
body known as " The College of Kiezers." The Kiezers
are themselves elected for life ; and the same constitu-
encies which elect them return Financial Representatives,
who, together with the Court of Policy, form the Com-
bined Court for finance. The number of electors is
very small, and the whole constitution is an oligarchic
survival from the last century, guaranteed to the Dutch
colonists by the terms of the surrender. In the majority
of the West Indian colonies the legislatures are now
nominated in their entirety by the Crown, former repre-
sentative institutions having in several cases been
only recently destroyed. In some of the islands the
legislative bodies are partly nominated and partly
elected. Several of the now extinct legislative bodies
asked for their own destruction ; and in Grenada,
where formerly the House of Assembly was wholly
elective, and afterwards altered so as to consist of
eight elected and nine nominated members, the changed
Assembly at its very first meeting voted an address
to the Queen informing Her Majesty that it had
passed a Bill providing for its own extinction, and
leaving it to Her Majesty's " wisdom and discretion " to
set up such form of government as Her Majesty might
deem most desirable. This was sudden action with a
vengeance, and such as would hardly have been taken
had the matter rested with the dark-skinned majority
2 o6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
of the population, who would have preferred to see the
representative institutions widened.
The constitutions of the three more liberal Atlantic
colonies already named bear a certain likeness to those of
Western Australia and of Natal. Sir William Kobinson,
the present Governor of Western Australia, in a lecture
which he gave at Adelaide a few years back, pointed out
that the government of an ordinary Crown Colony is a
simple matter, as is that of a colony under responsible
government, but that the intermediate form, in which the
Governor is also, in some measure, a sort of irremovable
and irresponsible Prime Minister, working through a
freely elected legislature, is most difficult to manage.
The success in practice of the mixed constitution of
Barbados is the more encouraging from this fact. The
ordinary Crown Colony system of nominated or partly
nominated legislatures, in the latter case with a high
franchise for the elected portion, is defended on the
ground of the numerical preponderance of the less
civilised over the more civilised race. The mass of
the population of the Crown Colonies properly so
called consists of negroes or of coolies, and the legislatures
represent the interests of the planters. It must not be
supposed, however, that these bodies and this class
greatly abuse their powers. If they have not done so
much as might be wished for the education of the black
majority, they are, at least, able to point with pride to
their medical care of the negro poor, and to the existence
of sanitary departments which are an honour to the
colonies. Mr. Salmon has attacked even this side of
existing Crown Colony institutions, but, right as he is
in many matters, I cannot but feel that on this head
he is in some degree mistaken.
It is contended that where representatives of the
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 207
people are elected by manhood suffrage, as is the case in in French
the French islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and
Reunion, the result has been (as it has in the Southern
States of the American Union) a recrudescence of
race hatreds, and in the French colonies the political
subjection of the whites to the men of colour. The
organisation of many of the English tropical colonies is,
indeed, of a more oligarchic type than that which now
prevails in the island colonies of France, of which the
prosperity is remarkable. While we have a certain
contempt for the French considered as a colonising people,
every English writer on the West Indies admits that the
French have been more successful in Martinique and
Guadeloupe than we have been in similar and closely
adjoining islands. M. de Lanessan has told us that
excellent results have been attained by the French of
late through frankly accepting the principle that the
" coloured " race is better suited to the West Indies than
is the white, and that France has encouraged and helped
the " coloured " people to become dominant in the French
islands. In the meantime the trade of two French
islands is, roughly speaking, one-third that of all our own,
vastly greater in size and population, and our " Dominica
stands between the two French colonies, showing," says
Mr. Eves, " a lamentable contrast to their prosperity."
The suffrage was conferred on the negroes of Martinique,
Guadeloupe, Reunion, and French Guiana in 1848 at
the time of the abolition of slavery. At the same
moment the suffrage was given to a large propor-
tion of the natives of French India. The electoral
right was in the latter case shortly afterwards taken
away, but was restored under the third Republic. The
negro electors of the French Antilles and of Reunion
speak French, are Roman Catholics, and live under
208 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART v
French laws ; but the natives of French India, as a
rule, do not speak French, and are not Christians, yet
nevertheless possess the franchise. In Tonquin and in
Algeria the suffrage has, as I have said, not been given
to the natives ; and in the protectorates such as Tunis
and Annam the French inhabitants themselves, like
the English in India, have no votes. In Cochin-Chin a
representative government is a farce, inasmuch as the
great majority of the electors are in the employment
of the French Government ; but in the French Antilles
it is a reality. In all, it may be said that four
senators and seven deputies are elected to the French
Chambers by constituencies in which power is in
the hands of the coloured or black people. Such is
the prosperity of the French West Indies that it would
seem that we are wrong in not trusting the West Indian
negroes and coloured people with a larger voice in their
own future, though it may be admitted that if the
choice lies only between Crown government and planter
Parliaments they are better off under autocratic than
they would be under oligarchic institutions.
white The white population of the West Indies has been
population. -, -in IT- -i
described as declining, and it is certainly the case that the
British population bears a smaller proportion to the white
population of the West Indies of two hundred years ago
than does the French or Dutch or Spanish population.
In Central America there are a large number of men of
Spanish race, and, in parts of the West Indies, of French
and Spanish race, whose ancestors have lived for a great
time in tropical countries without returning to their
homes in the old world. With the English this is in a
less degree the case, although there are in Bahamas
the descendants of American Loyalists who show no sign
of degeneracy of race, and a small number of whites
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 209
in the West Indies proper who are of old British race.
At the same time there is little trace to be found now
of the convict element which thronged the West Indies
before the Commonwealth. Although it is known
that as late as the time of Charles II the Council of
Foreign Plantations had under their consideration the
question " How noxious and unprofitable persons may
be transplanted to the general advantage of the public
and commodity of our foreign plantations ;" and although
great numbers of such persons were shipped to the West
Indies in the seventeenth century, yet, while the descend-
ants of some of the wealthy planters survive, the
convict race has become extinct. There is no reason to
believe that the British people are less able by nature
than the French and Spanish to live within the tropics,
but some think that their habits of life, until recently,
have not been such as to conduce to the perpetuation of
the race under circumstances of long exposure to sun-
heat. As it is, we find ourselves with several colonies
which have been ours for a considerable period, but in
which there is a large white foreign element and hardly
any English element to counterbalance it.
Complicated questions arise in Crown Colonies in crown
which a large population of European, though not
British, descent is found interposed between the English
element on the one hand and the negro and coolie element -
element on the other. This is the case in Trinidad, in Trinidad.
which a large number of Frenchmen and Spaniards are
settled, and in Dominica, where the French are strong.
In Mauritius there dwells a highly cultivated popu- Mauritius.
lation of French descent, side by side with the British
officials, and with a far larger dark-skinned population,
chiefly Hindoo, and an increasing number of Chinese
immigrants. Most of the French energetically support,
VOL. II P
aag
210 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
but many of the French planters oppose, the extension
of self-government (already partially conceded to the
rich inhabitants of Mauritius), which increases the
strength of the French element, but may lead in the
long-run to the predominance of the Asiatic races.
France and The French island of Reunion lies close to the He de
j^ance, now held by us under the name of Mauritius, and
the French pay great attention to this part of the Indian
Ocean, and have waged a war with the Hova Govern-
ment of Madagascar in order to seize, at the north point
of that island, a fine harbour, which lies half-way
between Mauritius and Zanzibar. The Patrimonio Treaty
which concluded that war is a stain on the reputation of
the third Republic : its French text wholly differs from the
Malagasy text, as the French text of the French treaties
with China for many years differed from the Chinese
text. The difference was explained away in a public
letter to the Hova Government from the French envoy ;
but the letter was disavowed in the French Chamber,
and the French text, never agreed to by the Hova Queen,
alone is recognised by France.
If, as seems probable, the French are going to make
a fortress near the easily defended bay and superb
anchorage of British Sound, or, as it is now coming to
be universally called, Diego Suarez, the possession of
Mauritius will involve the placing at Port Louis a consider-
able garrison and its becoming the centre for the opera-
tions in war-time of a formidable British fleet. As M. de
Lanessan has pointed out in his work on the colonial
expansion of France, the French possessions in and about
Madagascar "command the route of all ships sailing
upwards from the Cape of Good Hope towards the Indian
Ocean or the Pacific, and assure to France incontestable
preponderance and authority upon the east coast of
PART v CRO WN COLONIES 2 1 1
Africa." This declaration, which is well supported by
the facts, is not pleasant reading when we remember
that we could not safely run our trade through the
Mediterranean if France were hostile, arid should be
driven to make use of this very Cape route which
the able deputy of the Seine proves to be commanded
also by French establishments, the chief of which has
been lately occupied after a costly war undertaken, it
would seem, only for the purpose of securing this
dangerous point of menace to our trade. M. de
Lanessan shows in another portion of his book that
"the bay of Diego Suarez is rivalled in size only by
those of Eio de Janeiro, San Francisco, and Sydney. It
is one of the finest in the world, and one of those which
could render the greatest service to our navy as a port
for repair, and would be the most sure and impreg-
nable of war ports." The French have now a small
garrison at Diego Suarez, have removed thither the
administration of their colony of Nossi-Be, and are
engaged in making there a military port. In another
passage, again (for he returns to it in all parts of his
work on account of its importance), M. de Lanessan says
that by basing its operations upon this " impregnable "
port, " an East African fleet would be able to worry the
advance of an enemy's fleet forced to go by the Cape to
the help of Australia or of India." The " enemy " meant
must obviously be Great Britain, inasmuch as Great
Britain alone could need to go to the help " of Australia
or of India." M. de Lanessan concludes his whole view
of the subject by saying of the occupation of portions of
Madagascar : " The new establishments which we have
just founded in the East African seas are of advantage
to France not only from the resources which they will
furnish to her trade and industry, but also from the
212
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
strength which they add to her naval power." When
he discusses the position of France in " Indo-China " he
again points out that the French fleet, acting at once
from " Indo-China" and from Madagascar, would, in the
event of war " between the two greatest naval powers in
the world/' "put an end to all commercial relations
between England and India, Hong -Kong, and China,
and even menace India herself." The best French book
on the French colonies, that of M. Gaffarel (who finds it
a little difficult to defend on moral grounds the occupa-
tion of portions of Madagascar), contains these words :
"Madagascar would replace with advantage our lost
colonies. Moreover, with the exception of the still un-
known countries of Central Africa and the 'mysterious
regions of the two poles, there is no longer on the globe
any other vacant land to occupy." The gallant black
Christian people of Madagascar, it seems, do not count.
But we have to deal with facts rather than with
useless regrets, and the Government of the United
Kingdom, having offered no resistance to French
domination in Madagascar, must now face the fact
Mauritius, that both the importance of Mauritius and the difficulty
of holding it in war-time have of late enormously in-
creased. As the old authoritative system of government
has broken down in the island, it might be wiser to
make trial of a more completely elective government,
founded on a wider franchise, instead of relying mainly
on the French element as we do at present. The laws
of Mauritius are an adaptation of the Code Napoleon,
as those of British Guiana and Ceylon are founded on
Eomari-Dutch jurisprudence.
Local In many of the Crown Colonies the inhabitants have
Govern- , ,
ment nad, at all events in recent years, the advantage of the
training which results from the practice of self-govern-
PART v CRO WN COLONIES 2 1 3
ment in small areas. In the British West Indies and m the West
Atlantic islands we find, for instance, that Jamaica,
Barbados, Bermuda, Grenada, and British Guiana
possess parochial boards, of which all, or nearly all, the
members are elected, and which have power to authorise
expenditure, and, as a rule, to impose taxation for local
purposes, though the Jamaican boards are only able to
control the expenditure of funds allotted to them by
the Government of the colony. The Jamaica " parishes "
are mostly considerable districts, as there are but four-
teen of them in the large island. In Ceylon the m Ceylon,
councils of the native village communities exercise over
their own localities functions that partake at once of a
legislative, administrative, and judicial character. Even
in Fiji, as I have shown, the system of local district in Fiji,
institutions has been highly developed, and a congress
of head men, presided over by the Governor, meets
every year for the purpose of giving and taking advice,
and somewhat resembles Sir Eobert Sandeman's Durbar
of the sirdars of Baluchistan.
The tendency to unite several of our dependencies Local Con
, i federation.
under the same government, shown, lor example, since
early in 1889 in the case of Trinidad and Tobago, and
since 1848 in that of Jamaica and Turks Islands, as well
as by the formation of the Leeward Islands Confederacy,
and the grouping together of the Windward Islands,
marks an advance in the direction of increased economy
in Crown Colony rule. The various West Indian unions
and federations are of very different kinds, but generally
speaking, in the union of islands, while the smaller
island has a local government, and is separate as regards
revenue, expenditure, and debt, the laws of the larger
apply to it.
The Leeward Islands, which had enjoyed a federal
214 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
The constitution from the time of William and Mary up to
isian^ the end of the last century, were again constituted a
Confeder- s j n g] e f e d era l colony by an imperial Act in the time of
Mr. Gladstone's first administration. -It consists of
five Presidencies, of which the chief is the group con-
taining St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla, united in 1882
under the name of " St. Christopher (St. Kitts)-Nevis,"
which pays six of the sixteenths into which the common
charges of the federation are divided. Next comes
Antigua, which includes the island of Barbuda as
a dependency, and which pays five-sixteenths, contains
the seat of government and of the legislature, has a
partly representative constitution, and returns elected
members to the general or federal legislature. Other
members of the federation are Dominica (three-six-
teenths), Montserrat, and the Virgin Islands. The
colony has power to alter its constitution by an ordinary
Act, and the Crown has power to include in the federa-
tion any other West Indian colony upon an address
from both Councils concerned. As in the case of the
Federal Council of Australasia, there are two classes of
questions with which the federal legislature may deal :
those given to it by the statutory constitution, and
those referred to it by the local governing bodies. Many
of the local Acts may be repealed or amended by the
federal legislature, and all of them are void if they
conflict with the laws of the general body, so that the
constitution is hardly one which would suit colonies
with responsible government, as questions of legality
would be certain to arise.
wtdward ThYQQ f the Windwar <l Islands Grenada, St. Lucia,
islands, and St. Vincent are now under one Governor-in-Chief,
and possess, as West Indians put it, "one lunatic
asylum and one Court of Appeal/' but have no federal
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 215
legislative body. Sir Walter Sendall, who has just given
up the government of the group for that of Barbados, is
the excellent official Natal refused to receive because he
was supposed to be likely to be placed under the control
of the Governor of the Cape ; and another West Indian
government that of Jamaica is also admirably ad-
ministered by another rejected Governor, Sir Henry
Blake.
Mr. Salmon, in his " Plan for the Union of the fifteen West
British West Indian Colonies," has thrown the weight Federation
of his official experience on the side of confederation.
At the same time, in the case of the Leeward Islands
the results are not so satisfactory as might have been
anticipated, and in West Africa attempts to connect
settlements have been abortive. If a scheme for the
establishment of a British West Indian Confederacy is
ever worked out in practice, it will be necessary to
interfere as little as possible with the elements of self-
government already existing in the various colonies, and
to rest the federal government upon those Provincial
systems, after having reformed and developed them.
The difficulties in the way of complete West Indian
federation are considerable, but not too great to be
overcome, and not greater than those which were
conquered by the founders of the Canadian Dominion.
The local jealousies are as fierce as those of the chief
Australian colonies ; there is no West Indian Rome to
which West Indian Turins and Milans can give way.
Most of the islands have a noble history of their own,
and they are unwilling to merge their individuality
in a new country. There is a fear of being taxed for
the benefit of the island in which the federal legis-
lature may sit or the Governor live. There are local
paid offices to be absorbed, and local councillors who
216 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
may suffer loss of dignity. There is the inevitable
struggle to be faced as to whether the federal assembly
should be nominated or elective. On the other hand,
there would be financial economy in a complete scheme,
and chances of development which are lacking now ;
and the islands would be better able to find the few
statesmen, white, black, and " coloured," who would
be needed for their government as a group, than they
are to produce the highest level of governing power in
the hordes of councillors who are now needed. It is
possible that the informal negotiations between Canada
and the West Indies which have been named in the
chapter on " The United States, Canada, and the West
Indies," may one day be resumed, and that it may
be the lot of Canada to bring about West Indian
Federation.
Cyprus. The dependency of Cyprus, administered by the
Colonial Office, though, strictly speaking, not a colony,
and Ceylon, are the two chief British-governed islands
of which I have still to write. In Cyprus we have
introduced since 1882 a fairly liberal constitution, which
presents the peculiarity of the division of the island into
electoral districts in each of which the Mohammedan
voters elect one member, and the non-Mohammedan,
that is, Greek- Cypriote, voters three members, to the
Legislative Council a division of electors according to
creed which is unknown, I think, elsewhere in our
dominions. Electoral separation of a particular race,
as, for example, of the Maori people in New Zealand, is
uncommon, but electoral separation of a religion perhaps
unique. While the old Turkish religious courts are
kept up for Mohammedan cases, the six district courts
for the administration of the ordinary laws are each of
them composed of a president and of two other members,
PART v CRO WN COLONIES 2 1 7
of whom one is a Christian and the other a Mohammedan.
Our administration is too costly for the island, although
there is still a parliamentary grant -in -aid, and the
establishment of a High Commissioner at a salary of
4000 a year will have sooner or later to be reduced, as
the trade and position of the island make such an
expenditure unjustifiable. The remedies proposed by
the Cypriote-Greeks for the present poverty of Cyprus
are curious, and the reasons given for proposing them
stranger still. They ask, for instance, that the wine
duties of the United Kingdom should be remitted on
Cyprus wines, apparently thinking that no duty is levied
on the wines of British colonies, for they argue that
Cyprus is in fact, though not in law, a colony ; and they
urge that what they wish could be done without loss to
the Exchequer, as Cyprus wines do not reach England
now. That, if the wines of the dependencies of the Empire
were admitted duty free, other and duty-paying wines
would be displaced from consumption, to the detriment
of the public purse, is a consideration which has not
entered into the minds of the Archbishop and his friends.
Substantially, however, they are in the right in thinking
that they are still overtaxed all round.
Ceylon may not have met as yet with the recent Ceylon,
success of Mauritius in establishing for itself a market
in our great Southern colonies, and since the drop
caused by the ravages of the coffee -fungus it has
not seen its trade increase with the bounds which
have marked the growth of the trade of the Straits
Settlements, as superior to Ceylon in volume of commerce
as in the flavour of the mangosteen. Still, Ceylon is a
country which among the old Crown Colonies has most
of all exhibited the interesting quality of British pluck.
When its planters found themselves face to face with
218 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
the total failure of that coffee crop on which they were
almost wholly dependent, instead of allowing their
colony to pine, as the West Indian colonies dwindled in
importance after emancipation and the fall in the price
of sugar, they set to work and created for Ceylon that
marvellous tea trade, the sudden growth of which has
become one of the chief wonders of the British world.
Tea. The export, indeed, of tea from Ceylon to England
is so vast a trade for so small a colony as to deserve
special notice. As late as 1878 Ceylon was sending
us no tea, while China was sending us tea to the value of
ten millions sterling, and India tea to the value of nearly
three millions sterling. The Indian export of tea to the
United Kingdom (virtually India's only present market,
for the taste for Indian tea has not spread as yet
to the other great tea-drinking countries) has steadily
increased ; but the export of tea from Ceylon to Great
Britain has risen with extraordinary bounds, and,
while the Chinese export has steadily declined, Ceylon
is rapidly gaining upon India, In 1889 Ceylon sent us
exactly half as much tea as did China. When I was in
Ceylon in 1867 the first trials of tea seed had just been
made, but the coffee trade was flourishing, and coffee was
to Ceylon what wool was to New Zealand. When I
revisited the colony in 1876 the exportation of coffee was
still immense, an A a rise of price in the article had concealed
a falling off in production, so that the coffee export still
figured as of the value of four millions sterling. Tea-
growing was then in its infancy, but two growers were
supplying local wants. Since that time the tea industry
has increased so fast, and coffee so rapidly declined, that
the Ceylon tea export already exceeds the coffee export
in value, and it is computed that in 1890 the export
of Ceylon tea will be forty million pounds weight. The
CROWN COLONIES 219
Ceylon planters have every reason to be proud of the
enterprise and energy which they displayed in refusing
to sit still and see their island ruined by the coffee blight.
Ceylon has rapidly produced the tea which on the average
commands the highest price, and yet is the cheapest to
the consumer, and will year by year increasingly displace
China tea and rival Indian tea in the market of the
United Kingdom. Great Britain draws from Ceylon
some ten or twelve millions sterling of interest on
capital, and the planters of the island prosper. Ceylon
is likely sooner or later to command the Australian
market, an important one, for the Australians, as I have
said, stand first as tea -drinkers, and easily beat us of
the United Kingdom, who stand next. Whether Ceylon
will ultimately obtain the market of the United States,
where at present Chinese and Japanese teas are drunk,
will depend on the success of tea as a crop in Central
America and the West-India Islands. One of the oddities
of the British Empire lies in the fact that the Canadians,
w T ho in many points closely resemble the Australians,
drink tea only upon the scale of the inhabitants of the
United States, and not on that of the Australians or
even of the home-staying Britons. The coldness of the
long Canadian winter can hardly be the explanation, as
the Russians of the extreme north drink tea in winter
with a freedom which is limited only by its heavy price
and their own poverty, and hold it to be the best of
drinks for coachmen and others whose vocations expose
them to the severest cold.
It is not only tea and coffee that Ceylon produces, General
... , . fmitfulness
lor the island has lew rivals in iruitiulness, and none in O f the
charm. Spice, cacao, and cinchona plantations thrive ; 1S
the cocoa-nut palm yields freely of its varied crops, and
in precious stones Ceylon stands first in all except
220 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
diamonds and rubies. The island is also interesting on
account of its presenting to us a picture of a settled and
orderly Buddhist system which once prevailed through-
out India and the Malay Archipelago. On the other
hand, Ceylon is the home of Government monopolies, or
"farms," such as those of salt, of forests, of pearls and
of liquor, and the Government has unfortunately, on
account of the last-named monopoly, an interest in push-
ing the sale of drink.
Draw- Not only is the liquor monopoly objectionable from
s ' the point of view of the interest of the natives, but their
well-wishers complain also of the exaction of forced
labour, redeemable by fine a custom which exists,
however, as regards road-making in many other Crown
Colonies, and lingers on in some parts of Europe. In
Ceylon Indian coolies employed as agricultural labourers
are exempted from this work or tax, an exemption
obviously created to favour planter interests. There is
also a tax on imported grain, and other heavy import
duties, from which are exempted machinery and goods
necessary to the planting industry. There is an export
duty on coffee, tea, cacao, and cinchona, which is almost
as objectionable in principle as the duty upon imported
grain, but presses upon the planter as well as on the
community at large. The effeminacy of the Cinghalese
is to be accounted for by that want of variety in their
food for which taxation is in part responsible. In
the case of Ceylon, as in the case of other colonies of
a similar type, we may agree with Mr. Salmon in sup-
porting M. Leroy-Beaulieu's desire to see taxation take
the form of heavy duties on intoxicating liquors and
tobacco, light ad valorem duties on all other articles
except food, and taxes upon land. The present position
of Ceylon presents a picture of both the advantages and
PARTY CROWN COLONIES 221
the drawbacks of a good specimen of the autocratic
Crown Colony system. The friends of the native are
opposed to the suggested introduction of so-called self-
government into the island, because they fear the rise
of a planter oligarchy, and prefer direct Crown rule
until the time comes for Ceylon to receive a govern-
ment resting upon the representation of the majority.
As successful, on a smaller scale, as Singapore itself, H*m g -
Hong-Kong is also a settlement of which we may be K
proud, and Victoria is indeed one of the most beautiful
and well kept of cities. The joint English and Ameri-
can town which divides European Shanghai with the shanghai.
" French Concession," and which is a republic in which
the British element preponderates over the American, is
also a flourishing part of Greater Britain.
In addition to those political peculiarities of Crown Peculiar-
Colonies which have been already noted, I may name the
fact that in the Straits and several of the old Crown
Colonies native education is free to natives, while fees tioiu
are charged to natives for learning English. In Heligoland
both English and German are taught to all the children,
although their mother- tongue is a Frisian dialect. In
Malta the composition of the Council of Government is
as complicated as is that of the Court of Policy of
British Guiana, already described. Four of the elected
members are chosen by a body of special electors from
the classes of ecclesiastics, nobles and landed gentry,
graduates of the University, and members of the Com-
mercial Exchange. The other ten elected members are
chosen by single -member constituencies of "general
electors," and not more than two ecclesiastics may be so
chosen. Previously to the recent adoption of the present
constitution of Malta, and under the ordinance of 1861,
the elective members were elected in one list with the
222
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
limited vote. The destruction of direct minority repre-
sentation in Malta leaves the constitution of the Cape
unique, I think, in the colonial world of politics in
making the attempt to carry out any form of propor-
tional representation.
Con . On the whole it will be seen that while in the
elusions, Drench colonies property as well as power is passing into
the hands of the "coloured" population and of the
blacks, in their English neighbours this is the case only
in a less degree, while the importation of Indian labour
has enabled the old system of ^large properties to be
kept up in many of our Crown Colonies. It has been
shown also by our inquiries that it is a mistake to sup-
pose that our tropical colonies are in a condition of
decline. They hold a secondary place in our attention
because of the immense development of Canadian and
Australasian interests ; but they are on the whole fairly
prosperous and progressive. There is indeed in our
Crown Colonies a remarkable expansion of trade and
revenue, although the growth of population is more rapid
still. The West Indies, which were once most important
to our Empire, now figure only for 1 per cent in our trade,
but they give us naval stations, and they permit us to
try experiments which are useful to the world in the
production of the fruits of tropical labour. We have
seen that the British West Indies, like Canada, are feeling
to some extent the attraction of the enormous neigh-
bouring body of the United States, and there is now an
American party in the West Indies. In my opinion the
islands will remain British and not become American,
but will more and more be " black countries." Already
the decline in the white population has been consider-
able, and it is perhaps worthy of note that there were
vastly more white settlers in Barbados, for example, in
PART v CRO WN COLONIES
223
its palmy days of the time of Charles I and Charles II
and James II than there are at the present moment.
The Crown Colonies have not been dealt with here
at such great length as have the self-governing com-
munities, because, although the former try some experi-
ments, these are not spontaneously introduced by
democratic electorates or assemblies of our country-
men, but are the suggestion of officials sent out from
home, and are of less importance and less interest to
ourselves as an example. The chief need of the Crown
Colonies is that the feelings and the wishes of their
peoples should be better known and understood by the
Imperial Parliament, so that Secretaries of State may
be urged to grant more liberal institutions to the
most advanced in public intelligence among these
colonies. France has tried to meet the difficulty by the
establishment of communal and general councils, and the
return to the Chamber of Deputies, as we have seen, of
colonial representatives, some of them men of colour, of
whom one occupied a seat in a French Cabinet not long
ago. With us, however, the population of colonies and of
dependencies bears to the population of the United King-
dom so different a proportion that no such complete
solution of our difficulties would be possible without
a revolutionary change in the whole fabric of the Empire.
So long, therefore, as the Crown Colonies continue
to be governed from Downing Street to the present
extent, so long will it be desirable that a well-informed
public opinion in the United Kingdom should be
brought to bear upon administrative acts, on the nature
of which depends in a large measure the well-being of
many millions of our fellow-countrymen.
The Crown Colonies of the British Empire contain Tropical
some of the loveliest countries of the world, and tempt
224 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART v
the traveller by their beauty as strongly as do Canada
and Australia by the interesting nature of their social
and political institutions. St. Lucia and Ceylon are
superior even to Java in their landscapes, and, with
British Guiana, present a perfect picture of tropical
scenery. There is no more beautiful island than Ceylon,
for if the glimpses of its sacred peak and its dark ranges,
caught through the cocoa-nut groves that fringe its
golden sands and purple seas, are equalled, though in
a different style, by the glories of New Zealand's
Southern Alps, the brilliant colouring of the mingled
crowds of Hindoo, of "Moorish," and of Cinghalese-
Buddhist people that throng its busy roads, adds an
element of romantic charm that must needs be lacking
o
in new countries peopled by the English, the Irish, and
the Scotch.
PART VI
COLONIAL PROBLEMS
VOL. II
CHAPTER I
COLONIAL DEMOCRACY
IN entering upon a brief general account of the
tendencies of society in the colonies of Canada, or
Australasia, and of South Africa, I have in the first
place to remark that some considerations bearing upon
the subject have been dealt with in the chapters on
Canada, Victoria, and New South Wales. With regard
indeed to many of the social and political changes which
the English in the colonies have worked out for them-
selves it is difficult to generalise, because Canadian
practice is closer to that of the United States than is
Australian; and Australian, on the other hand, more
interesting, experimentally considered, to ourselves.
For example, when I come to mention State-socialism
I shall have to show the curious difference which exists
between Canada and Australasia in this respect, and how
that difference is, day by day, growing greater instead
of less. The minor differences between Canada on the
one hand, and the Australasian and South African
colonies on the other, have been to some extent brought
about by the severe climate of Canada, and the slow
growth of the country through the absence of gold
rushes, while the existence in its neighbourhood of the
tempting El Dorados of the western States of the
American Union has drawn away from Canada a certain
228 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
proportion of the more adventurous among its youth.
The resemblances, however, which are found in the
social and political systems of the self-governing colonies
are many, and they are not all of them to be discovered
in the politics and society of the United States.
Australian One reason for many of the distinctions that may
p S ar c e d m with be drawn between Australian democracy and that of
American t ^ Umt e d States is to be found in the fact that the
Demo-
cracy. United States are mainly ruled by small owners of land
tilling their own holdings (a point in which Canada
resembles the United States), while Australasia is chiefly
governed by the town democracy, and the workmen in
their trade unions are far more powerful than upon the
continent of America. In the most remarkable case
that has been seen of the adoption of an extreme Eadical
policy, by a state mainly English in the composition of
its people the carrying of the Kearney constitution in
the State of California the workmen, as has been well
shown by Mr. Bryce, would have been powerless had
they not made an alliance with the landed democracy
of the State, and the virtual abandonment in practice
of many of the principles of this constitution was
brought about by the weakening, and ultimate disrup-
tion, of the alliance. In Australia, on the other hand,
the advance of the leading colonies in the direction of
democracy and State -socialism has been steady, and
has been conducted under the leadership in the main of
a single class, who have, however, used their power,
on the whole, with moderation and with skill.
Absence in Mr. Bryce 1 has pointed out the fact that the vast
Democracy majority of the faults ordinarily attributed to demo-
rtWbited cr acies are not observable in the policy or in the social
to Demo-
1 THe American Commonwealth, by James Bryce, M.P. Macmillan and
Co., 1889.
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 229
life of the United States, but has suggested that there
are some exceptions. The laws are not always steadily
enforced. There is consequently a slight tendency in
some parts of the country to replace law by an organised
mob rule. There is much legislative corruption. There
exists, he thinks, a certain commonness in mind and
tone, or want of dignity and elevation, rather of style
than of character ; a certain apathy among the fas-
tidious as regards public life ; a certain want of know-
ledge in matters of legislation and administration ;
an inadequate recognition of the value of experience
in dealing with them, and some laxity in the manage-
ment of public business. I am not here concerned
with the inquiry how far Mr. Bryce is right or wrong
as regards that nation the affairs of which he has
investigated, with so much patience that we may be
content with the result of his observations instead of
being tempted to make our own. But it is remark-
able that none of these exceptions, or at the most not
more than one of them, applies to the democracy of
the colonial Greater Britain. If we take Victoria as
our example, for the reasons which I have stated in the
Victorian chapter (remembering that in most points the
other Australasian colonies, and that in many Canada,
can point to similar conditions), we find the laws as
well enforced as they are in England. There is no
tendency to lynch law. There is as little public cor-
ruption as in the mother -country. It is impossible
to ascribe commonness in mind and tone, or want
of dignity and elevation, to a people who select men
such as Mr. Higinbotham, Mr. Service, Mr. Deakin,
Dr. Pearson, or, to turn to a neighbouring colony,
Sir Alfred Stephen, as the most worthy of public
esteem. There is less want of knowledge as regards
23 o PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
legislation and administration observable generally in
our self-governing colonies than in the United Kingdom
itself. The long career in office in Canada of Sir John
Macdonald, the permanency of the popularity in Vic-
toria of Mr. Higinbotham, and, I would add, in New
South Wales of Sir Henry Parkes, are evidences that
there is in our chief colonies no inadequate recognition
of the worth of experience in dealing with legislation
and administration ; and no one who knows the public
offices of South Australia, or Victoria, or Tasmania can
accuse them of more laxity in the management of public
business than is to be found in Downing Street itself,
while the apathy among the fastidious, which was at one
time noticeable in New South Wales, seems, to the great
advantage of the colony, to have disappeared.
Merits of Neither is there to be discerned in Greater Britain
any of that jealousy of eminence, or that reluctance to
p av sufficient salaries to obtain good service for the State,
which has, by philosophic historians earlier than Mr.
Bryce, been thought a characteristic of democracy. I
ventured to foretell in 1868 that in Australia no such
dangers would arise, and so far as there has been change
in the last, twenty years the change has all been in a
good direction. Class animosities are less strong through-
out the colonies than they were. There is a more
general acceptance of democracy, and a more general
recognition of its success, than I found in 1867 prevailing
among the wealthier classes of the colonies ; and there
is more and more reason to think that, while such
colonies as Victoria point out to us now, as they
pointed out to us then, the road that we shall take, that
road will lead us towards general contentment and
greatly increased prosperity. In many matters we
have followed the example of our colonies. On
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 231
the other hand, they have taken fresh strides towards
democracy, as, for example, in the widespread adop-
tion of the principle of the payment of members of
Parliament, and in Australasia of the principle of the
graduation of death duties according to the amount of
property bequeathed. In these points, too, we shall follow
them, and, their present position shows, follow them
with good results. No possibility exists of contending
that colonial, any more than American, democracy has
crushed out individuality of character, as Alexis de Toc-
queville thought it would ; while the cheerfulness and
pleasantness of life in our self-governing colonies more
remarkable on the whole in the Southern colonies than in
the United States allow us to draw a picture of a beauti-
ful national existence as the future state of New Zealand
and Australia, of South Africa, and of Canada so far as
climate admits, with the certainty that it will be realised.
There are some who have got over their fear of NO class
American democracy, and who are inclined to think yra
that a territorial democracy may safely be trusted with
the affairs of great communities, who yet believe that a
democracy mainly in the hands of artisans is a much
more dangerous thing, and who have fears with regard
to Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales which
no longer oppress them with regard to the United States.
Although in the United States, as Mr. Bryce has pointed
out, 1 the rich bear less than their due share, of taxation,
the wage-earning class, he tells us, is no more active in
political work than are other classes, returns few work-
men to Congress or to the State legislatures, and only
greatly exerts itself for the purpose of preventing the
introduction of cheap foreign labour, and of supporting
local industries by protective tariffs. In Canada also
1 Chap. Ixxxi. First Edition, vol. iii., p. 70.
232 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
this is partially true. In the Australian colonies, al-
though the wage-earning class shows far more political
activity, and is far more powerful, it does not attempt
largely to return artisans to Parliament, and is content
to help to carry on the government through statesmen
and politicians chosen for merit or for attention to their
work, without respect to class.
Classes. In all the colonies, both in those where the work-
men are all-powerful and in those where the capitalists
rule, there is no such war of rich and poor as is seen
in the United Kingdom and Western Europe gener-
ally, and no such jealousy between workmen and
employers. In the Australasian colonies, in which the
workmen are politically the strongest class, there is
not, however, so great a fusion of classes as is seen
in the back country of Canada and of the United
States; and the line between classes, as regards social
intercourse, is somewhat more sharply drawn than in the
newer parts of British America or of the United States.
If our self-made colonial population in Australasia at all
events show a certain impatience of youthful immi-
grants of the higher social class, that feeling is natural
and not unreasonable ; and if they are given to vaunting
their own prosperity and running down all that comes
from the old world, they have much in their success to
excuse them for so doing. The supposed roughness and
violence of young Australia is a matter which I have
already dealt with in the chapters on Victoria and New
South Wales. The facts have been grossly exaggerated
by hasty writers, and it may confidently be asserted
that the Australian " larrikins " are, in the possession of
evil qualities and in their mode of showing them, behind
both the roughs of the old country and the " hoodlums "
of the United States.
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 233
That there should be little danger in the political Social con-
predominance of colonial workmen is natural when the colonial
circumstances are borne in mind. As regards the settlers w<
and the sons of settlers in the more distant colonies
those of Australia and South Africa they come largely
of a picked race, and represent the most enterprising
and energetic of their class. Colonial workmen generally
are well-to-do ; many of them own property ; they live
in good houses ; often hold land ; are commonly members
of religious congregations; their wives are able to
employ young girls to do much of their household work,
and have leisure for intellectual improvement. In
many of the factories of Victoria and New South Wales
we find not only the excellent bands of musicians which
some English factories can show, but debating societies
admirably managed, concerts of good music given by
the men in evening dress, and the practice of taking the
family to the seaside for a holiday trip each year.
While the athleticism . of England has been, up to the
recent revival of football, mainly in the upper and middle
class, in the colonies the workmen supply the football,
the cricket, and the cycling clubs with their chief
strength. They take walking tours and outings for
sketching and for boating as freely as do the rich. So
great is the general prosperity that regular domestic
service is dying out, and is being replaced by occasional
help from young people or from immigrants before they
get good places. It is impossible in the wealthier
colonies to tell one class from another by its dress. No
doubt many of the working people, like many of the
trading and other classes, care nothing for serious
pursuits, and are wasteful and improvident. But on
, the whole they are good citizens, and their rule presents
no danger. So great has been the prosperity of the
234 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
colonies in recent years that full employment and high
wages have led to large investments by workmen, which
have become a conservative counterpoise to extreme
opinions, and have checked any general movement of
the working classes against the present relations of
capital and labour. There have been strikes in particular
cases for higher pay, but the disturbances have been
confined to isolated branches of trade and have never
become general, and the parliaments of labour have
stopped far more strikes than they have countenanced.
Nearly every dispute is referred to boards of arbitrators,
and their decisions are accepted by both parties.
Opinions of When I speak of the dominance of labour in
workmen, the Australian colonies I mean its potential domin-
ance, and its power in those questions upon which
working-class opinion is united, and do not wish to
suggest that there is much interference by artisans in
the whole field of politics. Colonial workmen have of
recent years discussed among themselves, for the most
part, rather special issues affecting special measures than
put forward any general policy accepted by the whole
body of working men. So little movement has there
been against property, in spite of the steps taken to
ensure that wealth should contribute a large share
towards the expenses of the State, that property alone,
as a rule, is allowed in colonies to vote at municipal
elections, and the workmen show little dislike for the
principle which exists in many colonies that property
should confer in local elections a "plural" vote. So
powerful are the urban freeholding interests of the
working people that city property bears but little State
taxation in Victoria none. The most prosperous of the
colonial workmen are freeholders in towns or suburbs,
shareholders in limited liability companies owning
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 235
factories and mines, and in fact capitalists and pro-
prietors, with the same feeling against nationalisation of
the land as is found among the landowners of the
United States. While the colonial legislation of the
Australian Liberal party has been steadily opposed to
the principle of mere sale of land to the highest bidder,
it has allotted land, without respect to quality, in fixed
areas and at fixed rates, on a freehold tenure, to bond
fide settlers, and the workmen who own their houses in
or near the towns make common cause with the free
selectors, or, to use the Canadian phrase, the " home-
steaders," in the country districts. Although the most
extreme land reformers of Europe either care nothing
for free transfer of land or dislike it, the whole of the
colonies have adopted and maintained, with every sign of
popular assent, an easy system of the transfer of real
estate, and support it as steadily as they do payment of
members, universal State education, manhood or virtual
manhood suffrage, and the other planks of the old
colonial Liberal programme now mostly carried into law.
In the colonies we find now a general pride in General
the admission that the tone of society is democratic,
and the word is once more losing the associations
which gathered round it when democracy was looked
upon as meaning mob rule, and again coming to
be used for the power of the whole people, and for
a form of government which calls this out. The
Australians and Canadians, and, in spite of the
presence of a large native population of dark skin,
the South -African English, show themselves, at all
events in the older centres of population, under demo-
cratic institutions, a religious, moral, educated, and
intelligent people, considerably above the European
average, and a people who, whether they style them-
236 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
selves Conservatives or Liberals, are firm believers in
democratic principles, and strong opponents of class rule.
They admit very willingly that virtual dominance of
the working class which exists in some of the colonies,
because the working class is the most numerous ; but
they find it an influence consistent with respect for the
rights of minorities, and are aware that the workmen
in those colonies do not act as workmen in colonial
politics, but as ordinary citizens of the State. An
interesting proof of the fact that there is no middle -
class hostility against workmen, even in the colonies
which are the most controlled, potentially at least, by a
working-class majority, was afforded by the recent sub-
scriptions from all classes in Australia towards the
dock labourers' strike in London. The members of the
trades-unions of Victoria only led the way, and all ranks
followed, including employers of labour, and at least one
Governor.
There is a general belief in the South-Sea colonies,
and a widespread belief in Canada, that the majority
will be right in the long-run, and all are full of hopeful-
ness and cheerfulness as to the national future. Our
colonies are, indeed, in one sense not new countries.
They possess an old civilisation, in most cases our own
with the upper class left out, and therefore similar to
the form which ours will probably one day assume when
the upper classes have been overwhelmed on the one
side by new wealth and on the other side by increasingly
powerful Labour. Not only, however, is British aristo-
cracy absent in Australia, but also that political power of
wealth which exists in Great Britain and in the United
States ; and so steady and gradual has been the political
absorption of the richer people in Australia into the
ranks of the democracy, that the political predominance
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 237
of riches may be said to have gone -under without a
struggle. The fact that the Australian railways are in
State hands has in itself done much to check the rise in
Australia of that supremacy of railway kings which is
harmful to American interests. The advantage given
in the mother-country by wealth, in the race to obtain
certain coveted positions, is altogether non-existent in
the great self-governing colonies ; but, while money has
in them little or no political power, there is, as we shall
see, no socialism in the European sense, and little dislike
of the capitalist class. On the whole, however, the
colonies form as absolute a democracy, although under
constitutional monarchy, as the American or the Swiss
commonwealths under republican institutions. The
equality of the citizens is not so much paraded in
the self-governing colonies as in the United States, but
is quite as real. The mere fact that a peerage does not
exist, and that hereditary titles are almost unknown,
is little ; but there is in the colonies no sustained
rank, and any predominance in individuals that exists
is purely personal, and is seldom continued to their
posterity. Wealth in the colonies seems to be soon
dispersed, but in Canada it is no disadvantage to
the offspring of prominent colonial statesmen who con-
template a political career to be their fathers' sons.
When I say that wealth has little or no political power
in our colonies far less than in Europe, inconceivably
less than in the United States I may possibly be told
that in South Africa there is one conspicuous exception,
for one English gentleman of great reputed wealth does
exercise considerable political influence in South Africa.
But his case forms no real exception, for it is his business
ability and his political ability which have given him
his station. In Canada, too, where the Canadian Pacific
23 8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
railroad has considerable political influence, that influ-
ence is not directed by a single man. Mr. Van Home,
an American by birth, who has become Canadian in his
ideas, and who belongs so completely to the American
continent that he has never, I believe, been seen in
Europe, has attained by his energy to much power ; he
is not, however, a politician, and should be referred to
rather as a man of business capacity than as a man
of wealth.
Another difference between our chief colonies and
the United States must also be pointed out. There is
in the self-governing colonies of Australia and Canada
no dark-skinned element comparable in importance to
the negro element in the United States, at present
excluded by combination from real political power.
Nor is there in Australasia any large white foreign
element with a lower standard of comfort such as exists
in the vast immigrant population of the United States.
In the colonies, as in the American Union, State schools,
either free or with fees very small, taking into con-
sideration the means of the working classes, fuse the
immigrants with the majority composed of the amalga-
mated races of the United Kingdom. Even the German
population, which is the most numerous and the most
prosperous of the alien races, is not so considerable
proportionately anywhere in the British Empire as it is
in Chicago and many parts of the United States. As
the equality of conditions is more complete, and the
influence of wealth less, in most of our self-governing
colonies than is the case in the Union, so we find
that the colonists have been bolder than the Americans
in their legislative experiments. The Australians, too,
have had in this respect the advantage of coming
suddenly into a full-grown political life. The Italian
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 239
naval authorities have been able to do more with their
money than have those of any other country, from the
fact that, starting late, they have had the advantage of
adopting the newest ideas without check or hindrance.
In politics the Australians had a similar advantage,
except in the one point of local government, in which
Canada on the whole stands first, having in this respect,
as in her federal constitution, profited the most largely
by American example. While, however, our colonists
of Australasia are bold in their experiments, and free
from all conservative fear of change, yet they are
thoroughly English, and as impatient of the doctrine
of natural rights as is the Editor of the Quarterly
Review.
It is necessary to insist much upon the English Anglo-
character of the colonial democracy of Greater Britain, contrasted
Nothing can be more complete than the manner in D 1 e
which history has vindicated the accuracy of many crac5 '
of Tocqueville's observations upon democracy, and the
correctness of many of his views. At the same time
the most curious contradictions are to be observed in
his writings, though each part is true in itself if
we confine our attention to a portion of the field.
The fact is that Latin democracy and Anglo-Saxon
democracy give rise to very different modes of thought,
and produce very different results. In one famous
passage Tocqueville pointed out with extraordinary
force the tendency of democracy to favour absolute
government, and his passage was prophetic with re-
gard to the rise of the Second Empire in France.
But he himself was well aware that no such empire
could be founded in a democratic community mainly
composed of the English race. Tocqueville has in
another place confessed that the temperament of the
240 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi,
French nation is so peculiar that we cannot argue
about France from the base of study of the tendencies
of mankind at large. That inapplicability of general
reasoning which he admitted in this passage is also true,
though in a less degree, as between Great Britain and
her daughter-countries. It is impossible unrestrictedly
to argue from English example about the colonies, or
from colonial example about the United Kingdom.
Thus it is said to be one of the bad tendencies of
democracy, to be set with others against many bless-
ings, that there exists in the most advanced com-
munities a jealousy of distinction of every kind. That
popular jealousy is far less strong among the democracies
of the Anglo-Saxon race than it is in Latin countries.
While the American and Australian democracy may be
fond of flattery and impatient of control, it is never-
theless far more amenable to the restraints of law, to
the guidance of the leading men, and to the moral
obligations of justice and Christian principle than is
the case with the town democracy of other races, and
such evil tendencies as it may possess are held in check
by much respect for the past and by a true love of
freedom.
Insufficient attention has as yet been given by
political observers to the characteristics of the colonial
democracy and to the importance of colonial example,
and, writing in 1885, the late Sir Henry Maine almost
ignored them. 1 That learned writer, in discussing the
nature of democracy, drew plentifully upon his stores of
knowledge as to the old world and the United States,
without seeming to remember the existence of Canada,
or New Zealand, Victoria, New South Wales, Queens-
land, or South Australia, except when he mentioned the
1 Popular Government, by Sir H. S, Maine. John Murray.
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 241
bearing of the action of colonial governors as to dis-
solutions of Parliament on the rights of Governments at
home. The only inhabitants of the colonies with whom
Sir Henry Maine concerned himself were the Australian
" blackfellows." He assumed, too, that under democratic
government members would to an increasing degree
receive positive mandates from their constituents,
although colonial example would have shown him that
colonial representatives are left more free in this respect
than are members of Parliament in Great Britain.
Many of the political evils which are put down weak
by impatient and superficial observers to republican popular
government, but which are also to be found in
British colonies, under institutions at all events
nominally monarchical, are, as a fact, evils which have
of late years rapidly increased in England, and are
increasing, although less fast, in all the free countries
of the world. The bids made for votes, at the expense -
of the true interest of the country, or at the expense of
international justice, are perhaps as offensive in one
country as in another. We have to set this evil which
accompanies immense publicity, the enfranchisement
of all classes, the cheapness of newspapers, and the
diffusion of superficial information without a very real
sense of responsibility against the blessings which in
England, as in the United States and as in the colonies,
flow from the same institutions, of which political
conduct of the kind I have mentioned forms " the seamy
side." No doubt from some points of view modern
monarchical government of the German type, resting
upon public opinion as much as the democratic govern-
ments of Great and Greater Britain themselves rest
upon popular support, has much to say for itself; but
looking at it from a distance we are apt to see the good
VOL. II R
242
PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
side of such institutions and to neglect the bad. Per-
haps the weakest point of democratic assemblies is to be
found in the conduct of foreign affairs, for in the case of
war they show an amount of energy which makes up for
their tendency to occasionally "hang the wrong man."
I cannot but think that if English politicians would, in
foreign affairs, ask more than they do for confidence
and silence their request would be granted. The
conduct of foreign affairs by the Senate of the United
States, although it has been, extremely ,; unpleasant to
ourselves, has not been disadvantageous to the interests
of the American Union. It must be admitted that
it has been from time to time inconsistent with the
highest considerations of international courtesy and
justice. As regards colonial legislatures, we for the
// most part hear in this country only of the least laudable
of their proceedings, and when an occasional " scene "
transcends the bounds of decency it is at once tele-
graphed to all our newspapers as sensational news,
whereas, perhaps, the humdrum proceedings of that
same legislature in passing good laws and well govern-
ing the colony have been unnoticed for months or even
years. On the other hand, a popular autocracy is
perhaps more inclined to make war or to threaten war,
with the chance of having to make it, for an insufficient
reason and in an unjust cause than any democracy, and
such are the gigantic evils of war that the slightest
tendency in this direction is a drawback which more
than equals the defects which may attend the democratic
institutions of Greater Britain.
improve- As democracy is existent or inevitable in most
meut. . 1 .
countries inhabited by our race, it is cheering to be
able to point out that instead of its evils and its vices
becoming greater as years go by, they have proved
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 243
to be a lessening quantity. Victoria presents, on the
whole, an admirable spectacle, as do many of the other
colonies ; and if the Parliament of New South Wales
is given to occasional outbreaks of a painful nature
there is every reason to believe that the public opinion
of the colony will gradually succeed in repressing the
excesses of which it loudly complains. It has been seen,
moreover, that while the evil of violent language and
untrue aspersions is supposed to be the reason which
prevents the best people in democracies from taking
part in public life, in New South Wales the period of
violence has been chosen by men of a class who for- p u bii c
merly did not take part in colonial affairs for their en- rnen '
trance into Parliament. While it must Fe admitted that
in New South Wales and in the United States we often
hear it said that the best men are not in politics, there
is some exaggeration about this statement. Of course in
countries where vast fortunes are to be made, and to be
made so fast as in these new lands, many of the ablest
men have no time for politics, and are devoted to money
making in some form as their pursuit ; and in America
the small leisured class turns with natural dislike
from the still existing corruption of political affairs.
On the whole, however, the Australians and, though in a
less degree, the Americans have reason to be satisfied
with the calibre of their leading politicians, and when it
is said that the race of American statesmen has dwindled
it should, I think, rather be contended that it has much
changed, and that, while Washington and the men who
succeeded to his power were country gentlemen with
country gentlemen's tastes and habits, they were not
superior in the real qualities of government to the rail-
splitter Lincoln. The public men of at least the younger
among the British democracies across the seas have
244 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
above all a high average, and the type is not a bad one.
They are courteous and accessible, and not more servile
to the democracy than the public men of Europe are
servile either to democratic or to other masters. A
good deal of nonsense has been talked and written upon
these subjects, and, because some brilliant writers or
considerable men of science of the English race in the
new worlds have been found to hold themselves aloof
from politics, conclusions have been drawn which are no
more warranted than would be similar conclusions
drawn in England from the opinions of Carlyle. After
all, the public men of Europe are not as a rule the rivals
in accomplishments of Sir Philip Sidney, and, to take
another standard of comparison, if the commanding
figure of Prince Bismarck is omitted, it might be
contended that the public men of our leading colonies
are at least on a level with the public men of the
German Empire, and superior, as matters stand, to the
public men of Russia.
High In the colonies as in the United States the great
lS^ of majority f tne People believe in the wisdom and the
life - goodness of majority rule, and they are probably the
best judges in their own case. The whole of the
colonial governments, from the best to the least good,
give the advantages of civilised government in a high
form. The law is almost universally respected and
obeyed. The average comfort and security of the
people are at a singularly high level. There is order
and there is justice, and the people are happy. There
is complete toleration of opinion, and the weak and the
little have been raised in the social scale, as compared
with those of Europe, without any wrong being inflicted
upon the rich, and the many have been benefited without
driving out the few. While some even of the so-called
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 245
Great Powers of the old world are suffering from many
of the worst evils that can oppress peoples, the young
countries of Greater Britain are those of all mankind
in which the order of society seems to be the most
secure and the condition of the people the best.
These facts are not sufficiently recognised in the
mother-country. A lecture was delivered at Toynbee
Hall last November by a distinguished publisher, a
man remarkable for his knowledge of men and
things ; but the only reference in it to the British
Empire outside of England, and to the wider public
to which the works published by him must be supposed
to be addressed, was contained in the following words :
" . . . then it was shipped to the colonies. Failed books
like failed men, criminal books like criminal men were
sent off to the colonies." Such a speech does more
harm in Australia than half-a-dozen meetings of the
Imperial Federation League, with the Lord Mayor in
the chair, can be expected to do good. Here is a
cultivated Englishman, a man who may be thought to
be in advance of the great mass of his countrymen
in his knowledge of the English-speaking countries,
who seems to think that convicts are transported by
us to colonies, and that our daughter -countries are
peopled by our failures. The ne'er-do-weels who were
sent out from England to colonies, rather perhaps to
get them out of the way of their friends at home than
with a real idea of improving their own position, are
indeed to be pitied in finding themselves sent to
countries where the average energy and courage and
ability are greater than is the case at home. In all
the leading colonies the British people enjoy a higher
average of comfort than in the mother -country. The
out-door life and the good wages have called forth
24 6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
the better qualities of the race; and, if the speech
that I have quoted seems to show a certain contempt
for those who inhabit the daughter-lands, we must not
shut our eyes to the fact that the feeling may some-
times be returned.
Great size The colonies differ from one another in a most im-
Anstadian portant point. The Australian colonies are countries
cities. having a larger proportion of their population in the
capital cities than is the case anywhere else in the whole
world. Canada, on the other hand, in this respect
resembles the United States, where the cities, though
large, are more on the European scale. In Greater
Britain I ascribed the swelling of the cities of Australia,
beyond American and Canadian or old-world relative pro-
portions, to the fact that the squatter system of pastoral
tenancies had kept the people from the land ; and this
political fact is, of course, connected with the geographical
and climatic consideration that Australian land, without
irrigation, is not generally well suited to agricultural
settlement. The Australians often discuss this City-
question among themselves, and are of opinion that the
tendency to crowd into capitals is general, and will
exert its force throughout the world. However this
may be, I am concerned here chiefly with the fact and
its Australian results. On the whole, it must be ad-
mitted that, while the drift of an observer's mind is
almost certain to be against the desirability of the
creation of capital cities containing a third of the popu-
lation of the state, in Australia the good results from
the overwhelming size of Melbourne and other capitals
exceed the bad. It is the growth of capitals and not of
all cities that is remarkable in Australia. In America and
in Canada and New Zealand there are no great capitals ;
no cities which politically take their place. New York
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 247
is a huge port, but there is no concentration in New
York of the whole life of the American people. Montreal
is not more Canada than New York is the United States ;
but Melbourne is nearly half Victoria in political power,
and Sydney nearly half of New South Wales. The
total town population of Australia is not greater in
proportion to the rural population than the town popu-
lation of Great Britain, but towns of the second order are
very few. In each of our chief Australian colonies there
is one centre, and not a number of commercial rivals as
in Great Britain. Melbourne and Sydney are far larger
in proportion to their states than is London to the
United Kingdom ; and there are in Australia no Glasgows,
no Manchesters, and no Liverpools.
The Australians contend, as I have tried to show in dis- change in
cussing the question separately from the Melbourne and
the Sydney point of view, that all modern civilisation llfe '
tends towards the creation in each state of one centre
at which all business will be transacted, and to which
will come all those who search for recreation, for cheap
living upon realised gains, for the best schooling for
their children, for everything except the mere raising of
produce from the soil. While provisions once were
dearest in the larger towns, provisions are there cheap-
est now, because the political and social centre is also
the railroad centre, to which all commodities flow.
Since statistics have shown that the rural districts keep
pace with the towns, and that the great capitals are
only gaining ground at the expense of their smaller
rivals among the cities, it has become clear that, in the
Australian colonies, the capitals are not drawing people
from production, but only concentrating for purposes of
business and social life those who are not directly
producing with their hands. Sydney and Adelaide
248 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
have respectively about 35 per cent of the population of
New South Wales and South Australia ; and Melbourne,
if we include its suburbs, a still greater percentage of the
population of Victoria. Geelong, Ballarat, and Castle-
maine are standing still so far as population goes,
although rich and flourishing from the point of view of
the industries of each place. The manufactures, too, are
coming to the capitals, and shopping tends more and
more to concentrate itself in the one centre. The cheap-
ness of railway fares upon the State lines, of course, con-
duces towards this end, and it is found more agreeable
for the customer to come to the capital to deal with all
his tradesmen than to make his purchases in the
neighbourhood of his residence. The effects of this
concentration in capitals upon national character are
considerable. In the mother -country we are apt to
think that the crowded and insanitary homes of the
working people in our cities are a necessary draw-
back to town life ; but in Australia the working people
of the capitals have excellent houses and gardens in the
suburbs, and are better off than the dwellers in the
Effect on country from most points of view. On the other hand,
mocracy. the population of the colony, generally speaking, gains,
from the concentration in the capitals, in education, in
power of recreation, and in many of the matters which
make life most pleasant. The effect must be a quicken-
ing of the national pulse, and is already, in fact, visible
in the brightness and high intelligence of the Australian
people.
Culture. It may be asked whether the colonies have as
yet produced that literary or artistic development
which we expect from populations so happy and so
intelligent as those which I have described. I have
already spoken of the necessary absence as yet in the
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 249
colonies of a leisured class. In the eastern portion of
the United States, which, although exposed, as are the
colonies, to the literary competition of the United
Kingdom, possesses a proportionately larger leisured
class than do the newer Canada or Australia or the
Western States, there is a more widespread literary
cultivation than in any of the old countries of the world.
Great results have already been achieved by people of
the United States in the realms of science, although
these cannot be attributed to the leisured class, and
American science is more practical than ours and runs
more into invention, because the rewards of invention
are in America greater and more rapid. Even pure
science has its students, however, in the Eastern States,
as poetry is not wanting in Canada and Australia
in spite of the powerful influence and competition of
contemporary English literature. I have already named
colony by colony the most conspicuous examples of a
success in literature which is rather ignored at home than
lacking in the colonies.
Colonial architecture, although not good, compares^ ArcMtec-
favourably with that of the dwellings of the British*
middle class. At the same time our colonists are in
this respect behind the colonists of foreign races estab-
lished in their midst. The French domestic architecture
of Lower Canada and the Dutch domestic architecture
of South Africa are picturesque, and free from that
element of meanness or vulgarity which too often
characterises British architecture in all parts of the
world. The fine old Dutch homesteads of the Cape,
with their indispensable verandahs, are perfect specimens
of simple architecture as perfect as are the houses of
the best Flemish towns, with the additional advantage
of being placed amid beautiful surroundings and shaded
ture.
250 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
by magnificent old trees. The French architecture of
Quebec is superior, too, to that of Canada in general ;
I but in Australia the opulence and comfort of the
colonial Britons have helped them to create a school of
architecture which is beautifying the cities day by day.
journal- It must be admitted, however, that colonial
democracy and the race for wealth, combined with the
free importation of the literature of the mother-country
and of the art of France, have caused the best writing
of the colonies to be found in the pages of their news-
papers, and as regards art have prolonged the duration
of its infancy. I have already spoken of the wonderful
development of the Australian and of the Canadian
press, but in this respect, at all events, South Africa is
not behind. The leaders in the two daily papers of
Cape Town are distinctly above the average of the
newspaper literature of Europe ; and in South Africa, as
in Australia, the weekly editions of the leading papers
are marvels of literary production, and widely read.
The number of colonial papers is as remarkable as their
ability and their circulation, and the Transvaal is a
British colony in this respect. In the single young
town of Johannesburg, within twelve months of its
foundation under Dutch rule, there were six English
newspapers; and even in Pretoria, where the British
colonial element is smaller, there are several excellent
English journals.
Resem- It would, I am convinced, be a mistake to suppose
the coio- that the partial absence of a literature, other than news-
United e P a per literature, in our colonies is in any degree the
result of democratic institutions. M. de Tocqueville
P om ted out that in the United States in his day
there was little art or literature, and that many
Europeans who had been struck by this fact had
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 251
thought it a result of democracy, whereas they had
confused what was democratic with what was only
American. Time has shown Tocqueville to be right,
and America has been making steady progress in science
and literature at least, though she has not progressed as
yet with equal rapidity, if we exclude the American
studios of Paris, in the field of Art. Writers who record
for us, with regard to our own colonies, opinions similar
to those which fell under Tocqueville's censure are
likely to prove wrong. Other observations, indeed, of
Tocqueville's upon the same subject also apply as well
to the colonies of to-day as to the America of his time.
For example, he shows how the Americans, finding among
the English, whose tongue they spoke, distinguished
men of science and writers of eminence, were enabled to
enjoy the treasures of the intellect without having to
labour to amass them, and how the American people of
his day were intellectually a portion of the English, and
were merely in fact the English who happened to be out
West. Tocqueville with great eloquence pointed out
how democracy is likely in the long-run to favour
science and literature, by enormously increasing the
numbers of those who have the taste for intellectual
enjoyment, as compared with those who have the ability
to indulge it in aristocratic societies. At the same time
he showed how in democratic communities with their
active life there would be less tendency towards
meditation, and how, therefore, the literary work of
democratic communities would probably possess a more
practical turn than that of aristocracies. It has often
been remarked with what foresight a foresight due at
least as much to his habit of patient study as to
natural ability Tocqueville prophesied the future of
the communities which he had seen at their daily toil,
252 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
and it is remarkable to trace the degree to which his
observations on the America of his time fit the Australia
and the Canada of our own.
Literature. In a literary sense the colonies may, indeed, be said
to stand now in pretty much the same position in which
the United States stood in the time of Tocqueville,
and America made a little later a great literary advance.
Though it may still be said of the American people that
their reading is not over choice, and that they are
largely fed upon telegrams and sensational stories,
nevertheless the country has produced a powerful
literary class and some literary work of the highest
merit. In the colonies there is almost as much literary
dependence upon England now as there was for-
merly in the United States ; but there is every reason
to hope that the universal diffusion of reading power
among the people, and the influence of free libraries,
public discussion societies, and other means of rous-
ing intellectual interests, will lead to the same good
results throughout all Greater Britain which have
been witnessed in the United States. While in the
richer among the old countries of Europe there is a
larger literary class in proportion than can exist in a
new country, I am disposed to doubt whether the
population generally are more literary in their studies
than in new countries. It is often said that the people
of the colonies are superficial in their tastes, that they
like a smattering of literature of an easy type, and a
smattering of science, but do not read deeply ; but I
doubt myself whether a careful examination of the
statistics of English Free Libraries would show the
existence of a better state of things among ourselves.
There are, naturally and necessarily, more people with
leisure, and more people of the highest cultivation, in
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 253
proportion to the numbers of the population here than can
be the case in the younger countries, and that is all.
Olive Schreiner among novelists and for the Cape,
Henry Kendall among poets and for Australia, not to
speak of statisticians, and of the political essayists
of Canada, form the first of a future race of colonial
writers ; while Marcus Clarke and Brunton Stephens
of the British-born colonists may be counted as colonial
as the colonists themselves, and equally precursors of
the colonial literature of the future. Although Adam
Lindsay Gordon killed himself, and Marcus Clarke died
in poverty, and Kendall had little better fate, it may,
I think, be safely predicted that the day will come
when colonial literature will hold its own with the
literature of the mother-country, and letters form an
acknowledged and sufficient colonial career. The
colonists are no more likely to be content with inferior
work in literature and art than they are in other
matters. In their newspaper press they expect and
obtain, as I have shown, the best. Their universities
are remarkable ; the organisation of secondary in-
struction admirable ; their railway material upon the
State lines the most excellent perhaps in the whole
world ; and although literature and art cannot be called
into existence by administrative ability, because they
are things of the soul and not merely things of skill, it
is impossible to believe that, with their sunlight, their
intelligence, their education, their cheerfulness, and their
manliness and robustness of mind, the colonies will
not fulfil the promise that is given by such a work of
genius as The Story of an African Farm.
I have mentioned the fact that the workmen are colonial
stronger in Australia than any other class, but have also p(
pointed out that they do not often stand for the Assem-
254 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
blies. Although, on the other hand, the constituencies at
large are favourable to and friendly towards the artisans,
some few of the old school of squatters still remain who
sneer about " his imperial and royal majesty the colonial
working man," but generally speaking they admit, even
where they consider him a despot, that he is on the
whole a beneficent despot in his political ways. In
those colonies in which there is a dislike on the part of
a minority, for the men in power, and a feeling that there
is too low a tone in political life, as, for example, in New
South Wales, the attack is rather upon what we should
call the lower middle class than upon the artisans. The
colonies of the United Kingdom differ indeed greatly
upon this point of the standard of public life. In some
of the self-governing colonies there is as high a standard
of public duty as exists at home or in the rural districts
of New England, while of some few others this certainly
cannot be said to be the case. As the best have payment
of members, and the least good till lately have not had
it, and in no colony are there more than one or two
workmen-members, the existence of a low parliamentary
standard cannot well be ascribed to the dominance of
the artisan class. In Victoria there is, I believe, one
member of the Assembly who is a working man, still
earning his living or a part of it at his trade ; and there
is one member in a similar position in the colony of
Queensland. There are in Victoria perhaps half a
dozen who have earned their living with their hands and
are still superintending the work of artisans as small
masters, and there are about as many more who have
left their trades for other employments. But, on the
whole, the composition of colonial Parliaments does not
greatly differ from the composition of Parliaments in
the old world. The working classes, while far more
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 255
powerful in Australia than in Great Britain, have not
much more direct representation, although, in nearly all
the colonies, members of the Assemblies are paid, and
in all of them candidates are relieved of the necessary
expenses of elections. The trade unions have in fact
been engaged in Australia as they have in the United
Kingdom in minding their own business. They have
interfered as Unions only in questions directly affecting
labour, such as wages, hours of toil, the work of women
and children, factory inspection to secure the health of
workers, and, I must add, Protection. As a body they
have naturally shown themselves favourable (as they
are favourable in the United Kingdom) to the principle
of the payment of members, which in the colonies they
have been instrumental in carrying into law against the
general opposition of the so-called Upper Houses ; but
they have done it upon the principle that labour should
be paid, rather than with much wish to receive direct
advantage by the payment of their own men.
Colonial members of Parliament are not so much in Position of
the position of delegates as are members of Congress in
the United States, and they remain in public life for a
longer period than is the case with the Congress men of
America. There is in the self-governing colonies much
more opportunity for men to obtain distinction through
parliamentary service than is the case in the United
States. Colonial Ministries are exclusively parlia-
mentary, and this fact is perhaps the chief of those
which may account for the higher standing enjoyed
in most of the colonies by members of Assembly as
compared with the Congress men of America. There
are, too, much more defined personal groups in colonial
politics than in those of the United States men are
more, and "the machine" less. There is no American
256 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
politician dominant in Federal affairs in the way in
which Sir John Macdonald is personally dominant in
Canada and Sir Henry Parkes in New South Wales. The
position in South Australia of Mr. Playford, in Victoria
of Mr. Service, Mr. Gillies, and Mr. Deakin, in Queens-
land of Sir Thomas M c llwraith and Sir Samuel Griffith,
in New Zealand of Sir Harry Atkinson, Sir Eobert
Stout, and Mr. Ballance, and at the Cape of Mr.
Hofmeyr, as well as that of the Canadian and New
South Wales Prime Ministers, is of a non- American
type, and resembles the place that has been held in
Italy in recent years by men like Minghetti, Sella,
Bonghi, Crispi, Cairoli, and Depretis, rather than any-
thing in United States affairs.
Electoral It has been seen that the political peculiarities of
Ham^ntary our colonies concern chiefly the points in which it may
ftieT. liar reasonably be expected that we in England shall soon
follow their example. The secret ballot was once an
Australian peculiarity, and the closure a peculiarity of
South Australia, but both have been followed very closely
by ourselves. Payment of members, sometimes of one
only and sometimes of both Houses, all but universal in
our self-governing colonies, is so widely spread through-
out the constitutional world that we in the United
Kingdom are ourselves becoming peculiar among nations
in not adopting it, and in this matter, too, we shall prob-
I ably follow Canadian and Australian and South African
example. The most remarkable peculiarity which attends
payment of members lies in the adoption by the Cape of
the principle that members of either House who live
more than fifteen miles from the seat of Parliament are
paid fifteen shillings a day in addition to the guinea paid
to those resident within that distance, who are popularly
called " Cape Cockneys." The tendency in South Africa
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 257
is to raise the pay of members, because since the Trans-
vaal has become rich it has been liberal to its Volksraad,
one member of which declared in his place that, looking
to the fact that he had to swim a river to come to Par-
liament, his constituency did not " expect him to get
drowned in his old age for thirty shillings a day."
It may be noted in this respect that not only are the Payment of
senators and deputies elected by French colonies, to sit representa-
in the French Parliament, paid as such out of French Franc*
national funds, but that the same men are also paid
by their own colonies, at very varying rates, as repre-
sentatives of the colonies on the Conseil superieur des
Colonies, a fact which will be found explained in much
detail in Dislere's Traite de Legislation coloniale, a book
which has no parallel in English literature.
The wide extension of the suffrage in the self- Suffrage.
governing colonies is unaccompanied by any features
which distinguish it from the ordinary democratic con-
stitutions of the modern world. With the exception of
the New Zealand case, colonial majorities have not as
yet appeared to attach much importance to the principle
of " one man one vote." In Canada and many other ,
colonies all elections are held on the same day, al
provision which makes the one-man-one- vote restriction
less important than it is at home, but in Sydney the
protectionists complain that the rich merchants have
many votes, and in Victoria the Liberal party are
pledged to the abolition of double votes. In Canada,
however, under the Dominion Franchise Act, sons living
with their fathers are enfranchised, as joint tenants are
with us, where the father's property is sufficient, if
divided by the number of proposed voters, to confer
the franchise upon each. The latest attempt to deal
fully with representation is that made in New Zealand
VOL. II S
258 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
in 1889, which is remarkable as confirming the
principle, often laid down by Mr. Gladstone, that
the sparsely -peopled rural districts deserve special
attention in fixing or adjusting the divisions of the
electorate. A New Zealand Act of 1887, which had
established the permanent commission for the adjust-
ment of representation, to which I have alluded in my
remarks upon New Zealand, had fixed the number of
members, and had provided " that a nominal addition
of 18 per centum shall be made to the number of the
population of" special districts, generally the least
peopled, in allotting members. The new Act fixed 28
per cent in place of 18 as the proportion to be added,
" in computing for the purpose of this Act the popula-
tion of the colony," " to the population not contained in
any city, borough, or town district which contains a
population of over 2000." The New Zealand Acts of
1887 and 1889 show that the colony is not too proud
to follow the example of the mother-country in some
points, for the instructions to the commissioners are
based upon those which were prepared, at the Local
Government Board, at the time of the Eedistribution
Bill, for Sir John Lambert, Sir Francis Sandford, and
the other gentlemen who admirably performed the duties
laid upon them. The one-man-one-vote provision of
the New Zealand law is contained in a short clause
which simply provides that " no elector shall at any
election of members of the House of Kepresentatives
vote in respect [of more than one electorate," while the
next clause allows a question upon the subject to be
put, and a third clause imposes a penalty of 50 for any
offence under the Act words which cover voting in
more than one district. No British colonies have shown
much favour for cumulative, limited, personal, or
proportional representation. New Zealand rejected such
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY
259
plans when proposed by the Prime Minister (although, as
we shall see, the cumulative vote exists in New Zealand
in the election of Education Boards), and in the other
colonies they are seldom named. In New Zealand the
cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dun-
edin, have three members each ; but the voters vote for
three, and there is no plan for preferential voting.
The bulky work upon minority representation which Minority
is published in France names several British colonies as jj^ 68
having some form of the system, but the information of
the authors is not brought up to date. They state, for
example, that in South Australia the representation of
minorities has existed since a time earlier than the date of
my own birth ; and as a matter of fact it was tried there
in 1840, but the experiment was not repeated. In Malta
it has only very recently been abolished, and in the Cape
it still exists. The cumulative vote for the Upper House
at the Cape was approved by Lord Grey in 1850, and
brought into force in 1853 ; and was applied also to the
election of members of the Assembly for the city of
Cape Town. Kimberley returns four members (as Cape
Town returns four members) to the Assembly by the
Act of 1882, but cumulative voting has not been intro-
duced in the Kimberley case. Although minority repre-
sentation has so long existed in the Cape, it has no
special popularity there, and very possibly may fail in
the future to be maintained.
Colonial Upper Houses, whether nominated by the Upper
Crown, as in New South Wales, the Dominion of Canada,
New Zealand, Queensland, Newfoundland, and Quebec,
or elected, as in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania,
the Cape, and Prince Edward Island, are weak. Western
Australia, which will probably enter upon responsible
government in 1891 with a nominated Upper House,
will receive an elective Upper House at the end of six
260 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
years or when its population reaches 60,000, as the
option left to the colony will undoubtedly be exer-
cised. Some of the Canadian Provinces such as
Ontario, the chief of them have, as has been seen,
but a single Chamber, while some possess Upper
Houses, constructed on all possible systems election,
nomination for life, and nomination for a term of
years. In New South Wales the Upper House is
threatened by the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Parkes,
although he finds it prudent to explain that what
he has said of it was only " an ejaculation." In Cape
Colony, in spite of the dignity conferred upon the
Upper House by the provision that its deliberations
are presided over by the Chief Justice of the colony,
and in spite also of the fact that the Ministers can speak
in the Upper House even if members of the Lower, the
Legislative Council is not of much account, and few
politicians of importance seek election to it. In the
Molteno Ministry and the succeeding administration,
which lasted between them from 1872 to 1881, only
one Minister in each was a member of the Legislative
Council, all the others being members of the House of
Assembly. In the Scanlen Ministry, when it was first
formed, there was again one member of the Upper
House, and on his retirement in the last days of the
Government he was succeeded by a member of the
Assembly. In the existing Administration at the Cape
there is likewise one member who sits in the Legislative
Council. In the Dominion of Canada the weakness of
the Senate is illustrated by the fact that out of the fifteen
members of the present Canadian Cabinet only two repre-
sent the Government in the Senate. Nomination by the
Crown, which means nomination by the Government of
the day, tends of course, as Dr. Bourinot has shown,
when one party has been long in office, to fill the Senate
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 261
with men not acceptable to the whole people, and the
representative character of that body greatly suffers.
In Victoria the colonists have not yet got over their
satisfaction at replacing their obstructive Upper House
"by a more freely elective body, and they assert that the
new Council is infinitely less harmful than the old ; but
even the new body is not strong, and it is difficult to
discover what useful purpose it serves.
Manitoba put an end to its Upper House by "an
Act to diminish the expenses of the Legislature,"
passed " by and with the consent of the Legislative
Council" which the Act abolished. The tendency in
the colonies which still possess nominated Upper
Houses is to follow the example of Victoria and change
them for councils subject to election, but in some
cases there is a belief that elected Councils may assume
that, also deriving their authority from the people,
they are the equal of the Assemblies, and not so
much bound to give way to the other Chamber as is
the case with the House of Lords or with nominated
bodies. South Australia has found, as has been seen,
the means to prevent the deadlocks which would occur
if elective Legislative Councils were generally to take a
lofty view of their constitutional rights. The late
Attorney-General of South Australia spoke once, some-
what proudly, at a meeting of the Federal Council of
Australasia, of" the facilities which exist (in our province)
for making the second branch of the legislature amen-
able to the popular will " ; and there can be little doubt
that, when a federal Parliament comes to be constituted
for Australia, South Australia will propose the applica-
tion of its penal dissolution clause to the new Senate
or Upper House. Colonial statesmen and parties are
not agreed as to the rights of colonial Upper Houses,
the Liberals generally asserting, and the Conservatives
262 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
denying, as in France, the right of the Lower House to
the exclusive control of the public funds. The Liberals
hold, as Sir Henry Parkes has put it, and as Sir Graham
Berry used to maintain in Victoria until the Victorian
Upper House gave way, that the parliamentary institu-
tions of the mother -country have descended to the
colonies, and that, in accordance with the principles
which guide the action of Lords and Commons respect-
ively, the Councils have no right to interfere with the
Assemblies as regards money Bills. Where there exist,
as in some cases, Constitution Acts which contain clauses
apparently empowering the Councils to amend money
Bills, the Liberals seem to suggest that they should be
interpreted by imperial practice and precedent. Disputes
between the Houses, however, generally end, like dis-
putes in the mother-country, by the Upper House giving
way, with more or less ill grace, without any theoretical
settlement being reached of the constitutional questions
involved.
The Ee- In some points our colonies are not leading the way,
ferendum. n _. , . ,
and we must turn to Switzerland to see where lies the
probable future of democracy. The colonies as a rule
have Upper Houses, with which they quarrel, but which
they do not destroy ; and in none of them does there
exist a sign as yet of the adoption of the Eeferendum.
In Switzerland we learn that the future of democratic
government will probably take the direction of the
creation of small single Chambers, before which the
Ministries and the constituencies will possess equal
power of initiating legislation, and which will amend
the Bills, after which they will be referred to popular
vote in a plebiscite of "Yes or No? Shall the Bills
as amended pass ? " In spite of the rapidly increasing-
use of the Eeferendum, not only in Switzerland but
also in the United States, and of the growing popu-
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 263
larity of the idea in France, no one of our colonies
has as yet made trial of either the Eeferendum or the
Initiative. I do not of course forget the imitation
in Canadian railway and liquor legislation of the prin-
ciple of popular poll in districts known to us in
connection with English local government. The term
Keferendum is conveniently applied to the consulta-
tion of the people of the entire State. Under the
present constitution of Switzerland, as has been well
shown by the late Sir Francis Adams, 1 the Eeferendum
is a Conservative force, and has the influence which a
powerful Upper House might conceivably exercise if it
were cautiously inclined to resist change and impervious
both to unpopularity and to the dictates of temper. No
doubt since the general adoption of the Keferendum the
Swiss voter has become to some extent indifferent as to
the choice of legislators ; but this indifference rather
tends to continue the old men in their positions than
to lower the quality of the supply, and from a Con-
servative point of view the institution of the Referendum
in new countries would seem to be a wiser provision
than the creation of weak Upper Houses. Switzerland,
indeed, being a federal State, can enjoy the luxury of an
Upper House like that of the United States, which has
a real basis for its existence in the Cantonal or State,
system; but Canada, which might have formed an
Upper House upon the model of the American Senate,
rejected it for a weak nominated body. It is possible
that one reason why Canada failed to follow American
example was because the Canadian Conservatives fore-
saw that while they would govern the federation they
might have to face a Liberal Senate ; but it is perhaps
to be regretted, in the interest both of Canada and of
1 The Swiss Confederation, by Sir Francis O. Adams, K.C.M.G., C.B.,
and C. D. Cunningham. Macmillan and Co., 1889.
264 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
political science, that the Dominion should have failed
to make trial either of the Eeferendum or of an elective
c Senate representing Provinces. The Eeferendum and
Initiative, with single Chambers, would appear well
suited to the circumstances of the Australian states, if
they are to remain virtually separate from one another
upon the present system ; but if federation is brought
about it is to be hoped that any Upper House which
may be created for the federation may follow the
American rather than the Canadian precedent.
"Social- The Conservative and resisting forces of strong
"State* Upper Houses, difficult, indeed, to create except upon
socialism." ^ f ec [ era i an j provincial system, seem, however, to be
little needed by our colonies, for there is in them no
such sign as is to be seen in the mother-country of the
growth of extreme views hostile to the institution of
property and obnoxious to the richer classes. Eevolu-
tionary Socialism, as contrasted with State-socialism, is
far stronger in Europe than in our colonies ; and if it be
true that the Australian colonies, and in a less degree
Canada and portions of South Africa, present us with a
picture of what England will become, we shall find
reason to suppose that the changes of the next few
years will be much less rapid and much less sweeping
than many hope and most believe. It is in Great
Britain of all the countries of the world that Eevolutionary
Socialistic views appear to be the most generally enter-
tained among thoughtful people at the present time.
The practical programmes put forward by moderate
European Socialists are, indeed, mostly law in the
Australian colonies, but the larger proposals which lie
behind appear to have less chance of being entertained
there than they have in the old world. The programme
of the Young Democrats of the democratic republic of
Switzerland contains a large number of items most of
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 265
which are already the subject of legislation in Australia :
the railways to be in the hands of the State, stringent
labour legislation to be adopted, the separation of
Church and State, and so forth. But while Swiss
Social Democrats put last in their programme the item
which looms largest the nationalisation of commerce
and industry, and equality of the profits of labour
they doubtless give to it the greater portion of their
thought. Now in Australia such ideas have little
weight. Eevolutionary or democratic Socialism, in
short, in Australia, in Canada, and in the United States
is not popular with workmen, who largely own their
houses and possess land and shares ; but, on the other
hand, State-socialism advances rapidly in Australia.
While in Canada, as in the United States, the great
body of small agricultural proprietors seem disinclined
to try many of the experiments of State-socialism,
in Australia the householding town democracy has
no such fears. The Australian colonists feel that their
governments are governments of the whole people, and
that the people should make full use of the capacity of
government to do all that can be done.
Mr. Goschen has described Australia as a paradise of Laiss
laisser faire, but he must have been singularly misin-
formed. Railways are everywhere in the hands of
the State, which does not treat them as mere in-
vestments, but uses its power over them, to the full,
for the comfort of the inhabitants. No one in the
colonies now struggles against the State ownership of
railroads, and, to those in England who think the
Australians in the wrong upon this point, they answer
that the reasons which we give in our books for Govern-
ment carrying on post-office work apply equally to
railways. They tell us that we are in the habit of
arguing that if the postal service were left to private
266 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
enterprise the smaller places would be without a post, or
would be charged more heavily for it than the large and
wealthy cities. They quote us as saying that in the
towns, in which the service pays, there would, under
private enterprise, be competition, with the result of
duplication of servants, of offices, and of plant, involving-
waste to the community ; and they insist that this and
our other arguments about posts are true, but are equally
applicable to railways. It is very generally believed in
our South -Sea colonies that the future of democratic
states will more and more point to the conducting of
public enterprises by Government, Parliament not
attempting to interfere in the details of the manage-
ment, but supporting Government in selecting experts to
serve as commissioners, on the principle now adopted in the
railway commissions of the Australasian colonies. Just
as the meetings in England of borough surveyors and of
medical officers of health bring about constant improve-
ment in sanitary machinery, so, the Australians think,
conferences of the experts employed in the management
of public enterprises will lead to continual improvement
in the management, without that waste which is inevit-
able under a competitive system. Education is gener-
ally free or virtually free ; labour is more controlled
than it is at home. The State interferes in agriculture,
by means of bounties, and in many matters in which
the advocates of laisser faire would be the first to
deprecate its action ; and public works are set on foot
for the benefit of the unemployed. In some colonies
the Government owns the waterworks of the great
towns, and in almost all it contributes liberally towards
charities and hospitals. But, while State -socialism
prospers in the colonies, there remains the amazing fact
startling to all Englishmen, whether thev are under
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 267
the influence of the attractions of modern Socialism or
whether they fear it as the terror of their dreams that
there is no Socialism, other than State-socialism, worth
mentioning in the Queen's dominions outside Great
Britain.
The leaders of opinion in the colonies are more Drift ot
inclined towards certain sides of Socialism than are canton 1
their followers. While the colonial democracy are not J^J ]"
at all inclined to move in the direction of Revolutionary Socialism -
Socialism, Sir Samuel Griffith of Queensland, Sir Robert
Stout of New Zealand, and some others among the
leading colonial statesmen, have by speech or writing
suggested large alterations in the existing order of
society. Sir Samuel Griffith has contributed articles on
the distribution of wealth to the Centennial Magazine
which are a little vague, but are suggestive of a specula-
tive desire for sweeping change ; and I have already
mentioned the tendency towards land nationalisation of
Sir Robert Stout and others. Among the most extreme
or advanced, however, of the working people of the
colonies there are few who desire that land should be
universally held by the community or labour organised
by it for collective profit. There is no general desire
apparent to transfer to the community land, mines, or
factories, although a universal belief in the wisdom of
the community managing railways. The change which
has occurred in England from the old Radicalism, whose
last conspicuous representative among us was Professor
Fawcett, and which had for its main principle the
freedom of the individual and the restriction of State
action, to the Radicalism of our day, which has strong
Socialistic leanings, has not been seen in the colonies.
There the old Radicalism has all along been represented
by the colonial Conservative party. The dominant
268 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Kadicalism of the colonies stands firmly in a middle
position, desiring to see the State play a large part, as
large perhaps relatively as it plays in Germany, but not
inclining towards democratic Socialistic ideas in the
ordinary sense of the phrase. There is in colonies like
Victoria no capitalist rule, and even the Protection of
Victoria comes rather from the workmen than, as in
some protectionist countries, mainly from the employers ;
but there is little desire to replace Capital by some
different engine of production. In the colonies as in
the mother -country the politicians and the electorate
work by rule of thumb, and are impatient of general
theories ; but, while the actual progress achieved in the
direction of State -socialism in recent years has been
great both in the mother-country and in the colonies,
but greater in the latter, as might be expected from the
openness of the field, in the realm of speculation Great
Britain is more advanced than her daughter-countries,
and seems more ready to inaugurate a new era for
society. While the trade unions of Australia have
brought about that universal eight-hour day which the
Unions of England have not been strong enough to
secure, the Australian unions fail to show that general
feeling in favour of the nationalisation of the land which
finds expression at all representative meetings of English
workmen. The workmen of Australia when they express
collective opinions upon public affairs appear to attach
more importance to the extension of Protection to local
industries, to the representation of labour among the
unpaid magistracy, to the employment of workmen as
inspectors of factories, to the prevention of the importa
tion of criminals, paupers, Asiatics, and labourers under
contract, than they do to the Socialistic or semi-Social-
istic schemes of Social Democracy; but they support
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 269
their Governments in undertaking duties which in the
old world and in America are left to individuals.
The exception, so far as it is one, to my statement Nationai-
as to the non-existence in our self-governing colonies of the land.
general speculative ideas of an advanced description
concerns the nationalisation of the land, a change which,
as I have pointed out in the Australasian part of the first
volume, has advocates in the South-Sea colonies, although
they are nowhere a majority. The colonial Parliaments
have never shown much desire to make the State a land-
lord, even when invited to do so, as in at least one case,
by a colonial Government. A Land Bill brought in by
Mr. Ballance in New Zealand, when he was a member
of the Stout -Vogel Administration, attempted to carry
into law a portion of the land nationalisation views held
by Sir Kobert Stout and himself, and, while it gave power
to the State to resume land at 10 per cent above the
valuation, it also laid down the policy of leasing as
against sale. A Bill for the gradual conversion of New
Zealand freeholders into leaseholders under the Crown was
also, I believe, suggested by Sir George Grey. A con-
siderable portion of these proposals failed to become law,
and those which were carried have since been modified
by Parliament. Mr. Ballance, in his speech in bringing
in his Land Bill, praised the plan of perpetual leases,
and prophesied that it would soon become the prevail-
ing system, and afterwards in the administration of the
law the present leader of the New Zealand opposition
tried to enforce the adoption of his policy of discouraging
the sale of land. But the Act was almost immediately
on its passing altered by the New Zealand Parliament,
and lands which had been "opened" for perpetual
leasing were declared open for sale for cash, and holders
of perpetual leases allowed to acquire freeholds. Then
\
2/o PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
the Stout Government went out of office, and Sir Harry
Atkinson's Government passed through Parliament in
1888 an Act embodying the old policy of sale.
Existing The land systems of British North America, which
systems, have been described, so far as there is need to mention
them, are modelled, as has been seen, upon the American
freehold homestead plan. In the Cape there is a curious
land system which is of Dutch origin the greater
portion of the land being held of the Crown on a quit-
rent tenure, and a good deal more held as leasehold
under an Act of 1864, while few of the large estates are
held upon a freehold tenure. To meet the arguments
of those who contended that poor settlers should be
encouraged by permanency of occupation at a rental
without a lock-up of their capital, a Bill was introduced
in 1878 for the sale of Crown lands, at a rental, by
auction. Under the Act of 1878 the rents were fixed
too high by the results of competition, and poor men
bid for rents far beyond their means. Widespread
distress ensued, and Parliament gave way under pressure
and consented to a general diminution of rents through
the agency of local boards. In 1887, however, a new
law was introduced which expressed the latest views of
the Cape Parliament, and under this a public auction
system, with payment by the purchaser of one-fifth of
the price within the year, and mortgage of four-fifths at
4 per cent in favour of the Government, is the plan
preferred. At the same time the State is in Cape
Colony a large landowner, and the quitrents form a
considerable item in the public revenue, and if Govern-
ment land is left derelict for five years the Government
may resume possession. This land system of the Cape
is peculiar in our colonies, has not been imitated, and is
based on Dutch views of Koman law ; and in our other
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 271
South African colony of Natal there is a wholly different
system. The old Dutch farmers who had entered Natal
before it became a British colony were allowed farms,
some of 6000, some of 2000 acres, at an annual rate of
a little over half a farthing an acre, redeemable at 15
years' purchase. But, from 1848, a homestead system
was adopted in favour of the immigrants, which was
expanded when Natal became a separate colony. The
plan of a redeemable rent was applied to the immigrants
under a scheme of 1866, by which a rent of Id. per
acre per annum was fixed, which was redeemable, after
eight years' occupation, at 5s. an acre. Since 1880
Natal Crown lands have been sold in freehold in lots of
not over 2000 acres at a price payable in ten (now
twenty) annual instalments without interest, or at a
different rate where the purchaser wishes to buy right
out at once and receive a clear title. In the Austral-
asian colonies, when lands were let out to pastoral
tenants at low rents, it was distinctly only as a temporary
arrangement, with the view of the lands being at any
time withdrawn for sale ; and in all the colonies the
land most suited for agricultural settlement passed
gradually to free selectors of the working class. All
the colonies except the Cape, and for a time New
Zealand, have shown alacrity in getting rid of the
freehold of their land for cash, though all of them have
tried their hand at legislation intended to secure a
preference to the poor man, intending to settle on the
land, over the rich man, who is made to wait and buy
up freeholds.
If in each of the colonies a small body of men, with Opinions as
distinguished leaders, have advocated nationalisation of future.
the land, in none of them not even in New Zealand
have their views found general favour, probably for the
i
272 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
reason that too large a proportion of the population are
interested, as landowners, in leaving matters as they
are. It has been lately stated in England that the
legislature of New South Wales, by an Act of 1889,
gave to the State power to expropriate owners on paying
the full market value plus 10 per cent, without the
necessity for special legislation in each case. Even this
would have been a very different thing from proclaiming
a general State ownership of land ; but in any case the
statement was exaggerated, and can in fact only have
referred to a Bill dealing with one metropolitan case, and
enabling the Government to assume some land in front
of the new Sydney Post Office, taking more land than
they actually needed (for streets), which it was proposed
to sell to help to repay the cost of the improvement. The
principle, as was shown in the New South Wales debate,
was one which had been asserted by the Imperial
Parliament at least thirty years ago in the case of a
corporation. Hayter's admirable Year-book gives an
excellent account of the development in the Australian
colonies of the existing land system, and all that I need
say is that the system meets with general support,
although Dr. Quick, in his history of land tenure in the
colony of Victoria, quoted above, has pointed out with
great force what might have been the better results of
retaining the Australian public lands in the hands of
the State. I have described in the chapter on Victoria
the failure of Mr. Gresham and Mr. Syme, supported as
they were by the authority of Mr. Higinbotham, to con-
vert the Australian population to the same views as are
put forward by Dr. Quick, and in these more general
remarks I may add that Mr. Syme, best known as the
founder of Australian Protection, might easily, had chance
so willed, have made in the world the same name that
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 273.
has been made in later days by Mr. Henry George, Mr.
Syme having put forward in most eloquent and powerful
language the same principles at a much earlier date. Mr.
Gresham neglected his business for the land nationalisa-
tion controversy, was compelled to support his family
by manual toil, and was eventually drowned in one of
the arms of Port Phillip. Mr. Higinbotham became
Chief Justice ; and Mr. Syme naturally turned from the
land policy in which he failed to carry the people with
him to that Protection policy in which he was completely
successful. Some of the Australian trades, speaking
through their Unions, have expressed, indeed, of late an
opinion in favour of Mr. George's views. They have
called upon the State to impose a tax which, progressing
by degrees, shall at last take for the community the full
annual unimproved rental value of all lands that profit
which arises from the natural advantages and from the
demand of an increasing population to get the benefit of
them. The mass of the Australian public are unwilling
to admit that they have legislated on the wrong principle ;
land legislation in the parent colony is still timid in
the extreme, and even the boldest of Australian land
reformers prefer as a rule to work through the adoption
of progressive death duties, for the purpose of reducing
large estates, rather than to adopt more sweeping
measures.
I am glad to find that so competent an observer as Contra-
Dr. Dale 1 takes the same view that I do as to the un-
wisdom of the past Australian policy, and also as to
the impossibility now of adopting an effective change of
system. At the same time a different view as to the ownership
financial effect of keeping colonial lands in the hands of lands.
1 Impressions of Australia, by K. "W. Dale, LL.D. Hodder and
Stoughton, 1889.
VOL. II T
274 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
the State is taken by some high authorities. Mr.
Sutherland in an article in the Melbourne Review 1 for
1885 has worked out the figures (which in the case of
Victoria, with her admirable system of statistics, are easily
accessible) that bear upon the question of the nationalisa-
tion of the land, and his calculations go to show that from
the mere standpoint of pecuniary interest it would have
been a matter of indifference in Victoria whether the
State had kept the land in its own hands or sold it to
individuals. The writer argues that if that has been
the result in the case of a colony whose progress has
'been so marvellous as that of Victoria, and has been
accompanied by gold discoveries which caused a rapid
and constant increase of population, due to the influx of
immigrants, in the average case a young nation would
lose by entering upon a policy of nationalisation. The
appearance of the article led to a controversy between
the Melbourne ArguS and the Melbourne Age, in which
Mr. Syme's organ joined issue on the facts and con-
clusions of the writer of the article. Mr. Sutherland
in stating the value of property had allowed 20 per
cent over the assessments, and the Age asserted that
the sum was too small, as owners were in the habit of
understating the value of their holdings to a greater
extent than the allowance made. On the other hand,
it might be argued that the rent to be paid, where the
State held the land in its own hands, under periodical
assessments to be made by public officers, would be as
likely to be under the true value as present assessments
are, and that the rentals to be received by Government
should be diminished in the calculations for this reason.
The author of the Review article, however, did not
contend that Victorian figures show the undesirability
1 Melbourne Review, Vol. X. p. 176.
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 275
of the policy of State ownership of land, but only that
the pecuniary results of the two systems would come
pretty much to the same thing.
It is seen, then, that the Ministers holding views
similar to those of Mr. Syme or of Mr. George, who
have filled high office in the colonies, have not been
able to give expression in legislation to their views.
Little has been accomplished by laws to carry out
their opinions, and it clearly would be more difficult
for the colonies to retrace their course than it would
have been to have retained the lands in State possession
from the time of the earliest settlement. The popularity
of "the Torrens Act," with regard to land transfer, is,
as I have shown, in itself an evidence of the rejection
of extreme land views. The simplification of the
transfer of land has in town districts encouraged land
speculation, while in rural districts it has greatly
facilitated the settlement of freeholders upon the soil,
but everywhere its adoption tells heavily against that of
land nationalisation theories.
While general ideas with regard to the land are un- Taxation.
popular with the Australian majority there is no timidity
in the South- Sea colonies with regard to taxation upon
land unpopular in Canada and South Africa. I
have already named the land-tax of Victoria and the
graduated or progressive succession duties of nearly all
the Australasian colonies, of which the succession duties
in New Zealand and some other -colonies were adopted
for the double purpose of raising money and of breaking
up large estates, while the Victorian land-tax was mainly
instituted for the latter purpose. It has been contended
that although the Victorian tax has classes of exemption
so constructed as to fine the large owner for the benefit
of the agricultural settler, it must have failed in its in-
276 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
tention, inasmuch as, had it succeeded, the amount due
would have shown a rapid decline, whereas the tax
yields an almost fixed amount. The tax, however, has
led to a certain adoption of the excellent practice of
dividing properties, early in the life of the possessor,
amongst his sons. Mr. Bryce has said l that no " legisla-
tion that is compatible with the rights of property as
now understood " can " do much to restrict " the in-
creasingly rapid growth of fortunes in the United States ;
but an expansion of those graduated or progressive
death duties now almost universal in our Australian
colonies would certainly have in the long-run that effect,
and yet would be, to judge from Australian example,
compatible with the rights of property even as now
understood by us at home. In new countries the selling
value of land rises so steadily by natural increment that
it soon counterbalances a certain depression caused by
the imposition of taxation of this kind, and capital
brings in huge returns.
Progressive Although large landowners and great capitalists as a
taxation. .. & __ _?_.,
class naturally dislike graduated taxation, it cannot be
said that the institution of property as such is weakened
by it, or money or rich people driven from the colonies.
The extreme limit which as yet has been reached by
such taxation is the 13 per cent upon certain large
properties in New Zealand ; but this amount is borne so
quietly that it is certain that a far higher rate could be
sustained. The tendency of democracy in taxation lies
this way. The Australians have chiefly chosen, as I
think wisely, the death duties for their experiments.
The Swiss have selected income-tax, and in Vaud, one of
the most enlightened Cantons, there has been instituted
a " progressive " heavy income-tax in " categories," which
1 First Edition, vol. iii. p. 667.
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 277
was advocated as intended to throw an increased share
of public charges on the rich, and to diminish the burdens
of the poor. A progressive income-tax also exists in
some states of the American Union. Little sign has
yet been seen of such taxation in the British colonies
outside of Australasia, while in British Columbia a system
of Provincial taxation has lately been introduced which
combines the democratic system of the exemption from
property -tax of small incomes (under the "Taxes on
Property Act, 1888 ") with the antiquated expedient of a
poll-tax, laid on all male residents of eighteen, and paid
by employers for their workmen.
Introduced in the colony of Victoria by a Minister
who, though not originally a Conservative, had become
known as a Conservative before he carried it, the gradu-
ated succession duty, varying from 1 per cent on small
properties to 10 per cent on large (widows, children,
and grandchildren being subject to a reduced scale
only) has worked well, bringing in a large amount of
money without greater unpopularity than attends
taxes of every kind, and it has been imitated in
almost all the South- Sea colonies. A fear is felt in
England that such taxation, now initiated by Mr.
Goschen to the extent of 1 per cent, may tend to
cause evasions of the law; but taxation upon large
fortunes is not easily evaded, because in the case
of the largest the public notoriety that attends them,
and the considerable number of persons who possess full
knowledge of them, make it difficult to defeat the in-
tentions of the legislature. The legal evasion caused by
the division of property in lifetime is beneficial to the
interests of the State, and helps forward one of the
intentions of the authors of such taxation that of
dividing fortunes of unwieldy size into several fortunes
27 8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
of more manageable dimensions. There can be little
doubt that the breaking up of very large estates is, on
the whole, an advantage to the community, provided it
be not accompanied by a discouragement of the pro-
vident instinct ; and New Zealand example shows that
if heavy taxation is confined to the largest fortunes
there is no discouragement of providence attendant on it.
Freedom We are so accustomed in England to absolute
ofbequest< freedom of bequest that we are apt to ignore the fact
that, in all the many countries to which the Napoleonic
code applies, property owners are forbidden to leave the
whole of their money as they please. It might with more
truth be contended that rich men would be driven from
France to England by the existence of such a law than
that the Victorian tax of 10 per cent on large estates,
or the New Zealand duty of 13 per cent, has any effect
in checking the accumulation of property in the colonies.
Sir Eawson Kawson and Mr. Westgarth, the highest
authorities upon the point, have both told us that the
most striking feature in the Australian colonies, as
compared with the rest of the world outside of the
United States, is the unprecedented pace of growth in
property.
Progressive It is a somewhat curious fact that the principle
taxation in _ . .
France, ol graduated taxation, which has spread rapidly in
Australia, in the United States, and in Switzerland
during the last twenty years, was adopted in parts of
France under the Second Empire when it had become
almost unknown elsewhere. The impdt progressif had
existed in France for seven years after its first intro-
duction in 1793, and had been imitated in the house-
tax of the United States for several years, beginning in
1798, but had everywhere become extinct during the
long peace. In Paris and in some other cities of
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 279
France, by the permission of the State given during
the reign of Napoleon III, the house -tax, or rather
rent-tax, is now once more "progressive." There is
a total exemption of the lowest rents, and then six
scales, rents over 40 paying vastly more in proportion
than those of from 16 to 24. The Australian
graduated or progressive taxes are likely to be ex-
tended, but as long as enormous sums of money are
levied by means of customs duties in those colonies,
there is not so much temptation to raise them to the
highest levels possible without causing evasion, as there
will be when the South-Sea colonies either adopt free
trade or learn to manufacture and produce, as will be
increasingly the case, the articles that they need, and
combine in federation, with free interchange of goods
among themselves. The resolutions of a labour congress
in favour of a single tax on land cannot have much
weight so long as the same men give their votes for
the advocates of Protection.
The experiments of the colonies in finance, like their Colonial
political experiments, have a special interest for our-
selves, because, unlike the political experiments of
Switzerland, or the social experiments of Germany,
they are tried among a people of our own race, and
because, too, just as we have already in many matters
followed Australian example, so there is reason to
suppose that we are likely to follow it in others in
the future. It is at least possible, for example,
that, as the future of the English Liberal party may
lie in the direction of that European Socialism which
I have called Kevolutionary or Democratic, the future
of the English Conservative party, in the increasing
strength of Socialist opinions, may lie wholly away
from the doctrines of their former opponents of the Man-
2 8o PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Chester school, and in the direction of State-socialism
of the Australian type. At the same time we still
give more attention in our newspapers, our reviews,
and our books, to Continental than to colonial legis-
lation. So complete is our ignorance with regard to
colonial experiments that it is equalled only by the
want of knowledge in the colonies about one another.
As regards the federated colonies of Australasia the
institution of the Federal Council has done something
to familiarise a few statesmen with the legislation of
other colonies; but generally speaking, Australian
politicians know little of what has been done outside of
their own state, and nothing about Canada or South
Africa, while Canadian statesmen are in a condition of
blank ignorance about Australia. The visit to Australia
of a leading Canadian politician, sent out by his Govern-
ment, and the tours which are being made by the
envoys of the Imperial Federation League, may do
something to cause a better knowledge in the colonies
of the general principles of colonial legislation ; and as
regards the mother-country, the admirable volumes of
the Colonial Institute are doing much to remove
the reproach under which we suffer. One of our
highest authorities in England upon colonial topics
lately announced the adoption in Queensland of the
principle of the payment of members as though it
were a new thing there, when as a fact the Bill passed
in 1889 merely changed the payment of two guineas
a day, while the House was sitting, into a payment
of a fixed salary of 300 a year. In the chapters
upon labour, upon education, and upon the liquor laws,
I shall have to mention other colonial experiments
(made, one would almost think, upon our behalf) in
addition to those which I have already attempted to
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 281
describe, and I will conclude this general chapter by
briefly indicating a few other topics upon which it is
necessary to note colonial example.
There has been little change in Canada and Australia Position of
in the position of women since I wrote on the matter in w
1868, and the views stated in Greater Britain are
applicable to the situation, as it seems to me, with little
if any change. Superior as are the Australian colonies
to the United States, in some points which touch the
condition of their people similar as is Canada to the
United States in the one matter of the place of women
the colonies stand behind the states of the American
Union, and in something like an equal position with the
mother-country. The respect for women, though great, is
less great in the colonies than in the United States ; the
rights conferred upon them by the law are on the whole
less considerable. As regards that political franchise
concerning which there is doubt among themselves and
in the minds of some of their best friends, they nowhere
possess it, and in the colonies the question stands in
about the same position as it occupies in the mother-
country. Sir John Macdonald proposed in Canada to \
give the franchise to unmarried women, but, in spite of 1
his great power and of the dominance of his party, he I
failed to carry his proposal, and woman's suffrage \
remains in Canada a mere personal opinion of the i
Conservative Prime Minister of the Dominion, as it is \
of the Conservative Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom. The Stout -Vogel Government in New Zea-
land entrusted to Mr. Ballance, the present leader of
the Opposition, a woman -franchise Bill, which was
strongly favoured by Sir Julius Vogel ; but that Bill
was dropped, and in no colony has any greater actual
advance been made towards woman suffrage than is the
282 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PARTY
case in the mother-country, although in South Australia,
Queensland, and Victoria some think the adoption of
woman's suffrage close at hand, and in New South
Wales the Prime Minister is as strongly favourable
to the extension as are the First Ministers of Canada
and of the United Kingdom. In the colonies generally,
though by no means universally, women ratepayers
possess the municipal and the school-board franchise, as
in the mother-country, but, as in the United States,
they take far less part in politics than is now the case
in England.
Marriage As regards legislation which bears on domestic condi-
d^vorce. tions, the colonies show themselves favourable to marriage
with a deceased wife's sister, and, at the suggestion of
Sir Alfred Stephen, New South Wales proposed to place
women upon equal terms with men in the law of divorce,
although the measure, which also in other respects
enlarges facilities for divorce, has hitherto been vetoed
by the Government at home. Victoria has now passed
a somewhat similar measure, and this was " allowed" by
the home Government in the middle of February 1890.
The Colo- The disallowal of Sir Alfred Stephen's Bill was, of
veto. " course, lawful, because the Colonial Office can technically
justify the veto or suspension of any measure ; but it
appears to me to have been unconstitutional. The object
of the veto, and the whole intention in reserving Bills for
the consideration of the Imperial Government, have been
frequently explained by constitutional writers. Gover-
nors when they forward Bills that they have reserved
give their reasons for reserving them. Now the grounds
for reserving Bills and for their ultimate disallowance,
as stated by the constitutional authorities, are the possi-
bility of their conflicting with Imperial interests, or
their being beyond the legislative powers of dependencies.
CHAP, i COLONIAL DEMOCRACY 283
There is no higher authority upon the subject than Dr.
Bourinot, and he, quoting the settled opinion of great
authorities, declares that " only when the obligations of
the Empire to a foreign power are affected or an Imperial
statute is infringed, in matters on which the Canadian
Parliament has not full jurisdiction, is the supreme
authority of England likely to be exercised." Another
weighty Canadian authority, Mr. Blake, put the claim
of the colonies still higher, for he declared that
the mother -country can interfere " only in instances
in which, owing to the existence of substantial Imperial
as distinguished from Canadian interests, it is considered
that full freedom of action is not vested in the Canadian
people." It certainly seems to me that these principles
are as applicable to New South Wales as they are to
Canada, and that the right course for the Secretary of
State, if he did not like Sir Alfred Stephen's Bill, would
have been to make the reply which was made by one
of his predecessors when the colonies began to adopt
Protection, namely, that, however much the Govern-
ment might regret the proposed legislation, they did not
feel justified in opposing the wishes of the people.
Sir Alfred Stephen has performed in his old age sir Alfred
many legislative services for his colony, and in Victoria a
Mr. Service, as he grows old, is also becoming known as "
a safe and cautious proposer of improved legislation,^ 1 ^
carrying out, for example, in Victorian law principles,
admirably laid down for us in a Bill drawn by Sir James
Stephen, which the Parliament of the United Kingdom
cannot find time to pass. The colonial experiments in
the field of labour may, however, possess a more im-
mediate interest for readers than topics connected with
the science of jurisprudence.
statesmen.
CHAPTER II
LABOUR, PROVIDENT SOCIETIES, AND THE POOR
Power of THE position of the trade unions in the colonies is of
the^umons muc k mterest to us i n G rea t Britain, inasmuch as they
colonies. are p ar ^y branches of British unions, and wholly
modelled upon the English system. The Australian
unions have, however, reached a power as yet unattained
by those at home, through the exercise of which they
have been successful in fixing the length of the
working day, and in a lesser but still considerable
degree able to settle the price of labour. The bugbear
of the colonial workman is cheap English, Indian, or
foreign labour, and the terror of being dragged down
from the high position in the scale of comfort which he
now occupies to the lower level of the French or
Belgian or German labourer. In Australasia he fights
for a life of comfort and well-earned partial leisure
against a life of mere existence. In trade matters as in
politics the workman's power in Australia is exercised,
upon the whole, with discretion and restraint. He is
able to paralyse the commerce of the continent, and he
has not done so ; and where instances may be given
as, for example, in the boycotting of steamship
companies which employ Lascars or Chinese of
something like abuse of power, it has not been alto-
gether without excuse.
CHAP, ir LABOUR 285
The trade unions of Australia are bound together in
a compact federation, and are in the habit of sup-
porting strikes outside the particular colony of the
subscribers. When the coal -miners of New South
Wales struck two years ago for an increase of wages
they received considerable contributions from the trades
of Melbourne. When the "lumpers" struck against
the interference of the English mail steamers in the
intercolonial shipping trade the lumpers in Victoria,
South Australia, and New South Wales went almost
simultaneously on strike. It was therefore no new
principle which was asserted when the Melbourne Trades
supported the "dockers'" strike of 1889 in London,
but what was remarkable in this case was the extent
to which the general public of Australia backed up the
Trades.
In the Australasian colonies the eight -hour day Hours of
prevails, and is all but universal, as is in the towns Australia
of South Africa the nine-hour day as far as European
labour is concerned, while Canada is in this respect
perhaps slightly behind even the United States a
country itself on the whole behind our Australian and
South African colonies as regards hours of labour.
The eight -hour day of Australia is not only all but
complete, but has the full approbation of the whole
community ; and when the great procession of Demon-
stration Day the Lord Mayor's Show of the Australian
colonies annually in each colony records the triumph
of the workmen, and the banners and trophies of the
trades pass through the streets surrounded by thou-
sands of well-clad, well-nourished men, there are few
Australians who do not rejoice at the evidence afforded
of the strength and prosperity of the colonial workmen.
Eight-hour Bills have lately been proposed in several
286 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
colonies. In South Australia one was carried on its
second reading in October 1889, as I have said, by a
majority of one vote, but made only slow progress in
Committee before the end of the Session. In Queens-
land a similar Bill was introduced by Sir Samuel Griffith,
and was defeated in the Upper House by twelve votes
to two after it had passed through the Assembly, but
was thrown out chiefly upon the ground that it was not
needed.
Effect of In the Australian colonies it is customary to insert
in many public Bills dealing with works to be carried
ou ^ ^7 Government a provision that the hours of labour
shall not exceed eight. In Victoria the Government
employs a great number of men in public works, such
as railways, and their hours are fixed by Act of Parlia-
ment ; and in some private Bills, such, for example, as
Tramway Bills, clauses fixing the day's work at eight
hours have been inserted in the Assembly. The eight-
hour day is so universal in Australia that these clauses
are not really needed, as the workmen had forced the
complete carrying out of the principle before the custom
of inserting them arose. The effect of the eight-hour
day, according to general admission, has been found as
satisfactory throughout Australasia as in Victoria. So
far as Australian example can bear upon the English
labour problem it appears to be favourable to the
attempt to gradually introduce the eight-hour day in
the contracts of the State and of municipalities, and
even to give to it the force of a general law in the case
of those trades to which it would be most easily applied.
It has been pointed out by the writer x who has given
the greatest attention to the discussion of the subject
that the economic objections which are now brought
1 Wealth and Progress, by George Gunton. Macmillan and Co., 1888.
CHAP, ii LABOUR 287
against the regulation of adult labour by law are the
same as those which were directed against the factory
legislation of this country when first proposed, and that
English Economists who wrote before 1850 opposed
the English Factory Acts, while all who have written
since 1855 have supported them.
In Australia great importance is attached by the
public to what are called "the enlarged social oppor-
tunities " of the working classes conferred by the short
hours, and the same feeling is beginning to have a
powerful influence in Canada. The Koyal Commission i n Canada.
on the Eelations of Labour and Capital which has lately
sat in that country, and which I named in my chapter
upon the Dominion, in a " First Keport," signed by five
members including the chairman, recommends that all
Government contracts should stipulate that the daily
hours of labour under them should not exceed nine ; and
in the " Second Report," signed by the remaining eight
members, "it is urged that the Government aid the
movement for shorter hours by stipulating in every
contract for work entered into with it that the con-
tractor stall not employ his hands for a longer period
than nine hours per day." Thus the Commission,
which was one of high authority, was unanimous in
recommending a nine-hour day in all Government con-1
tracts, and it was foreseen that the example of Govern- i
ment would be followed by all municipalities. Now the
parliamentary influence of the operatives in Canada is
less than is the case in Australia. There is one miner
in the Nova Scotia Assembly who is, however, returned
mainly as a " Nova Scotia First " man and as an advocate
of separation from the Upper Provinces on account of
the protectionist policy of the Dominion. There is one
miner in the British Columbia Assembly; and in the
288 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
Ontario House one member who was returned as
a labour reformer, and who is, I believe, a working-
mason, though he has been also a captain of volunteer
militia : the latter member represents the important
constituency of Lincoln (which contains the Canadian
Niagara), and was returned by a narrow majority on
a large vote. But, while the workmen are even weaker
in the various Legislative Assemblies of the Provinces
and in the House of Commons of the Dominion than
they are in the House of Commons of the United
Kingdom or in the Parliaments of Australasia, and
less influential, they yet appear likely to shortly
secure that model statutory working day as regards
Government contracts which they have not yet obtained
at home.
Results. In Australia the effect of the eight-hour and in the
tion! ra Cape of the nine-hour day is socially Conservative, that
is to say, the comfort conferred by it upon the working-
classes prevents agitation for revolutionary change.
The tact and wisdom displayed by the Trades Council
of Melbourne have been immense, and the Employers'
Union of Melbourne has been able repeatedly, in cir-
cumstances of considerable danger, to meet its repre-
sentatives and settle matters by arbitration, with the
effect of preventing strikes. In Canada the arbitration
provisions rest not on custom but upon law. In Lower
Canada the drift of opinion is towards the French
system of compulsory arbitration, upon the application
of one party to the dispute, with a judgment by a
Council which has the force of law. In Ontario there is
a Trades Arbitration Act which has been on the Statute-
book for some years, but it has never been made use of,
as one section provides that the Boards under the Act
shall not interfere with the rate of wages x)r price of
CHAP, ii LABOUR 289
labour, this section, in the opinion of the Commis-
sioners who signed the Second Eeport, rendering it
useless. The Ontario Act proceeds upon the Victorian
system of the formation of Boards of Arbitration,
partly elected by employers and partly by men, under
chairmen unconnected with trade, who have power to
call witnesses.
The American Government lately sent a Commissioner American
to Australasia to report upon the condition of labour in
our colonies, and it is interesting to note the fact, which
shows that others are more alive than we are to the Australia -
value of Australian experiments, that would indeed be
more useful to ourselves than to America. The United
States Commissioner points out to his Government that,
while the great majority of the trades in Australia work
forty-eight hours a week, the bricklayers and masons of
Victoria work only forty-five, and that the carpenters
are likely to secure a reduction of hours to that number.
He shows that the two great English societies of the
Amalgamated Engineers and the Carpenters and Joiners
have branches in Australia and allow benefits to their
members, but that most of the Australian unions are
not benefit societies, and are founded purely for the
protection and security of trade interests.
The rate of wages is, of course, high in the colonies wages.
generally, and specially high in Australasia. It has
been computed that Melbourne employers have to pay
100 per cent more wages for 20 per cent less time than
is the case in England; but nevertheless the price of
many articles produced only averages, according to
British Government returns, about 20 per cent higher
than in England. It is difficult to see how, unless
colonial labour is more effective than British labour,
goods should be produced in the colonies at only 20 per
VOL. II U
2QO PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
cent in excess of British prices, although the skilled
workmen get nearly double the wages for a shorter day
that the same class of men obtain in Scotland or in
England. In South Africa there is no unskilled -white
labour, but the wages of the artisans are on the Australian
scale. The wages of labour in the South African colonies
have, however, been raised of late by the rush to the
Transvaal gold-fields. In Canada wages are somewhat
lower than in the South African and Australasian
colonies. American rates are higher than those which
exist in Canada or in our other colonies, 1 but the cost
of living is much less in the colonies than in the United
States, and a careful examination of the figures goes to
show that there is an inflation of all prices in America,
which makes the real wages much less than the nominal.
In Australia this is not the case. Some articles indeed
are dear throughout the colonies, and house rent is high,
though for good accommodation ; meat is cheap, as well
as some other forms of food ; and the cost of living
cannot be said, on the whole, to be much greater than in
England.
cost of Those who desire to pursue the subject of the cost
of 'living in the colonies will find much information in
the circulars now issued by the Emigrants' Information
Office in London. The only marked exception, other
than that of the United States, to the rule that in the
districts to which British emigrants resort the rate of
wages is, generally speaking, about double that of the
United Kingdom, for shorter hours, and the purchasing-
power of money only slightly inferior, is afforded by the
condition of the Transvaal gold-fields, which are rightly
classed for this purpose with the British colonies, though
situate on the territory of a foreign state. With regard
1 Chisholm's Handbook of Commercial Geography. Longmans, 1889.
CHAP, ii LABOUR 291
to the Transvaal exception, it should be borne in mind
that there are no large centres of population in the
interior of South Africa except the capitals of the
diamond-fields and of the gold-fields Kimberley and
Johannesburg : while there is not only dark-skinned
unskilled labour throughout South Africa, but also a
certain amount of dark-skinned skilled labour the
Dutch -speaking Malays at the Cape, and the East
Indians, who spread westward from Natal. Kim-
berley and Johannesburg are abnormal in their con-
dition, being the only large, fast -growing cities, the
growth of which is not helped by their being railroad
centres, and Johannesburg is not even served by a rail-
way system. Building is going on at Johannesburg
with lightning speed, but as everything has to be
brought in by wagon, and as each wagon is drawn by
from a dozen to eighteen oxen, the cost of all articles
is great. It is the place of the whole world where
skilled artisans at this moment can make the highest
wages, and meat is cheap ; but all luxuries stand at an
enormous price, and if the artisan drinks or smokes, or
prefers a dear good lodging to a less dear bad one, it is
difficult for him to save. The result of the rush to
Johannesburg has been to cause a certain demand for
skilled artisans in Natal, and for a time to raise the rate
of wages there, the nominal rate of wages in Johannes-
burg being vastly higher, but the cost of comfortable
living far greater, than in Natal. The normal condi-
tion of the colonial working man as regards the cost of
living is represented by the settled parts of the Aus-
tralian continent, where rent is a little higher, and
clothes are 20 per cent dearer, than in England, but food
considerably cheaper. There are in Melbourne a great
number of " Sixpenny Restaurants," giving to the
292 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
working man what we should call a good middle-class
meal for that price.
Houserent. Skilled artisans in Australia commonly pay from
12s. to 14s. a week for house rent, obtaining for this a
small house to themselves. Besides the saving upon
some kinds of food, there is a saving as compared with
England upon fuel in consequence of the warmer climate.
Many artisans are willing to pay 16s. to 18s. a week for
rent, while some pay as much as 20s. The men who
have been a long time in the colony have generally
saved enough money to buy an allotment, for which
they commonly pay 100. On this they build a cot-
tage for some 300, through the assistance of a building
society, and become the owners of their house in from
eight to twelve years, at the end of which they find
themselves in possession of property which is often
worth from 100 to 150 more than it was when they
began their payments. Many artisans, in from ten to
twelve years from the time of their marriage and settling
down as householders, are possessors of a freehold house
and garden of from five to seven hundred pounds value,
and there are whole suburbs of Melbourne which are
inhabited by these working-men proprietors. Their
cottages are neat, and the interiors show a great deal of
taste, while the state of the gardens bears evidence of
horticultural skill. It may be said that half the people
of Melbourne live in houses of their own, and that more
than half the working people of that city are proprietors
of house and land. It need hardly be pointed out that
when men have in this way for ten or twelve years
schooled themselves in thrift, and find themselves,
though still in the prime of life, relieved of the necessity
of paying rent, the process of accumulation of capital by
working men must be rapid, and the drift of opinion
CHAP, ii LABOUR 293
among the Australian artisans in favour of out-and-out
proprietorship in the soil is explained. The universal
feeling is that it is better to pay two or three shillings
a week more in youth than need be paid for rent, in
order that the question placarded upon the walls by the
building societies " Why pay rent ? " may be solved
long before a man is forty.
Considering what a high rent those who cater to Board,
the wants of the colonial workman have to pay, the
extraordinary development of the cheap restaurants that
I have named is in itself a remarkable testimony to the
lowness of the average price of food. There is one
restaurant at Melbourne which does no trade whatever
except in 6d. meals, and at this some twenty male
servants are employed. The proprietor seems to have
made his fortune, for he has three sons who have
passed through the university and have been brought
up as medical men and have travelled in Europe
before settling down. There are in Melbourne a dozen
such restaurants on this scale, and innumerable small
ones. So good a meal cannot be obtained in Eng-
land for the same price as in Victoria, although the
landlord's rent is higher in the colonies, and although
he has to pay double as much to his servants as he
would pay at home, besides incurring extra cost for gas
and coal for cooking. The unmarried artisan in Sydney
and in Melbourne often boards in families, obtain-
ing board and lodging at 15s. a week. The youthful
artisan who receives 48s. a week and pays 15s. for
board and lodging with his margin of 33s. can easily
save a pound or more per week, and in some six years
will find himself possessed of savings which, with the
interest on his small investments, will amount to some
350, upon which to start married life. This great
294 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
preponderance of average earnings over average expendi-
ture is, of course, the main cause of the development
of material wealth in the colonies.
In British North America the material condition of
working classes is nothing like so good as in
Australia, although it has considerably improved since
confederation. Wages have risen ; hours of labour have
been reduced ; and the necessaries of life are on the
whole, with the exception of rents, lower than they were
before. The 'cost of dwelling-houses has, however,
increased in the larger cities, as has been seen,
to such an extent as to somewhat counterbalance
\the other advantages. At Toronto the rents average
*more than a quarter of the income. In Montreal rents
are even higher, while in Quebec, where wages as a
rule are lower, the proportion taken for the rent is on the
average but a fifth. At St. John, New Brunswick, we
have the same state of things as in Quebec, while the condi-
tion of Halifax more closely resembles that prevalent in
the cities of Ontario. House rent throughout the towns
of the Dominion appears to be increasing more rapidly
than wages. In Toronto there has been a rise of from
30 to 40 per cent in house rent in the workmen's
districts in the last ten years. The condition of the
workmen's dwellings of Toronto and Montreal is inferior
as regards building to that which is found in the cities
of Australia, although the hot climate of Australia leads,
unless great care is taken, to an equal amount of infantile
mortality, likely now to be checked in Melbourne by the
improved administration introduced by a Victorian Act
of 1889. In the mining districts of Canada" the land in
the neighbourhood of the mines commonly belongs to
the mine owners, and it is the practice of the companies
to build log shanties for their men. These are run up
CHAP, ii LABOUR
295
for between 40 and 80, and the rents vary from
3 : 10s to 10 a year. In the great commercial centres
of Ontario complaints are heard of the undue rise of
rents owing to urban and suburban property being in
the hands of large landowners, and legislation with
regard to unearned increment, or for fixing judicial
rents, has been suggested. But the pressure of rent
upon wages will have to become more widely felt in
the Dominion before public interest is fixed upon the
matter.
Dr. Dale has argued in his book upon Australia that,
although the colonial working man has shorter hours,
better wages, and cheaper food than his British fellow-
subjects, and in some of the colonies enjoys also the
advantages for his children of a perfect system of free
schools, and of a glorious climate, it will be difficult for
him to prevent wages from gradually sinking to the
European level. There is, however, no sign as yet of
such reduction. Protection appears to compensate the
Australian and Canadian manufacturer for the higher
wages that he pays, and if it does so at the expense of
the colonial consumer, the difference in the cost of the
articles produced does not seem to exceed 20 to 25 per
cent, or to be found ruinous by the community. Dr.
Dale is of opinion that if Australia is ever to become a
rival of Europe in manufactures her people must be
willing to live upon European wages ; but there is no
sign of any such desire to beat Great Britain and Belgium
in their best markets, and the protectionist workmen of
Australia generally limit their ideas on the export of
manufactures to the Australian colonies. The other
scheme for the future life of Australia, which would be
afforded by the Australian artisans becoming directors
of the cheap labour of the Chinese or of the dark-skinned
tion
296 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
races, appears, from what has been seen in Queensland,
to have been definitely rejected by the opinion of the
workmen themselves.
co-opera- J us t as there is in the colonies little or no
Revolutionary Socialism of the European type, so
also there is as yet little co-operative manufacture-
far less than in the mother -country or in the United
States. There are, as has been seen, co-operative gold-
mines and sugar-mills in Queensland, and there are
co-operative stores in Montreal, Toronto, and Melbourne :
in Melbourne and Toronto upon the Eochdale plan;
while the Montreal stores are, I fancy, only similar to
the Civil Service stores of London. After all that has
been written by Mr. Mill, Mr. Fawcett and others as
to the development of co-operation, and after the
remarkable success that the principle has already met
with in some parts of Great Britain, it is curious to find
that the reports of co-operators from Canada, from
Australia, and from South Africa are all alike dis-
couraging. While the British Minister at Washington
has forwarded to our Government a memorandum
with regard to American co-operation to the effect that
American opinion declares that " only a slow- thinking,
penny -counting, frugal, and painstaking people could
bring co-operation to a success," and that "the average
American has thought it beneath him to consider the
details of dimes ; " in the colonies the success of co-
operation is altogether behind even that which it has met
with in the United States. The consul at Philadelphia
has told us that "profit-sharing" does not deeply in-
terest the American working man; that "superior
individual qualifications, personal ambition, and recog-
nised inordinate desire for immense wealth . . . stand
in the way of extended co-operation ; " and that co-
CHAP, ii LABOUR 297
operation in the United States is "far distant as an
established institution." In the colonies it seems more
distant still, for it has hardly been brought yet to the
birth. From Australia the co-operators report that " the
working class are well paid, and don't yet value the
small addition to their income which a co-operative
expenditure creates. They could more easily raise funds
for self-employment than their class at home, but they
are more political and trade union, in which their time,
energy, and savings are spent." Another report declares
"that every one here came out with the intention of
doing something for himself, having less thought of
aiding others than co-operators generally have at home.
. . . The workers earn double the wages here that they
would at home, and yet only work eight hours a day.
The result is that they spend more in all kinds of enjoy-
ment. . . . They are rather too well off to value the
small sums (as they think them) which the co-operative
store brings." It will be seen that the future of labour
in Australia does not seem to lie this way. At the same
time a platonic declaration in favour of co-operation was
carried at the last intercolonial trade union congress,
which also declared its support for the Single Tax
advocated by Mr. George, though in practice the mem-
bers when at their homes mostly give their votes to the
protectionists.
If in all that bears upon co-operation the colonies are Factory
behindhand, the reverse is the case with regard to and
factory legislation ; and it may be said generally that sv
the colonies possess legislation equal or superior to our
own as regards factory inspection, with the addition in
some cases of a provision against " sweating," in which
we are likely to follow their example. The Victorian
sweating clauses provide that every occupier of a factory
298 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vr
or workroom who has work done for him outside shall
keep a correct record of the work and of the people who
do it, and their addresses, for the information of the in-
spectors, and it is the opinion of some of the most skilled
inspectors in the mother-country that such a provision
would be useful here. The chief clause was drawn by
Mr. Deakin, but it was greatly weakened by words
put into a following clause, while the Bill was before
the Legislative Council, in which the influence of
the employers was exerted to prevent publication
of the information, and to give them the virtual
option of refusing it. The Victorian chief-inspector,
in his report published in 1889, states that there
is little sweating in the colony among women and
children, as the demand for their labour is in excess
of the supply, and no woman would work longer hours
and for less pay in one place than she need in another.
At the same time he admits that when his inspectors
have to investigate anonymous complaints about women
being employed more than forty -eight hours a week,
nothing can be found out. " The statement is denied
by the employer," and although the girls are asked to
state their grievances, " they preserve a stolid silence,
or appear to endorse what their employer says. . . .
The girls have a great objection to go into Court. To
take them there against their will would be to have
unwilling witnesses. However, if all the complaints
made are correct, they will only amount to a few hours'
overwork in occasional weeks, for which the hands are
. . . paid."
Truck. There is in several of our colonies legislation founded
on the English Truck Acts, but as a general rule, except,
as we have seen, in Newfoundland, the condition of the
white-skinned workman is such as to preclude all risk of
CHAP, ii LABOUR 299
abuse connected with the payment of wages in goods. In
South Africa, however, Kafirs are employed who used to be
almost entirely paid in kind, and the truck legislation of
Cape Colony is nominally or really intended to protect the
Kafirs employed in the diamond-mines, who are not only
housed by their employers, but practically imprisoned
by them to prevent diamond stealing. The diamond
industry of the Cape has created a special crime that
of illicit diamond buying and a special class of wealthy
criminals the "I. D. Bs " ; and to prevent the theft of
stones by the natives, who are tempted by large bribes
to secrete them, the workmen are hired for several
months, during which they are kept in close confinement
in barracks attached to the mines, never being allowed
to pass the limits during the period of their engagement.
The " compounds " contain stores to supply the coloured
workman's wants, but the Labourers' Wages Act now
prohibits the payment of wages in goods, partly per-
haps for the protection of the traders against the mining
companies.
The point affecting labour upon which colonial Chinese.
workmen in Australasia and in part of the Canadian
Dominion feel most strongly, and upon which they
are the most thoroughly agreed, concerns the com-
petition of the Chinese. As far back as 1854 Sir
Charles Hotham, the second Governor of Victoria, after
a tour round the gold-fields, reported to the home
Government that he thought the introduction of the
Chinese race into Australia undesirable. To the colonies
the Chinese question appears to present itself in a very
different aspect from that in which it is viewed by us
at home, and it is difficult to induce the men of the
colonial lower-middle or working class, dependent upon
labour or trade for maintenance, to take what we should
300 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
call a broad international view of Chinese immigration.
That the Chinamen shall be excluded from white colonies
means only in the minds of the working colonists that
they intend to protect their own position. " Canada
for the Canadian," " Australia for the Australian," are
the prevailing cries ; and colonial labour, knit together
in its powerful federations, desires to limit competition,
and above all to wholly shut out the competition of the
cheapest of competitors the Chinese. The China-
man is pre-eminently a dexterous hand, industrious and
persevering, of few wants and small aspirations; an
excellent workman, but with a low standard of comfort.
The colonial artisan, disliking the competition of the
European labourer, with a standard of comfort less
elevated than his own, finds himself threatened with the
competition of a workman with the lowest standard of
comfort in the whole world ; able to live, it would seem,
upon that which to a colonial eye is nothing. The
colonial workman, with his high pay and his short
hours, and his time to sit in the shade or play games in
the summer, or to read or go to theatres in the winter,
and his tendency to pursue all kinds of sport, with his
education and his independence, and his sense of power,
has come to regard all these privileges as his right, and
he intends to keep, if he can, the position that he has
won. He is no more selfish than are the generality of
mankind, and if he gives great subscriptions to maintain
strikes where he thinks the strikers are in the right, it
is not altogether or always in the expectation of a
return, as is shown by the contributions from Australian
workmen to the dockers' strike, in a case where no
return seemed possible. But the colonial workman
does not look with favour upon the dark-skinned labourer,
and the Chinaman, of whom he has seen something,
CHAP. II
LABOUR
301
he distinctly hates. While the Australian cultivates
broad liberal sentiments within the bounds of Austral-
asia, and the Canadian within those of the Dominion,
they are inclined, and not unnaturally, to set a barrier
at their frontiers against outside people and their
works.
The Chinese are a small population in our white Their occu-
colonies because of the great difficulties which have patious>
been thrown in the way of their incoming, but they
would be numerous if allowed freely to flock in. It is
estimated that there are some fifty thousand Chinese in
Australia, but in early days there were almost as many
in the single colony of Victoria. In British Columbia
they are, as has been seen, numerous in proportion to
the sparse population of that Province, and in British
Columbia, as in South Africa, the colonial workman
has taken up that position of director of cheap labour
which in the Australian colonies he is unwilling to
assume. The white miners of British Columbia direct
the labour of the Chinamen more than they work them-
selves, and in the coal-mines each miner has with him a
Chinese labourer. In the capital of Natal, also, it is no
uncommon thing to find a bricklayer attended at his work
by three or four Indian coolies. There has been a certain
change in the colonial position of the Chinese in recent
years. At first they came in rather as gold "miners
than as workmen, but lately they have swarmed into the
cities and become the competitors of the white man in
every trade, but especially as carpenters. In western
America, both in the United States and on the Canadian
side of the border, the Chinamen do laundry- work,
cooking, waiting at eating-houses, and a certain amount
of private service. In Australia they are cooks and
market-gardeners, but are inclined, where not forcibly
302 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
prevented, to underbid their neighbours and to make
their way into all town trades. In British Columbia
there are, as will be seen in the next chapter, some
factories which are worked by Chinese labour.
Nature of There has been some attempt in Australia as on the
Auste Q ^ mer j can continent to raise a hue and cry against the
feeihig ian Chinese upon the ground that they are dirty and im-
against m0 ral i but Sir Henry Parkes has taken up a more
them. .
defensible position, and has declared that " they are a
superior set of people," belonging " to a nation of an old
and deep-rooted civilisation. We know the beautiful
results of many of their handicrafts : we know how
wonderful are their powers of imagination, their endur-
ance, and their patient labour. It is for these qualities
I do not want them to come here. The influx of a few
million of Chinese here would entirely change the
character of this young Australian commonwealth. It
is, then, because I believe the Chinese to be a powerful
race, capable of taking a great hold upon the country,
and because I wish to preserve the type of my own
nation in these fair countries, that I am and always
have been opposed to the influx of Chinese." Under
the stress of such sentiments the Chinese have been shut
out from some colonies, and a poll-tax has been put
upon this single race in others. South Australia is still
not altogether unwilling that they should enter her
tropical northern territory, of which bhey practically
hold as their own a considerable section. There are in
Sydney and elsewhere in Australia a few Chinese
merchants of the highest character, employing excellent
Chinese clerks and storemen, and enjoying the general
respect of the community; but these men are not
threatened. It is the Chinese workman, and especially
the workman who competes with white-skinned artisans,
CHAP, ii LABOUR 303
whose presence will not long be tolerated in the colonies.
It is easy for us in London to preach to the colonial
workmen upon this question and to tell them that it is
unchristian for them to declare that they will keep for
themselves a country in which they are as yet far from
numerous, and will prevent the starving and the desti-
tute of alien races from obtaining a footing there. But,
on the other hand, workmen who can point to their
comfortable houses, their comparatively refined wives,
their well -nurtured, well -clad children, to the culture
and to the morality of their comrades, and to the prob-
ability of Australia successfully maintaining in the
future a civilisation of this high type, have much to say
for themselves in opposing the introduction of those
whose presence in large numbers would reduce their
material condition to the level of that of the unem-
ployed of the worst parts of London. The Chris-
tianity that they understand is an assertion of the
claim of the masses to rise in the scale of humanity,
and as they are a drop in the ocean compared with the
numbers of the Chinese, they assert their inability to
raise the Chinese scale of comfort, and decline to allow
theirs to sink to that of China. The colonial workman
considers that he has as much right to defend his country
from the peaceful invasion of the Chinese as he would
have if they came with weapons in their hands to destroy
his property and his home. Of course the consumer
suffers. Of course from the point of view of the political
economy of our youth, the Australian or the Canadian
consumer has a right to obtain Chinese-made furniture
at a third of the price (for in cabinetmaking the Chinese
are supremely cheap) that he has to pay to the colonial
workman. But the whole drift of opinion in our colonies
is against unrestricted competition, and there is virtually
3 o4 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
no colonial resistance upon this subject to the views of
the working man.
Treaties. The Blue-book of July 1888 relating to " Chinese
immigration into the Australasian colonies " begins
with a note from the Chinese Minister at the Court
of St. James calling attention to the Colonial Acts
directed against the Chinese people. The Chinese
contention, that the special laws directed against China-
men are inconsistent with our treaties, was dignified
and true. A Treaty between China and the United
States was for a moment looked upon by our Govern-
ment as a happy settlement of a difficult question, but
that Treaty has since been indefinitely adjourned by
the Chinese. An Australian intercolonial conference has
declared the Chinese "an alien race," "incapable of
assimilation in the body politic, strangers to our civil-
isation, out of sympathy with our aspirations, and
unfitted for our free institutions." It is impossible not
to sympathise with this feeling, but, on the other hand,
exclusion presents great difficulties, one of which is that
there are enormous numbers of Chinamen who are British
subjects, and that exclusion means excluding people
merely because they are dressed in a particular way or
have faces of a particular type. On the other hand, if
the Chinese of Hong-Kong are allowed to come in, they
will sell their passes to Chinese aliens, and detection of
such a trade is difficult. Thus the " Chinamen " to be
excluded are not necessarily Chinese, but may have been
British subjects by descent for many generations, as is
the case with some of those settled in the Straits. The
Government of New Zealand has exceeded all others in
the high-handed character of its action against the
Chinese. It reprinted without change and put in force
in 1888 a proclamation by Sir Arthur Gordon, dated
CHAP, ii LABOUR 305
1881, under the Public Health Act, declaring all places
where there is a Chinese population, infected with
the smallpox, and imposing quarantine upon all persons
coming from them, or having received any person coming
from them. The appendix to the Blue-book which
contains the Colonial Acts (including those of Canada
and of British Columbia) against the Chinese is indeed
unpleasant reading; but Lord Salisbury found it
necessary to be silent after Sir Henry Parkes had said,
" Neither for Her Majesty's ships of war, nor for Her
Majesty's representative on the spot, nor for Her
Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, do we
intend to turn aside from our purpose." It is curious
to contrast the language of our colonies now with
regard to Chinamen with the treatment that was
meted out to the unfortunate Chinese a few years
ago when they ventured to urge that there were
reasons which made it difficult to allow that which
they have since virtually allowed, namely, the general
right of travel by Europeans in the interior of China.
It is impossible not to feel that we have two different
voices in which we lecture those whom we choose to
think the inferior races. In the meantime, the safest
way of meeting the difficulties I have described would
seem to lie in general legislation against pauper immi-
gration.
The fact of colonial anti- Chinese Acts being in convict
defiance of British treaty engagements will not of
necessity greatly shock their authors. Colonial legis-
lators are not likely to be more tender towards treaties
than towards the ordinary law of England. In 1845,
and again in 1849, the inhabitants of Melbourne pre-
vented by force the landing of British convicts, and
much more violent language was used of that resistance
VOL. II X
3 o6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
by the English press than has recently been applied to
the equally illegal prevention of the landing of Chinese.
But there is now a general feeling that the anti-convict
agitators were in the right. In the second of the two
years named the legislature of New South Wales passed
a law which imposed on all persons who might have
been transported to or convicted in any British colony
in the southern hemisphere, and who might arrive in
New South Wales, the necessity of notifying to the
magistrates all changes of residence on their part, and
if summoned by a Justice of the Peace, of accounting
for their means of support, in each case under a penalty
of two years' imprisonment with hard labour. The Act
was disallowed. The Australasian League, which was
started at Melbourne in 1851, was intended, among
other objects, to support with money those who might
suffer through being prominent in the cause of " anti-
transportation," and this league went so far as to
unfurl an Australian flag with the white stars of the
Southern Cross upon a blue ground, although it had
indeed, occasionally, a Union Jack in the corner. It
is quite possible that the an ti- Chinese excitement,
unless we feel ourselves able to fully meet it, may
revive a separatist movement which the anti-transport-
ation feeling first encouraged. The movements against
convicts and against Chinese have been marked by an
equal disregard of the letter of the law. Victoria passed
in 1852 a " Convicts' Prevention Act," which prevented
ex-convicts who had received the Queen's pardon, or
who were absolutely free, having completed their sen-
tences, or who held tickets of leave which gave them
a legal right to go where they chose in Australia, from
landing in Victoria, although by the law of England
they were able to do so, and which heavily fined the
CHAP, ii LABOUR 307
captains of ships introducing them. The Queen's assent
was at first refused to the Bill, but it was acted upon
all the same, and ultimately the colonists had their way.
Colonial Governments are never backward in illegally Colonial
preventing the landing of persons whose presence is
distasteful to the community ; and just as they have in
several cases illegally kept out ex-convicts, and as they grants -
have kept out Irish approvers without the slightest
shadow of a law, so they have sometimes prevented the
Chinese from landing before the Governments were
armed with powers enabling them lawfully so to do.
Sir Henry Parkes, in the Assembly of New South
"Wales, when charged with having broken the law,
replied, " I care nothing about your cobweb of technical
law ; I am obeying a law far superior to any law which
issued these permits, namely, the law of the preservation
of society in New South Wales " a strong declaration
for a Prime Minister. Lord Knutsford telegraphed to
the New South Wales Government on this occasion to
ask under what law the landing of the Chinese had been
prevented, and the reply was that there existed no law
authorising the prevention. The Supreme Court of the
colony declared the action of the Ministers illegal, so
an Indemnity Bill was passed, Lord Carrington strongly
backing up his Cabinet. The Prime Minister of Victoria,
Mr. Gillies, was not so violent as his brother Minister of
New South Wales, but he informed Lord Salisbury
through the Governor that while " the Chinese Minister
appeals to treaty obligations, Mr. Gillies is not aware of
the exact nature and extent of these obligations ; " and
went on to argue that it was impossible that the home
Government, which made treaties without the colonies
having any direct voice in them, could have bound the
colonies by treaties allowing a Chinese immigration of
308 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
indefinite extent. As with convicts so with regard to
the Chinese : the treaties, like the laws of the United
Kingdom, will be broken down by the strength of
colonial feeling.
Examples In most of the colonies the anti-Chinese legislation
of SoS applies only to the Chinese race, and cases have occurred
ownefe n wnere steamers have reached colonial ports with Japanese
immigra- crews and Chinese cooks and stewards, and sometimes
Chinese quartermasters, and the Japanese have been
able to take their run ashore while the Chinese were
penned up on board. Some years ago there was, as I
have stated, a seamen's strike in the Australian colonies,
directed against the employment of Chinese by the
steamship lines. The Australian Steam Navigation
Company argued with the representatives of white
labour that, as the Company was extending its trade
into tropical climates, it must at least have Asiatic
labour in the engine-rooms ; and the men ultimately
accepted an agreement that the Chinese should only be
employed in subordinate and accessory positions, such
as those of stokers, while the total number employed in
the Company's fleet was to be reduced from 180 to 130
in three months. The Australian Steam Navigation
Company has recently sold the boats with regard to
which the strike occurred to a new firm the Australasia
United Steam Navigation Company, which undertakes
still more tropical trade, and which seems likely also to
have difficulties at the port of Sydney. The seamen's
unions of Victoria and New South "Wales have compelled
the ships trading to China and back to forego trade
between intercolonial ports when they are manned by
Chinese crews, and they have attacked the Peninsular
and Oriental Company for the employment of Lascars ;
and the employment of Lascars by the British India
CHAP, ii LABOUR 309
Company has been partly stopped by the boycotting of
their ships.
It is curious to contrast the strength of the Chinese
Australian and American feeling with the favourable colonies.
opinion entertained of the Chinese in tropical colonies,
such as the Straits and the territories of the British
North Borneo Company. From the latter it is officially
reported that the Chinese make " excellent citizens,
always at work ; " and in the case of Singapore the
Chinese residents have subscribed largely to the fund
for the purchase of quick-firing guns for the defence of
this most flourishing of British ports, one Chinese
merchant alone subscribing 500 guineas, while many
gave 100 apiece. In the Malay Peninsula and in
Borneo, as well as in the Dutch Indies, the Chinese
form the backbone of the State. It is a happy thing
that in some parts of the Empire we should be on good
terms with the Chinese, for it is difficult for us to seek
their alliance on the Asiatic continent while our colonists
violate our treaties with the Chinese Government.
In Australia, however, the feeling against Chinese Australian
immigration is overwhelming in all classes. Even c
reasonable and moderate people, such as an Australian
financier who lived for many years in London, say
that "all treaties must give way" to the consideration
that if admitted the Chinese will "possess and de-
nationalise Australasia," and this although the writer
whose words I quote was himself in favour of the importa-
tion of dark-skinned labourers to work in the Australian
tropics. 1 The anti-Chinese feeling is often spoken of
at home as connected with the colonial doctrine of
Protection ; but Sir Henry Parkes, whose words I have
1 Half a Century of Australasian Progress, by William Westgarth.
Sampson Low and Co., 1889.
310 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
quoted, is a free trader, and Mr. M c Millan, the leader of
the free traders of the free-trade colony, in his recent ad-
dress to the electors of East Sydney used these significant
words : " We have decided, although rather perhaps in a
precipitate manner, that our virgin soil shall not be
contaminated by hordes of an alien and unmixable
race."
Effect Australians are tempted by the difficulties of their
Chinese 6 ^ oca ^ l a b ur problem to forget the need in which the
Govern- Empire may one day stand of the Chinese alliance in
eastern Asia, and we in the old country, who see, perhaps
more clearly than they can be expected to perceive, that
the future mastery of the world lies between the British,
the Kussian, and the Chinese races, may be pardoned for
attaching more importance than do colonists to good
relations between Great Britain and the Chinese Empire.
China, which fought France not long ago upon a
point of honour, and which obtained in our time from
Eussia, without fighting, a province which Russia had
long administered, is a power well able to hold her
own ; and if we bear in mind the incredible numbers of
her population, and the ability of her rulers, we can feel
little doubt that the value of her alliance with ourselves
in the future must increase each day. An alliance in
Asia between China and Great Britain would form a
true league of peace.
Anti- A recent American Act of Congress, making it un-
legisfation. lawful for persons not either citizens of the United States
or having declared their intention of becoming such, or
for foreign corporations, to hold or own in the Terri-
tories real estate acquired after the date of the Act, except
such as might be acquired by inheritance or in the
ordinary course of the collection of older debts, is
legislation supported by one of the same reasons as
CHAP, ii LABOUR 311
are applicable to the American and Australian legisla-
tion against the Chinese, and it is, perhaps, defensible,
and especially defensible under republican institutions.
Legislation against an influx of cheap labour would
be more easily defensible as a principle than it is,
if it were generalised, and not directed against the
men of a single race only, but turned against all forms of
that competition which is typified to the democracy
by the figure of the Chinaman. I see no reason to
protest against the desire of the Americans and of the
Australian and Canadian colonists to exclude the poorest
forms of foreign labour, provided that it be done by
general laws. There being only 100,000 Chinese in the
United States, out of a population which was considerably
over fifty millions in 1880, the cheap labour question
can hardly be said to have been, as yet, presented there
by the Chinaman in a very formidable shape, except
locally on the Pacific Slope. In our colonies the
Chinese population, though larger in proportion than
in the United States, is so small that the danger
guarded against by legislation was also a danger of
the future. In the United States, the most severe
competition which white labour has to face is the com-
petition of the home-born negro, more prolific than the
European races in America, but not, of course, helped as
are the American whites by immigration. Just as some
in Australia have in their imagination foreseen the pre-
dominance in that continent of the Chinese, unless their
arrival be prevented, so as regards the American con-
tinent some have prophesied the predominance of the
negro.
It is a curious fact that the English race have more English
, . , , and native
generally destroyed the native races with wmcn tney races,
have come in contact in their young settlements than
312 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
lias been the case with other colonising peoples, but have
destroyed the natives only afterwards to enter into a
conflict with other dark or yellow races, whose efficiency
as labourers seems equal to their own. While the
destruction of the native races by the British race in
countries where the English can labour out of doors is
generally complete, it is the fact that other European
races who have set to work to destroy the natives in
similar countries have not succeeded, and that the
English people have often destroyed them when trying
hard to keep them in existence. The founders of
Pennsylvania made every effort to deal fairly with the
natives, but the Red Indian race will soon be extinct
throughout the United States, and the Indians of Canada
will probably disappear except in the form of the French-
speaking Indians who are of mixed race. In Australia,
although Victoria and some of the other colonies made
great efforts to treat the natives kindly, the race once
inhabiting this enormous continent will shortly dis-
appear. The Maories of New Zealand are also a small
and a dwindling people ; but in some parts not only of
America, but even of temperate America, such as the
Mexican plateau, the Indian race has beaten the Spanish,
and whole counties are peopled by persons bearing high-
sounding Spanish names, and Roman Catholic in religion,
who to the eye are mostly pure Indians in blood. In
British North America and in Australasia, which we
have swept of their former native owners, we now dread
the competition of the Chinese ; but in South Africa
where the destruction of the Hottentots and Bushmen of
the Cape cleared large tracts of their native population,
but where the descent of the Kafirs from the north has
in some parts replaced them by an even greater number
of dark-skinned people coloured immigrants of another
CHAP, ii LABOUR 313
kind are pouring in from across the seas as labourers
and even artisans.
There has been among the Dutch of South Anti-
A r> - . , , . . , Indian
Ainca in recent years an agitation against cheap agitation
imported labour in some degree similar to that in
Australia and Canada against the immigration of
Chinese. At the same time there is a wide distinction
between the agitations, and the warmest opponents of
East Indian immigration to South-Eastern Africa have
been those who have demanded that, while the intro-
duction of Indians should cease, the Kafirs of the
country should be tempted or compelled to do their
work. The Indian coolies of South Africa are employed
in every kind of labour. They work on the plantations
and in the fields ; earn high wages in domestic service ;
are hawkers, fish-curers, and small shopkeepers, and
their savings are great the Indians returning to
Hindostan by a single ship in 1884 having taken with
them no less a sum than 15,000. The Bombay traders,
under the name of " Arabs," have spread through the
Transvaal and Free State, and when the late Sir John
Brand visited Harrismith at the beginning of 1888 a
presentment was made to him to the effect that the
Volksraad had failed to protect the State from the
introduction of Asiatics, that it was against the interest
of the European community to admit them, and that
the Government should find means of removing the
growing evil and destroying " the baneful influence " of
the Asiatics. The petition concluded by a reference
to the anti- Chinese agitation of Australia a curious
example of the smallness, in these days, of the world.
Colonial labour seeks protection by legislative means
not only against the cheap labour of, the dark-skinned
or of the yellow man, but also against white paupers,
3 i4 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
and against the artificial supply of labour by State-aided
white immigration. Most of the countries of the world,
indeed, have laws against the admission of destitute
aliens, and the United Kingdom is in practice almost the
only exception. Several of our colonies have, as we have
seen, made laws against the introduction of what are
styled in New Zealand " Imbecile Passengers," and of
these laws the Tasmanian and New Zealand Acts are
good examples. There is no such law in New South
Wales, but in South Australia, and in some other
colonies where persons have been landed who soon
became a burden upon the Government in the asylums
for the destitute, the Government have re -shipped
them at the expense of the colony to the place whence
they came. Victoria has a clause in a general
statute of 1865 which was closely followed in the
drafting of the New Zealand law. The New Zealand
"Imbecile Passengers Act" consolidates and amends
previous legislation upon the subject, under similar
titles, dating as far back as 1873. It enables the
customs authorities of New Zealand to force the owners
of ships bringing persons likely "to become a charge
upon the public or upon any public or charitable institu-
tion" to execute bonds in the sum of 100 for each
such passenger, under which they have to repay all
expenses incurred for his support or maintenance by
any public or charitable institution of New Zealand
within five years of his landing. This legislation has
been closely followed in Tasmania with the addition of
the important words " from any cause unable to support
himself." In Canada the Governor-General has power, as
has been seen, to prevent by proclamation the landing
of destitute immigrants.
The colonial workmen are opposed not only to
CHAP, ii LABOUR 315
the reception of the destitute from abroad, but even to Assisted
assisted immigration of persons willing and able to work, tii. 18 *
There was for a time almost as much agitation against
the employment in New South Wales of Sir Edward
Walter's commissionaires as against that of Chinamen.
This was an extreme assertion of colonial views, but
that colonial workmen should refuse to contribute to-
wards assisting immigration to their colony is fairly
reasonable, as it is difficult to reply to the argument
that if the colony is in want of workmen it is fair that
workmen should be allowed to come in, but not fair
that those' already in the colonies should be compelled
to contribute by taxation to the bringing out of people
to compete with them. The workmen argue that as
long as English emigration is not assisted, colonial wages
are not likely to decline below what they think a
reasonable limit; but that if assisted emigration is
encouraged, inferior workmen will come out, and bring-
down wages to the European level. I said in my
chapter on New South Wales that immigration
operations had been suspended by Victoria and New
South Wales, and would never be resumed. That
is so with regard to immigration operations gener-
ally ; but it is the case that, without talking about
it, Sir Henry Parkes has allowed assisted passages to be
given to the wives and children of settlers already in
the colony of New South Wales at cheap rates, and that
the colony is quietly spending money for this purpose
the object in view being, however, rather to keep in the
country settlers who are already there than to bring in
new families.
It must be urged upon the colonial workman's side The unem-
ployed,
that, where assisted emigrants have been sent out on a
large scale, there has frequently been a good deal of
316 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
temporary want of employment in the colony, and the
unemployed have come upon the State for their
support. Some of the men sent out to Australia have
obtained good employment as shearers, and paid as
they are a pound for every hundred sheep, and being-
able, after a short apprenticeship, to shear from seventy
to a hundred in the day, have earned high wages
for a* short time. After two or three months they
find themselves with considerable savings, and are then
in demand for harvesting, and afterwards get odd jobs
at fruit-picking, and so are employed throughout the
summer from October up to March ; but, bringing out
with them improvident habits, they often rapidly spend
their large savings in the towns, and by the dead of
winter, in July, are starving in the cities. The result is
that there is a good deal of want of sympathy in Melbourne
and Sydney with the colonial " unemployed." On the
other hand, great respect is felt for the Trades Hall
Councils, which almost invariably show wisdom and
moderation, and act under a sense of responsibility and
with a marked spirit of justice. The colonial Govern-
ments have often provided work at half wages, that is,
at 4s. a day, for the unemployed ; but the experiment
has hardly been successful, and the men, even at this
wage very low according to colonial rates have
proved a bad bargain to the State,
state immi. There are indeed vast difficulties to be met with at
gration. , ,
coiomsa- both ends of the journey as regards State emigration
schemes, f ron i England on a large scale. The workmen in
England resent emigration proposals which they think
put forward by the plutocracy to cover the refusal of
just demands, and object to pay taxes which would be
chiefly for the benefit of the colonies and of the men
who go ; and, on the other hand, the colonists show still
CHAP, ii LABOUR 317
stronger disinclination to receive State immigrants than
that shown by their English comrades to sending them.
So strong has lately been the opposition to State-aided
emigration on a large scale that schemes for colonisation
by families, such as those which I have mentioned in my
Canadian chapters, have taken the place of ordinary
emigration projects. The colonies generally have been
consulted upon such schemes, and their recent answers,
on the whole, have not been favourable. Newfound-
land and some of the Crown Colonies, such as Natal and
Western Australia, alone seemed willing to entertain
the matter, and the self-governing colonies met the
proposals with a general refusal. But Sir Napier
Broome, who answered for Western Australia, had in
contemplation a very large expenditure, involving the
advance in the first instance of from half a million to a
million sterling. The only chance at the present
moment for the success of such a scheme would seem to
lie either in the co-operation of the Canadian Pacific
railroad company or in that of the company just
formed for Bechuanaland; but as regards Australia
and Cape Colony colonial objections are too marked
to allow the matter to be entertained, and the field
offered by Natal and by Newfoundland is limited in
extent. A word of caution is perhaps needed with
regard to the attempt to force emigration into special
lines. The colonisation of Bechuanaland by English
agricultural families may be feasible, but to pour immi-
grants into Canada is often but an indirect means of
helping them into the United States.
As regards all persons not able to earn their living
upon land, it is worse than useless to direct them in
considerable numbers to some one spot. Young countries
cannot absorb an indefinite number of newcomers, and
3i8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Australia, the Canadian Dominion, and South Africa
already take a larger number of such immigrants in
proportion to their population than is the case with the
United States, even if we exclude from view, as com-
paratively old countries, the states of the Atlantic
seaboard. It is difficult to combine the two objects of
promoting emigration from Great Britain for the sake of
England, and of using it for the purpose of strengthen-
ing the tie between the United Kingdom and her colonies.
If the matter is looked at from the point of view of the
emigrant, the Transvaal and the temperate parts of
South America, not to speak of the western country of
the United States all under foreign flags offer tempt-
ing fields. If it is looked at from the Imperial point of
view, Australia is rather alienated than drawn towards
us by large emigration schemes, and the North West of
Canada is more successfully brought under cultivation
by those who reach it after long farming experience
in Ontario, than by those taken there straight from
England. In any case it is certain that the schemes
long talked about at home for the deportation to the
colonies on a large scale of East-enders from London,
and of the British unemployed, must be put aside as
impracticable in face of colonial opinion. The Parlia-
ment of the United Kingdom has voted no direct assist-
ance (except in the special case of the Scotch crofters)
to British emigration since help to emigrants to Western
Australia was stopped by Mr. Lowe, when Chancellor
of the Exchequer, with the approval of Mr. Stansfeld and
the Local Government Board, although against the
opinion of the Colonial Office, and such assistance is not
likely to be revived. The Irish Government have pro-
moted the grant of money from the Church surplus for
emigration from the congested districts of the west of
CHAP, ii PROVIDENT SOCIETIES 319
Ireland, which has been in the nature of that " colonisa-
tion" now recommended for general adoption; but a
larger scheme was rejected by the Canadian Dominion
on the ground that it would be politically inconveni-
ent and undesirable for the Dominion Government to
connect itself with a scheme of the kind. The Canadian
view is that only a private company can ever press
settlers for repayment of moneys advanced, inasmuch
as the settlers would naturally use political influence
to be relieved from paying, if asked for payment by
a government.
While the self-governing colonies are inclined, Friendly
generally speaking, to discourage immigration, and s
while those of Australia are strengthened in their
resistance by the occasional existence in their cities of
bodies of persons professing to be unemployed, the
colonies have not found themselves face to face with the
permanent existence of a large class of poor. Providence
of an organised kind is as remarkable in them as in the
mother - country. While the Briton does not make
as a rule those sacrifices for the benefit of all those
about him which are made by the poorly-paid Hindoo,
who, in a country of low wages in which a poor law is
unknown, invariably provides for his old people and
keeps them in greater comfort than he keeps himself,
Englishmen and colonists alike are remarkable for the
extent to which they have carried the system of
provident societies. Nearly every friendly society that
exists in England has branches in Canada and Australia.
The Oddfellows, taking the colonies through, are perhaps
numerically and financially the strongest of these
bodies ; the Foresters of various societies coming close
behind. In Victoria the Manchester Unity of Odd-
fellows has 16,000 members; in New South Wales
320 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
13,000; and in South Australia 12,000. It is to
Victoria that we must go to find the highest develop-
ment of friendly societies. There are in that colony
some 800 courts, with some 70,000 members, and an
income of a quarter of a million. The number of
members in these societies exceeds the total number of
handicraftsmen in the colony, and includes nearly all
the manufacturing hands, as well as a considerable
number of small shopkeepers. In the other colonies
also the friendly societies are strong, and in most of
them legislative control has now been brought to bear
to secure an effective audit ; while building societies are,
throughout the colonies, much stronger in proportion
than they are in England.
in south In the South African colonies friendly societies
flourish in a remarkable manner, considering the small-
ness of the population and the peculiarities of the
position of labour in the country ; but South Africa is
the part of our dominions in which, on the whole, there
is to be found the smallest amount of poverty. As a
curious example of the comfort of the population I may
mention the rarity in South Africa of copper coinage
the threepenny piece, known colloquially as a " ticky,"
playing the part of the British penny. In the regula-
tions of the Cape and of the Natal railways it is explained
that fractional parts of 3d. are charged 3d. ; and the
absence of the class of poor in South Africa is connected
with the prevalence of the friendly society system.
The Oddfellows, the Foresters, and the Druids, as well
as Hibernian friendly societies, thrive as greatly in
South Africa as in Canada or Australasia itself. In
Cape Town, which is by no means a large city, there are
(including the suburbs) six Foresters' Courts, five Odd-
fellows' Lodges, four Free Gardeners' Lodges, three Lodges
CHAP, ii PROVIDENT SOCIETIES 321
of Druids, and sixteen other courts of friendly societies,
or thirty-four courts in all. In the small towns of Natal
the Oddfellows, Foresters, and Freemasons are remark-
ably strong. In Maritzburg there are under 4000 adult
males, including the garrison and the officials ; but a
single Oddfellows' Lodge in that town has over one
hundred members. In Durban, the commercial port of
Natal, there are only 2500 white men above eighteen
years of age, but there is an Oddfellows' Lodge of
170 members, and a Foresters' Court of 325. While
friendly societies are strong, there is little trade
unionism in South Africa. In the South African
European population there is no poor class, and the
white artisans form an aristocracy of labour directing
the cheap labour of the natives. In Australia and in
Canada there are a great number of Courts of Eechabites
and of other temperance societies ; but these are weaker
in South Africa, where " temperance " principles appar-
ently do not flourish. Masonry has been strong in
Upper Canada and in Australia from the first, and
flourishes in the colonies even more in proportion to
the population than in Great Britain, and in South
Africa freemasonry is prosperous both among the
English and the Dutch.
The most remarkable difference, between the colonies savings
and the mother-country as regards providence, concerns
savings bank deposits, which are in the colonies on a far
larger scale. In considerable portions of Australasia,
for example, there are as many depositors as there are
heads of families two hundred thousand in Victoria,
with some four millions sterling of deposits; and the
life insurances of Australasia assure at this moment a
sum of something like forty-five millions.
The English friendly societies which have branches
VOL. II Y
322 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
Racial throughout the colonies and the United States object,
difficulties. ag j have gaid ^ to exllibitions O f pride O f race> B ut
the exclusion of coloured men can be managed without
being laid down as a principle, and it must not be
supposed that because the colonial courts remain in
connection with the Order they are freely open to
the reception of the aborigines or of the Chinese. The
right of all honourable men to become Foresters or
Freemasons, without reference to colour, is a doctrine
easy to lay down in Great Britain, but is not a principle
the observance of which is easily obtained in the colonies.
Govern- It is interesting to note as a new development of
friendly State administration that in New Zealand the colonial
societies, (government conducts with spirit a Department for Life
Insurance. The Post Office Insurance Department of
the mother-country is a failure, having a business less
than one-hundredth part as great as that of each of
several private companies ; whereas the New Zealand
Government Life Insurance Department has met with
an extraordinary success, largely accounted for by the
fact that it advertises freely. The prospectus, like
many of the other documents of the New Zealand de-
partment, is adorned by a quotation from the Economist,
pointing out the advantages of " the greatest of unde-
veloped economic forces, the principle of insurance
backed by the State guarantee, that is, of insurance
which really insures." The New Zealand Government
office has been in existence for twenty years, and is
more flourishing by far than any of the private companies
doing business in New Zealand ; in fact, the Government
office carries on operations which are almost equal to
those of the whole of the companies put together, and
does a business which is increasing faster than the
business of the companies increases. So great is the
CHAP, ii PROVIDENT SOCIETIES
323
success of the department that if the New Zealand
Government would consent to receive English business,
which at present it refuses on account of certain technical
difficulties, there can, I think, be no doubt that it would
win a large amount of favour here. The collapse of
some English insurance offices was the original cause
of the introduction of the Bill which founded the New
Zealand office, and it has not been hampered by restric-
tions upon the maximum amount of individual policies,
such as have checked the extension of Mr. Gladstone's
system in the mother -country. The New Zealand
Government now believe that their example is likely to
be imitated at home, and that steps will be shortly
taken to create a living and active insurance department
under Government management, embracing the three
kingdoms, while they refer to their own legislation as
offering one among many examples of the legislature of
a young country setting to the mother -country an
example in securing improved social conditions for its
inhabitants. One result of the popularity of the New
Zealand office is that, while there are only twenty-six life
policies per thousand of the population in the United
Kingdom and in Canada, there are eighty policies per
thousand of the population in New Zealand the highest
number anywhere in the world. The State makes itself
responsible for fulfilment of all contracts made by the
department, and offers therefore an unimpeachable
security to the policyholders.
There is in the department a temperance section, and Temper-
total abstainers have the option of being placed in a
class by themselves, where " the profits which are found
to be due to their special mortality " will be appropriated
among them, instead of being shared by the policy-
holders generally. If the practice of total abstinence is
324 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
conducive to longevity they reap the advantage, as is
pointed out to them by the Government, both of par-
ticipating in the special profits and of demonstrating to
the world the truth of their views with regard to the
healthiness of total abstinence. The Government has
issued tables in colours showing the probabilities of
profit from total abstinence, and point out that total
abstainers should not insure in any office which does not
give them the benefit of their abstinence by placing
them in a section apart. The New Zealand department
publishes leaflets and tracts by the ton, under all kinds
of attractive headings, such as " He is going to be
married ! " The Government prints also a " Post
Magazine and Insurance Monitor," which has a large
circulation. Although the department has been in ex-
istence since about 1870 its scope has several times been
extended by legislation, and it has only been brought
into full working order upon the existing system by the
laws of 1884 and 1886.
General Although the New Zealand system has met with
such complete success, not much has yet been heard in
the colonies of proposals for compulsory State insurance,
and but little attention has been excited in them by
accounts of the last development of State-socialism in
Germany in the insurance law of 1889. An able writer
against Socialism has styled it "a kind of inoculation
with a milder type of the disease, in order to procure
immunity from a more malignant." Now in colonies
where there is no Eevolutionary Socialism and no per-
manent class of poor the necessary leverage for obtaining
the adoption of such laws would seem wanting. In the
great self-governing colonies, it may be said, there is no
permanent poverty except such as springs directly or
indirectly from drink, or, in the case of women and
State in
surance.
CHAP. II
THE POOR
325
children, from desertion. In New Zealand, however,
where for some years there was a good deal of distress,
there are bodies in existence not unlike our own Boards
of Guardians.
The most important colonial legislation upon the The poor
subject of the poor is that of New Zealand, contained in Zealand.
the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act of 1885,
with the amending Acts. It has been pointed out 1 that
the New Zealand Government, pestered almost out of
existence by " the unemployed," promoted a Bill the
main object of which was in fact to throw off the State
and on to the localities the difficulties connected with
the subject. The New Zealand law involves something
like a poor rate, and something like relieving officers ;
but direct subsidies are still given by Government, after
the colonial system, to hospitals and charities. The
colony is divided by the Act into Hospital Districts, and
for each district an elective Board is provided, to be
chosen by the councils of the boroughs and counties
within the district. To the Boards are given " the ex-
clusive superintendence and control," with few exceptions,
of hospitals, almshouses, and orphanages, other than
those specially incorporated under the Act, and also the
distribution of charitable aid. The funds consist of
endowments, voluntary contributions and bequests,
grants from local authorities, and subsidies from the
consolidated fund the latter paying ten shillings for
every pound of donations or contributions from local
authorities, whether voluntary or raised by rate, up to
October 1890, and after that date such sums as the
Colonial Treasurer shall think necessary, where he is
not satisfied that the Board has sufficient without his
1 New Zealand of To-day, by John Bradshaw. Sampson Low and
Co., 1888.
32fr PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
help. The amount of the contributions of the local
authorities rests upon the decision of the Board, but
must be spread over the district according to rateable
value; and the local authorities can appeal to the
Colonial Secretary. The Board is allowed to build
poorhouses (although they are not called by that
name), and may also give out -relief to the indigent
(although the word " pauper " is carefully avoided),
and possesses also power to close any institution not
required. Each Board took over the officers, medical
men, nurses, and attendants of the institutions placed
under its charge ; but those institutions which petitioned
for incorporation, if they showed a list of not fewer than
a hundred persons willing to contribute yearly sums of
not less than five shillings, having paid one year's sub-
scription in advance, or willing to give donations in one
sum of not less than 10, might (provided that the total
of their contributions came to not less than 100 a year)
receive incorporation. After the foundation of the
system institutions supported in the same way might
still be incorporated if no counter-petition by an equal
number of persons were received ; but each Board is
allowed to object to incorporations in its district, and
on objection a resident magistrate holds an inquiry.
Provision was also made for the representation upon the
governing bodies of the incorporated charities of local
authorities who might contribute towards the funds.
Powers were taken for obtaining contributions from near
relations for the maintenance of persons aided. It will
be seen that the New Zealand system bears a strong-
resemblance to our poor law, except that it does not
confer anything like a right to relief, and the other
self-governing colonies are free even from the New
Zealand rate for charitable purposes. At the same time
CHAP, ii THE POOR 327
the line which might be drawn between New Zealand
and some of the others involves distinction without
much difference, because taxation exists throughout
Australia in aid of charitable institutions, although the
money comes, upon the Australian continent, from the
consolidated fund and not from rates.
In New South Wales the Government has five chari- in New
ties exclusively under its own management in the form
of a hospital and four asylums for adult poor, in addition
to lunatic asylums and reformatories. As regards other
charitable institutions, the Government of New South
Wales subsidises private trusts, and, asking few ques-
tions, gives money to committees as its almoners. As
a general rule it grants to charities a sum equal to that
raised by private contributions ; but it has sometimes
been forced to step in at critical moments to make good
deficiencies, as, for example, in the case of the Benevolent
Asylum and the Asylum for Destitute Children. To
some of these institutions the Government has at times
also sent indigent persons to be maintained, and has
paid for them a price such as to leave a margin of profit to
the management. The Asylum for Destitute Children has
lately ceased to be a recipient of Government bounty, since
the adoption by Government of the boarding-out system,
under the supervision of the State Children's Relief
Board, a committee of ladies and gentlemen nominated
by Government and entirely financed. from Government
funds. Most of the hospitals of New South Wales are
now supported on the " mixed system," that is, partly
by voluntary contributions and partly by State aid.
But the Koman Catholics maintain a denominational
hospital in Sydney, which is wholly supported by volun-
tary contributions, or by the payments of "paying
patients," although in practice open to patients of all
328 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
denominations, and this, not being technically "public,"
receives no Government grant. A Government inspector
of public charities exercises a certain control over the
management and expenditure of the various charitable
committees, and makes an annual report. The Govern-
ment of New South Wales spends out of public moneys
from 100,000 to 150,000 a year on charity, of which
40,000 a year represents the grant on the mixed prin-
ciple, on the basis of pound for pound ; and in addition
to the annual ordinary expenditure upon charities we
have to remember the extraordinary expenditure from
time to time upon relief works for the unemployed.
There is a good deal of dissatisfaction in New South
Wales at great numbers of persons altogether escaping
their fair share of the burden of the cost of charity, and
also at wasteful expenditure in the management of some
of the charitable institutions, and Eoyal Commissions
have been appointed from time to time to inquire into
such matters. It is not unlikely that New South Wales
may one day imitate the New Zealand legislation. But
there is a horror in the colonies, which is unknown in
the United States, of the words "pauperism," "poor-
house," "workhouse," or "pauper," and when a speaker,
not long out from England, casually referred at a Sydney
public meeting to the " Benevolent Asylums " as " poor-
houses," one who followed him said that the use of such
a, term was an insult to the community, and thanked
God that there was not a poorhouse in Australia.
Unfortunately for him there are in Western Australia
two " poorhouses " actually so called. There is in the
colonies a good deal of fear of words : the honest term
"wages" is too often replaced by "salary"; and a
maid-of-all-work does not object to do all the menial
drudgery of a house provided she is termed " companion,"
CHAP, ii THE POOR 329
or "nursery -governess," or "lady-help," instead of
"housemaid" or "general servant." That "paupers"
should become " recipients of charity " or " inmates of
the asylum " is only in keeping with the colonial habit
that calls almost every shop a " store," and almost every
servant an " employe."
In Victoria, as in New South Wales, the State in vie-
supports the lunatic asylums and industrial and reform-
atory schools, and contributes towards hospitals, giving,
however, in the latter case, not merely pound per pound,
as in most other colonies, but two pounds for each sove-
reign ; and the Victorian contribution towards charities
amounts to 230,000 a year. Victoria is especially
proud of her treatment of neglected children, and
transfers them, upon a system which I have mentioned
in the Australian chapters, from the gaols, through State
institutions, to families, until those who begin life in
gaol are found earning their livelihood as industrious
apprentices. One peculiarity of Victoria is that in some
cases deserted mothers of good character are paid for
taking care of their own children ; but this is only done
in some thirty cases at a time, and with much caution.
New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia
run Victoria close in their legislation with regard to
children. State care of neglected children in Victoria
has been a considerable success, and the " Department
for Neglected Children " is one of the most popular
of colonial institutions. By the neglected children's
Acts of December 1887 the legislation of Victoria was
placed in advance of that of the United Kingdom
upon the question, and, while it is impossible to deal
here with the details of this legislation, it may be
safely recommended to the imitation of the mother-
country. If I have seemed to ridicule the Aus-
330 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
tralian custom of replacing disagreeable words by
those less suitable which convey a pleasanter shade
of meaning, I may add that none will be found to
complain of the recent replacing in South Australia of
the term "Destitute children" by the term "State
children," and in Victoria of the term "Neglected
children" by the term "State wards." The annual
report of the Secretary of the Victorian department,
published in 1888, contains an admirable defence of the
boarding-out system against the very able strictures of
the Eector of Islip ; and it must be taken as admitted
throughout Australia and Canada that the boarding-out
system is in the colonies a complete success.
in other In South Australia an even larger proportional
Australian . , .. _ , . . ,
colonies, amount is expended upon State charities than in
Victoria and New South Wales, and generally speaking,
it may be said that the same principle which applies
to Government aid to charities in the colonies which I
have named is general throughout Australia.
in the I have named in my principal chapter upon Canada
Dominion f * * * j. j.
of Canada, the outdoor relief given by the managers of the House
.of Industry and Eefuge at Montreal. By the Municipal
Code of Quebec it is provided that every local Council
may contribute to the maintenance of poor persons
unable to earn their livelihood, and may establish and
maintain poorhouses for the relief of the destitute, and
give domiciliary relief or aid charitable institutions in the
neighbourhood. In Ontario also the municipalities look
after the indigent poor. At Toronto, where there is
much distress towards the end of the severe winters, the
corporation makes grants to charitable organisations such
as the House of Providence, the House of Industry, the
Boys' Home, and the Orphans' Home. There is also in
Toronto a City Eelieving Officer, who makes inquiry
CHAP, ii THE POOR 331
into all applications, which amount to thirty a day in
February, and hands them over to a committee elected
by the combined Charities, that is, the Charities receiving
grants from the municipality. At Hamilton the corpora-
tion also grants relief to widows and children and old
men, and provides work for able-bodied applicants in
winter. At London the corporation has a Belief In-
spector, and as many as 140 families have been relieved
in a single winter month. In Nova Scotia also the
municipalities support charitable asylums, and Halifax
has one which holds 300 inmates. The maintenance of
paupers from outside the city limits is borne by the
whole Province, and there is here no system of outdoor
relief.
At the Cape and in Natal there is no white pauper in south
class, and although there is a vote for paupers under the crown
medical head in estimates, from which are aided the
public hospitals and the district surgeons, this mainly
concerns the dark-skinned races. In many of the Crown
Colonies, and especially in those of the West Indies,
there is found in existence a system closely resembling
that of England ; parochial almshouses, managed by
parochial Boards, being provided for the poor, who,
however, consist generally in these cases of persons of
black skin.
Having described the position of colonial labour, and Protection,
the steps taken by it to protect itself against the com-
petition of the cheap races, and of indigent immigrants
from Europe, I now turn to the consideration of the
means by which it has sought to protect itself against
the importation of cheap goods from other countries.
CHAPTER III
PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES
colonial GREATER BRITAIN contained a chapter upon the subject
m 1868. of Protection which led to so much discussion that I
was forced in later editions to add a footnote to the
effect that, while it had at first been rightly under-
stood as a mere statement by an English Free Trader of
the views held by colonial protectionists, it had subse-
quently been misread to be a defence of protectionist
views. The fact is that it is not easy for a Free Trader
to give a perfectly fair statement of the facts bearing
upon colonial Protection without being himself thought
to be an apostate ; for it is necessary in the first place,
and above all, to point out that many of the statements
made by British and by New South Wales Free Traders
with regard to the consequences of colonial Protection
will not stand the test of examination. In Greater
Britain I pointed out that colonial Protection was not
only strong but growing, and that it had in Victoria
and Canada the support of many extremely able and
intelligent men who were perfectly convinced pro-
tectionists, while throughout the colonies there was a
rapidly increasing minority in its favour. Since that
time the whole of the great self-governing colonies,
except New South Wales and the Cape, have become
protectionist, while the Cape has heavy duties upon
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES '333
most goods, put on, however, mainly for revenue
purposes, but now beginning to give rise to a growth
of protectionist opinion ; and in New South Wales
the Free Traders hold their own only by a bare
majority. I also showed that many colonial pro-
tectionists were willing to admit the truth of most of
the Free Trade arguments. It is not denied that the
effect of Protection is to increase the cost of goods to
the consumer. It is admitted that Free Trade would
tend to the more rapid peopling of the country. I
argued that the Protection of the English across the
seas was no national delusion, but a system deliberately
recommended as one, on the whole, conducive to the
prosperity of each young country, in spite of pocket
losses which came home to all.
The light which has been thrown upon the problem Effect of
in the last two-and-twenty years shows that wages have experience,
been kept up, and even raised in the protectionist
colonies, above the point at which they stood in 1868,
but that there has been a similar increase in neighbour-
ing colonies under a system of Free Trade. The hours
of labour are the same, the rate of wages of artisans
substantially the same, and the cost of living about the
same, in the adjoining colonies of Victoria and New
South Wales, under different fiscal systems. The
foreign goods that are consumed compete on a fairly
equal footing with goods manufactured in the colonies,
the import duties of Victoria (amounting until very
lately on the average to from 17 or 20 to 25 per
cent on the articles taxed) giving a slight advantage
to the colonial manufacturer, but not greatly affect-
ing prices of cheap goods, in which the local manu-
facturer would be able now to hold his own without
Protection, though he will not admit this. Prices
334 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
are, however, affected in Victoria by over-production,
and the colony possesses so small an internal market
that the recent application of a more rigid system
of Protection at her frontiers will tend to increase
the risk of this over-production, with consequent
fluctuation of prices. Victoria, under a protectionist
system, has developed an export trade about equal to
that, in the same classes of goods, of the adjoining
Free Trade coal -possessing colony. Canada, too, is
beginning to export her manufactured goods, and to
compete with Austria in the supply of furniture to
distant markets, such as those of Turkey. As French-
Canadian labour is good and cheap, and timber of all
kinds to be had at an extraordinarily low price, she
might have done so without Protection. Victoria
greatly increased her duties on many classes of goods
at the end of the session of 1889 ; but there has not as
yet, of course, been time to judge of the results upon
her trade or upon wages. My remarks must, therefore,
be understood as applying to the state of things de-
veloped under the tariff existing previously to the end
of the last session of the Victorian Parliament.
victoria "^ * s a cur i us f ac ^ that Protection has so eaten into
under the national temperament of Victoria that the writers
Protection.
in that colony who take the Free Trade side, and who
believe themselves to be Free Traders, employ argu-
ments of the most purely protectionist type, which they
try to turn against the other party. When M. Challemel-
Lacour told Lord Granville that he was a Free Trader,
Lord Granville replied, as is well known, that he was
aware of it, but could not find the difference between
a French Free Trader and an English protectionist;
and we may say the same of some Victorian Free
Traders as, for example, Mr. Service so far as
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 335
their arguments are concerned. The position of the
Victorian Free Traders was clearly explained in the
election of 1889 by Mr. Murray Smith when he stated
that Protection is so deeply rooted in Victoria that not
only must any contest over the tariff be hopeless for
those who like himself are Free Traders, but that the
vested interests which have been created by Protection
are now so important that, even if they had the power
to sweep away Protection, it would be dangerous to
exercise it suddenly. The Victorian protectionists have
found the same practical difficulties in their way as have
the protectionists of France : the raw material of one
trade is the manufactured article of another. Foreign
stuffs are imported on a large scale and made into cloth-
ing in Victoria ; the duty upon woollen goods not
having been sufficient to promote a rapid growth of the
woollen industry in Victoria, but the duty upon clothing
being sufficient to protect the local clothing manufactories.
When it was proposed to increase the duties upon woollen
goods the operatives of the clothing factories attacked
the proposal in the same way in which the protected
users of English yarns in France attack proposals to
increase the protection on yarns and dyes in favour
of the French spinners and makers of dye. At the
same time, the Victorian duties have since been raised.
The protectionist tariff of Victoria has undoubtedly
added to the depression of the gold -mining industry
in the colony, by greatly increasing the cost of the
machinery of which it stands in need.
It cannot, on the other hand, I think, be denied that Growth of
the effect of the Victorian protective system has been factures.
to enable the colony to gradually supply its wants
with a better class of Victorian goods. Only a few
years ago, while the local manufacturers made all the
336 PROBLEMS OF ORE A TER BRITAIN PART vi
kitchen and cottage furniture, the furniture of the
wealthy was imported. Now the local manufacturers
are beginning to hold their own in a better class of
goods, in all cases where the goods are of a kind for
which there can be obtained a reasonably large colonial
sale. Victoria appears to be doing an increasing trade
with South Australia, and in the latter colony the protec-
tionist agitation is not an agitation against the cheap
labour of Europe, but an agitation for Protection against
protectionist Victoria. It is an exaggeration to say, as
the Victorian protectionists do say, that in the last
twenty years Victoria has become the manufacturing
colony of Australia. That is so for some limited classes
of goods, but for some limited classes only, and she still
imports vastly more manufactures than she exports,
while the Free Trade colony, assisted by her cheap coal,
has also a large show of local factories. Victoria makes
no linen, weaves no silk, spins no cotton, and manufac-
tures but a small portion of her woollen fabrics, though
the proportion will increase under the higher duties now
adopted. The colony is, however, too small, the market
too limited, for Victoria to be able to compete with
Lancashire in cottons or with Yorkshire in woollens and
worsteds districts in which the trade can afford to see
machinery grow obsolete in ten years, and cheerfully
replace it with the improvements that are necessary
to keep pace with the manufactures of Belgium and
of France. What Victoria does under her protective
system is to import woollen stuffs and linens and make
them into shirts and suits, Protection affecting rather
the nature than the volume of the trade.
Kinds of Victoria, then, under her protectionist system, makes,
manufae* as has been shown, most of the common goods she needs,
and exports such goods to the other Australian colonies.
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 337
The goods of high luxury, articles which cannot be pro-
duced in small quantities except at exorbitant cost, are
not as a rule manufactured in the colony ; but such
articles as cheap wearing apparel (including not only
clothes in the ordinary sense, but shirts, boots, and
shoes), soap and candles, common machinery, and metal
goods, are now sold wholesale in the colony at rates very
slightly higher than those which obtain in England
itself. Of course a locomotive or a large engine for
a big ship cannot be turned out as yet in protectionist
Victoria to compete with those of Glasgow or of
Belgium any more than is the case in Free Trade New
South Wales ; but what may be called " people's "
goods (as contrasted with luxuries) and necessaries, are
now manufactured on such a scale and at such rates
that the trades concerned in their production would
not suffer by the complete removal of Protection. The
manufacturers, I repeat, do not admit this, and have
lately obtained an increase of some of the low duties,
but the fact is as I state it. Victorian manufacturers
would suffer very greatly by complete intercolonial
Protection, and hence we see the curious spectacle of
some Victorian Protectionists becoming Free Traders
without knowing it, while some of the Free Traders of
the neighbouring colonies are with equal rapidity turning
to the protectionist side. Many of those who are
interested in manufactures in Victoria, and who formerly
found their interest in Protection, now find their
interest in intercolonial Free Trade, while Free Trade
and Protection in Europe and other distant places
matter equally little to them. At the same time,
those who are interested in manufactures in the other
colonies are fighting might and main, not for that inter-
colonial Free Trade combined with Protection against
VOL. II Z
338 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
the world which is the ideal of the philosophic Victorian
protectionists, but for Protection against Victoria com-
bined with indifference towards the rest of the world.
It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that inter-
colonial Free Trade, with Protection against the rest of the
world, is, even in Victoria, the dominant opinion. The
intercolonial Trade Union Congress of 1889 declared
against it, and the Deakin-Gillies Ministry was forced,
at the end of the session of 1889, to abandon its position
and to assent, as I have said, to the imposition of in-
creased duties.
Bearing of \ have already discussed in the Australian chapters
colonial J
Protection the bearing of Australasian Protection upon the question
of the creation of an Australian or Australasian Parlia-
naent, and on confederation or union. In my chapter
Federation. u P on ^e f uture relations between the various parts of
the whole Empire, and especially between the mother-
country and the colonies, I shall have to consider the
light thrown upon the question of Imperial Federa-
tion by the discovery of the undoubted fact that the
colonies and dependencies of the Empire lean, by a vast
majority, to a distinctively protective policy. It is
curious to notice how sudden has been the change upon
this point. As late as 1882 an able writer, by no
means inclined by political opinions to take Free Trade
views for granted, 1 argued that it would be possible to
establish a closer connection throughout the British
Empire upon a basis of Free Trade, and that the advo-
cates of a Fair Trade Empire would find themselves
mistaken if they relied on the illusion that the colonies
would be willing to join an Imperial Zollverein pro-
vided it were surrounded by a wall of higher duties to
1 State Aid and State Interference, by George Baden-Powell. Chapman
and Hall.
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 339
outsiders. The writer thought it would be possible to
found a Free Trade Empire upon the proposition that
low tariffs were the most conducive to prosperity, and
he named Victoria, along with Hong -Kong and New
South Wales, as leaning to the Free Trade side. Victoria
was protectionist even at the time at which he wrote,
but there was a very strong Free Trade party at that
moment in the colony a party which is now so dead
that the holding of Free Trade convictions by a states-
man is looked upon as an amiable eccentricity, which
need not in the least prevent his receiving protectionist
votes, it being understood that no attempt is likely to
be made to revive the question. At the time when the
work in question appeared the author was able to declare
that only two out of forty colonies maintained tariffs
that could be described as high or hostile, a state-
ment which, if 25 per cent duties, put on for protec-
tionist purposes, are fairly to be called " high and
hostile," has become untrue. He thought that the
Australian colonies were " asking why it is that New
Zealand and New South Wales are outrunning Victoria."
But since he wrote New Zealand has rivalled even
Victoria in the exaggeration of her duties, and New
South Wales appears to be upon the point of adhesion
to the protectionist side.
The writer from whom I quote assured his readers Fallacies
that the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria,
running a race side by side, afforded a perfect example
of the evils .of Protection, for New South Wales had v
outstripped Victoria in the race. But this comparison, south
which has since been repeated, is wholly fallacious, owing
to the existence in New South Wales of cheap coal and
the non-existence in Victoria up to the present time of
any substantial output of coal of any kind, and on
340 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
account also of the overwhelming superiority of New
South Wales in size. The late Mr. Westgarth indeed
has contended that her smaller area is an actual advan-
tage to Victoria over New South Wales, and that this
and the colder climate are the reasons of her temporary
success ; but I cannot say that his argument carries
conviction to my mind. An able colonist, Mr.
Pulsford of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, sets
Victorian gold, drawn from a small area, against the
New South Wales excess of wool production over that of
Victoria, which she owes to her greater size ; but this
view, too, is somewhat fanciful, for it takes no account of
the coal of New South Wales. That the local opinion is
not to the effect that the experiment has been conclusive
as between the two systems is evidenced by the fact
that while in 1882 the Irish Prime Minister of Victoria,
in a short-lived Government, had hinted at the possibility
of the colony reverting to Free Trade, the two parties in
Victoria now vie with one another in Protection, and
the protectionists of New South Wales have grown
from a small minority into a party all but victorious at
the poll.
Population Victoria and New South Wales are now of the same
population. When Victoria entered upon her protec-
tionist path she had a vastly larger population than
New South Wales, and the fact that New South Wales
has caught her up and is now beating her in population
is pointed to by Free Traders as pretty conclusive
evidence of the truth of their position. It should, in
connection with this point, be remembered that Victoria
has a very limited soil for a young country ; that New
South Wales has a vastly larger amount of unoccupied
land ; and that the fact of Victorians passing over with
their capital and their labour into New South Wales
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 341
is not in itself a sufficient argument against the protective
system of Victoria. Moreover, the mere possession of
abundant coal ought to give manufacturing supremacy
to the larger colony, a supremacy which she has hardly as
yet established. The figures which show the ages of
the population have somewhat more importance. There
can be no doubt that a considerable number of the
people of the best working age have left Victoria for the
other colonies, and on the whole this must be considered
as at least showing that Victorian Protection has not so
vastly improved the position of the working classes, nor
New South Wales Free Trade so greatly harmed it, as
to prevent what was in itself a natural movement of
population into the countries with land requiring people.
The fact that New South Wales has caught up and Revenue,
passed Victoria in revenue is again not a conclusive
argument, as Victoria has had to bear an extraordinary
falling off in gold production, while there has been no
similar natural decline attending the results of labour in
New South Wales, and coal-mining in the latter colony
is increasing fast. New South Wales has, however, other
caught up and passed Victoria in general trade and in
shipping. The advocates of Protection and Free Trade
in the two colonies have fought during the last two
years over the statistics relating to the number of
hands employed in manufacture ; they have succeeded
in showing that the statistics have been so arranged
as to swell the figures, and that not much light
is to be drawn from them. Whether she retains a
comparatively Free Trade system, or whether she, as
seems probable, adopts Protection, New South Wales
must creep gradually to the front, and the steadiness
of her advance cannot form a powerful argument
in this controversy.
342 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
General The comparisons which have been drawn between
thTcom- Victoria and New South Wales by the Free Traders and
between the Protectionists during the last sixteen years, when
colonies impartially considered, prove that neither Protection
nor Free Trade has much affected the neck-and-neck
race which the colonies have hitherto been running,
and in which, for the reasons I have given, New
South Wales under either system must prevail. It
is in fact impossible to show that either colony has
greatly suffered from the fiscal policy which it has
adopted. Victoria has a better average quality of land,
but New South Wales possesses a tract, equal in area to
Victoria, of land as valuable as that of Victoria. Victoria
has enjoyed in the past the advantage of her gold
production ; but New South Wales has had her coal-
mines, the value of which, in one way or another, has
hardly been much less. Both colonies have passed
through waves of depression. Seven years ago, when
Victoria was in the trough of the wave and New South
Wales was on the crest, it seemed as though the Free
Trade predictions would be justified, and the colonial
Free Traders thought that "the laws of political economy "
had been triumphant ; but after a short time the condi-
tions became equal, and then again New South Wales
went through an era of depression.
On the whole, it must be admitted that the colonies
still stand upon about an equal footing of prosperity.
If we compare the bank deposits, including those of
savings banks, and add to them the deposits in building-
societies, it will be found that Victoria has a slight ad-
vantage ; but with regard to these and other figures all
that can be asserted is that a protective system is by
no means so disturbing an element in national finance and
national prosperity as was imagined, before the colonies
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 343
had tried their experiments, to be the case. The
Victorian figures also go to show that the gross bulk of
trade is not much interfered with by protective duties
such as those adopted in the past by the colony of
Victoria and in the present by South Australia and
New Zealand, although it may be by those of Canada,
and might be by duties such as those recently imposed
upon some articles in Victoria. Twenty per cent duties
rather divert imports from one channel into another,
and derange items, than affect the sum total, which
practically remains unchanged. Victoria, in spite of her
Protection, and owing in part to the wealth of her popula-
tion, stands singularly high in the list of countries import-
ing goods from the United Kingdom. In a five years'
period which I have taken for comparison Victoria
imported about 90,000,000 worth of goods, and
exported 80,000,000 worth taking the sums at
which the goods were valued when they left Vic-
torian ports. In the same five years New South
Wales imported 105,000,000 worth, and exported
87,000,000 worth, but during this period borrowed
more largely than Victoria, and her public expendi-
ture amounted to much more than her revenue.
The Victorian trade returns have been swelled by
the Riverina trade from New South Wales passing
through Victoria to the port of Melbourne, so that New
South Wales trade is really larger, and Victorian trade,
from one point of view, less, than figures would lead one
to suppose. The effect of Protection is seen in the
imports of spirits and beer, which are larger in the
case of New South Wales than in that of Victoria,
because more distilling and brewing takes place in
Victoria than in New South Wales. The same is
seen in boots and shoes, where New South Wales
344 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
imports five times as large a value as does Victoria,
because shoe manufacturing has grown up under Pro-
tection. New South Wales imports flour and biscuit,
while the absence of good cheap coal in Victoria forces
Victoria to import her coal from New South Wales.
small The colonial protectionists and Free Traders fight
th e U figures. over the figures of colonial trade with a keenness
which is somewhat ludicrous. They are led into
struggling for a slight apparent advantage in some
particular set of figures, without regard to the fact that
the figures themselves cannot be sufficiently accurately
compiled to make tenable so fine an argument as that
which is based upon their slight variations. I have seen
the most elaborate disquisitions as to the profits of trade
. in each of the colonies turning upon hair's-breadth differ-
ences, and neglecting the fact that no figures of trade
ever came within 20 per cent of the truth a fact which
at once vitiates almost every conclusion which can be
drawn from them. Any one who has had to do with trade
figures as a professional statistician, or as a negotiator
of commercial treaties, is aware that considerable sources
of error, and, as a consequence, enormous discrepancies,
exist, and that it is impossible to trace one and the same
operation of trade, carried on through a port of export
and a port of import, by any resemblance in the statistics
of the two countries concerned. Then again, besides
false or erroneous declarations of value, there are differ-
ences of classification between country and country
which fatally vitiate all trade statistics. If we take
figures that are plain, and as to which the differences
are so great that it is safe to found an argument upon
them, it is clear that Victoria imports less of certain
classes of goods, and manufactures them herself, while
New South Wales imports them.
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 345
While, however, the comparison between Victoria
and New South Wales does not greatly help us, it
must not be supposed that, even if it seems by the
figures to matter little which fiscal policy such pros-
perous young countries adopt, there is no danger
in a system of Protection. The difficulty which has
been found in replacing local by Australian Protection,
the marked tendency towards higher duties in all the
colonies, point towards increased retaliation on the
part of all ; and there is reason to fear that constant
exasperation may be the result, with disastrous conse-
quences to the growth of an Australian nation.
We have already seen that Protection is not needed The
for the purpose of enabling manufactures to grow up o
the Australian continent, and that they are springing
into existence in considerable numbers between Sydney
and the coal-mines. At the same time there can
be no doubt about the growth of protectionist feeling
in New South Wales, or about the rise of that
principle in popular favour with the constituencies.
Powerful causes which at one time operated in the direc-
tion of bringing about the change were the increase of
city population and consequent difficulty in procuring
employment in Sydney and its suburbs, and the com-
petition in the markets of New South Wales of the goods
produced by the protected manufactures of the sister
colonies. There has also been in New South Wales a
considerable development of general Australian feeling
in favour of maintaining a high local rate of wages,
combined with the fear that, unless a protective policy
be adopted, the Australian workman will be forced down
into the condition of the labouring classes of Europe.
The desire to knit the colonies together on the
basis of a federal union, and to establish a nation suf-
346 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
ficiently strong to maintain itself against the world, and
the impossibility of so doing, in face of the feeling of the
other colonies, without shutting the ports of the new
country against the manufactured products of India and
of Europe, have also tended in the same direction. It
should be remarked, however, that, though the colonial
advocates of Protection desire to shut out British goods,
they at the same time expect that the British market
will continue to be open for the reception of the wool
and other products of New South Wales, while they
assume that a rapidly-increasing population in Australia
itself will guard against the possibility of over-production
on the part of the locally protected manufactories.
Arguments The increasingly powerful protectionist party of New
South Wales point out that she imports more agricultural
produce than she exports, and is dependent upon the
farmers of the other colonies for her food, while many
men walk the streets of Sydney wanting work, and there
is fertile land in the colony waiting for the plough. These
facts, which in my mind point towards the adoption of
a better land system, are made use of only for the
purpose of promoting a recourse to high duties.
Another point of the protectionist speakers bears upon
what they think the illogical position in which the colony
finds itself by preventing the immigration of Chinese,
while it allows, or as they put it encourages, the import-
ation of Chinese manufactures. In reply to the Free
Traders, who argue that it is best for the colony, having
an extraordinary advantage in the growth of the finest
wool, to send its wool to England and receive it back in
the form of manufactured clothing, the protectionists
point out that wool-getting employs but little labour.
They argue that it enriches the few while the many are
left unhelped, and declare that it profits nothing if
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 347
the imported clothing be cheap provided the work-
ing colonists have no money with which to buy it. It
would be a mistake to suppose that protectionist feeling
in New South Wales is confined to the artisans and the
manufacturers. They no doubt once formed the back-
bone of the protectionist party, as the wool -growing
squatters and the importing merchants of Sydney form
the backbone of the Free Trade party ; but the rapid
growth of the protectionists in the last few years has
been caused by their receiving very general support
among all classes. Some of the Sydney workmen are
now Free Traders, but, on the other hand, there has been
a considerable growth of protectionist agitation in the
rural districts, and especially in the Kiverina, which
desires to retaliate upon Victoria. The comparison
which has been drawn between Victoria and New South
Wales, and much relied upon, as we have seen, by Free
Traders in foreign countries, is not popular in New
South Wales ; and, so far as the comparison is brought
into the discussion, it is generally by the protectionists,
who point to the fact that Victoria, with little over one-
fourth the area of New South Wales, bears an equal
population and possesses a well-filled treasury, while New
South Wales with her vast territories has experienced
frequent deficits under a policy of Free Trade. The
local protectionists sum up the question by declaring
that the experience of the colony under Free Trade
shows that Protection is necessary for the development
of her resources and the employment of her people ; and
both the imperial federationists and the Australian
federationists help forward the movement, often without
wishing it, because there is a general belief throughout
the colony that either system of federation is impossible
so long as New South Wales stands aloof from the
348 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
general fiscal policy of Australasia, which is also that of
the vast majority of the units of which the Empire is
made up.
Roman There has been an attempt lately in New South
and h pro C - & Wales on the part of the Free Traders to connect the
Protectionists with the Eoman Catholics, and to damage
the doctrine of Protection in that colony by associating
it with a religion unpopular with men of other creeds.
In an article in the Centennial Magazine of Sydney for
September 1889 by Mr. Wise, the late Attorney-General
of New South Wales, it was declared that the suggestion
" that Catholicism, being a religion which rested on the
surrender of the individual, was more likely to incline
towards a policy of Protection which is the negation of
individual freedom in industrial matters than a policy
of Free Trade," was one " eminently suitable for
philosophical discussion." It should be remarked, how-
ever, that in Victoria the Roman Catholic party
subsidies were formerly Free Traders. On the other hand, the
fmST 7 protectionists of New South Wales attack the Free
Traders for being subsidised by the rich importers ;
but this is an argument which may be turned both
ways, for protectionist manufacturers also subscribe
freely in New South Wales, as in the Dominion of Canada
and the United States, towards the party funds of the
side from which they expect to gain Protection. Now
Smuggling, that Victoria has recently adopted a far higher tariff
upon many articles than had previously prevailed within
that colony, there is a temptation to New South Wales,
while retaining her Free Trade principles, to do a large
smuggling trade across the land frontier and the Murray,
which it would require high expenditure to guard ; but
no one can desire that the irritation in Victoria which
would result from such a policy should be superadded to
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 349
that which has already been excited by the question of
the Murray waters. The intention on the part of
Victoria to continue to take water for irrigation purposes
from the Murray, although that river is in the territory
of New South Wales, would, under such circumstances
as those at which I have hinted, become dangerous in
the highest degree to Australian peace, as the exaspera-
tion on the part of Victoria which would be produced by
border smuggling would cause pretensions to be put
forward upon the Murray question, and language to be
used, which might lead to civil war.
A difficulty in the way of the protectionists of
New South Wales has hitherto been their failure
to secure a representation in the daily press propor-
tional to the number of their voters, for both the
Sydney Morning Herald and the Daily Telegraph
are Free Trade organs ; and the protectionist Bulletin,
which is not satisfied with the services of the protec-
tionist evening paper, complains that Mr. M c Millan is
always presented to the people " wearing a halo round
his saintly political head," while Mr. Dibbs " is depicted
with horns and a barbed tail."
One of the most thoughtful of the colonies, and the The New
most inclined to strike out opinions for herself, possibly
on account of her climate and her detached geo-
graphical position, is New Zealand, and New Zealand
is one of the latest converts to distinct Protection by
high duties. It is interesting to note the opinion of New
Zealand writers upon the Protection question. There is
a general leaning in New Zealand to the belief that
moderate Protection, during the years in which it was
tried in that colony, chiefly by chance the duties having
been mainly put on for revenue purposes led to the
growth of manufactures which would not otherwise have
350 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
sprung up. These are now of advantage to the colony,
and are able to hold their own, though, in New
Zealand as in Victoria, the latter fact is denied by the
manufacturers interested. Mr. Gisborne l has given the
facts of a case in which a duty was charged in New
Zealand on an imported article, with the effect of
encouraging local manufacture and founding an estab-
lished native industry. The result has been that the
whole colony is now supplied with an article of local
produce at a cheaper rate than that at which it can be
imported, so that this article could now be placed in the
free list of the tariff without any effect on trade. Sir
Harry Atkinson, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, is
quoted by the late Mr. Westgarth, himself a strong
Free Trader, in his book of 1889, as having stated that
the New Zealand paper manufacturers, who were unable
to hold their own without Protection, have, after a short
period of protective duties, become able to manufacture
paper enough for the islands, and to sell at the same
rate at which paper can be brought from Australia or
from Europe. Still, in New Zealand, as in Victoria, the
tendency is towards higher duties.
The The adoption of Protection in a marked form by
view. Queensland after a short trial of duties averaging 7^
per cent in a tariff standing half-way between the Free
Trade of New South Wales and the moderate Protection
at that time prevailing in New Zealand, South Australia,
Tasmania, and Western Australia, and since replaced in
New Zealand and South Australia by duties more upon
the Victorian scale is of considerable interest and
importance. Queensland is still mainly a country
exporting raw material. She is a gold-mining and a
1 The Colony of New Zealand, by William Gisborne. London, Petherick
and Co., 1888.
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 351
stock-raising country, and has hitherto exported the
produce of her mines and pastoral regions, and of the
sugar plantations of her coast. She has had little occa-
sion to give attention to the fostering of manufactures,
and nearly her whole population has been absorbed in the
production of what we call raw material for exportation.
It is indeed a remarkable evidence of the strength of
protectionist feeling in the colonies that such a country
should have deliberately adopted first moderate and then
stronger Protection, and that both parties in Queensland
should now apparently agree, like both parties in
Victoria, in support of the protectionist principle. The
view now popular with both sides in Queensland is that
formerly put forward by Sir James Martin in New South
Wales, when he said that the magnificent territories of
Australia, teeming with the elements of every kind of
wealth, mineral, pastoral, and agricultural, were intended
by Nature for other purposes than a sheep walk like an
Asiatic steppe ; that all honest occupations were equally
desirable and equally ennobling ; that the skilled artisans
who had come into the colony were entitled to the
development of their trades, and should not be driven,
of necessity, to settle upon patches of land which they
were ill trained to cultivate, and the fruits of which
might at any time be reduced in price below the cost of
their production by free imports from foreign countries.
It is in my opinion unlikely that, with the increase of
population, and the demand of the workmen in the
towns for new avenues of employment, Queensland will
revert to a policy of Free Trade. At the same time
Protection is far from popular in the Northern Territory
of Queensland, and somewhat increases the chances of
separation.
There can be little doubt about the general popularity
Canadian
view.
352 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
The of the protective system in the Dominion of Canada,
and Sir John Macdonald's long possession of power has
been facilitated by his adoption of the so-called National
Policy, and not disturbed by the existence of a serious
Free Trade opposition. Those who would change the
system would substitute for it commercial union with
the United States or throughout the British Empire ; but
only an insignificant minority profess Free Trade views
or support their proposals by Free Trade arguments.
Canada still imports a large amount of manufactured
goods, and is not a large exporter of her own manufac-
tures, being, of course, mainly an agricultural, pastoral,
and timber country. But the adoption of the National
Policy has affected the import of manufactures, and has
caused Canadian manufacturers to win the greater portion
of the Canadian market, while there is a general belief,
probably untrue, that average prices have not risen.
The Canadian argument, which does not carry con-
viction, is that, when times were bad in the United
States, the American manufacturers made what is called
a " slaughter - market " of Canada, and poured their
goods into the country. The low prices which ruled
on these occasions did not continue, and the occasional
influx of goods prevented all growth of Canadian
manufactures, but when trade was good in the neigh-
bouring larger community prices immediately went up
in Canada. As for the attempt to show by figures that
under Protection prices have not increased in Canada,
the fact that such an argument can be put forth without
clear contradiction may be taken as showing that there
has in fact been no very great rise in prices. The
growth in wealth of the Dominion, by every test
that can be applied, has been rapid since Confederation,
but more rapid since the adoption of the protectionist
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 353
policy than it was before that moment. At the same
time there is, as I have shown in the British North
American part of my first volume, much dissatisfaction
in Canada with the existing state of things, caused by
the narrowness of the market that Canada offers to the
Canadian manufacturer, and by the difficulty which he
still finds in competing in most goods with his rivals in
European or Eastern markets.
Although the Canadian, like the American and
Australian protective duties, are supposed to be directed
against the pauper labour of the old world, it is a
curious fact that in one portion of the Dominion, namely
British Columbia, protected manufactures (as, for example,
that of boots and shoes) and other industries (such as
that of fish-canning) are carried on by the use of Chinese
labour in the factories. The white workmen who are
employed in packing and in transport, and who direct
the labour of the Chinese, are, in British Columbia, many
of them favourable to the use of Chinese labour, and
some of the inhabitants of the Province desire to see
the tax levied by the Dominion upon Chinese immigra-
tion removed. It is probable that the use of Chinese
labour in British Columbia will sooner or later be put
down, and in the meantime the present system is
curiously at variance with the arguments used in
Canada to bolster-up Protection.
The system which, as I have shown, has a certain commer-
popularity in Canada as a proposed remedy for the l<
economic disadvantages under which she labours, by
the application of a high protective system in the case
of a young country with a small home market, is
commercial union with some other country or group of
countries. The Canadian Government have pronounced
against commercial union with the United States, which
VOL. II 2 A
354 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
is the remedy proposed by a section of the Opposition,
but the Government have suggested the opening up of
new markets in France and Spain, and in Australia and
the West Indies. Some Canadians are inclined to
imagine that a tariff union of the Empire is possible,
but the protectionists, who are the majority, of course
desire Protection for Canada against what they style
the pauper labour of India and of the mother-country.
Some Canadian Free Traders, like Mr. Goldwin Smith,
have committed themselves strongly to the principle of
commercial union with the United States ; but the whole
of their argument against the existing state of things in
Canada points to complete Free Trade instead of discri-
mination in favour of the United States and against the
mother - country. Free Trade would possess this
advantage, that it is a system which Canada might
adopt for herself without asking the leave of any one,
whereas the other proposals find enormous difficulties
in their way. When maps are pointed to by the
advocates of commercial union with the United States,
and the question is asked if it can be wise for two
countries with such a border to set up a high tariff wall
between them, Free Traders would be inclined to answer
that it would be wise to knock down the wall that is
built upon the Canadian side, but not of necessity
wise to knock it down only for the purpose of build-
ing up another wall along the maritime frontiers of
Canada.
When the commercial union party declare that it
is a crime to shut out Canada from participation in the
growth of the commerce of the continent, the argument
goes to show that it is a still greater crime to shut
out Canada from participation in the commerce of the
world. If Canada were to abolish her custom houses she
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 355
would be her own mistress, which could not be the case
under a commercial union with a country of overwhelm-
ing size and strength ; for such a power must proceed to
regulate the Canadian tariff in interests which might
not be the interests of Canada. The frontier between
the Dominion and the United States is such that it may
be safely asserted that by no expenditure could smug-
gling be effectively prevented if Canada were to remove
her duties, and that the American tariff would be broken
down. The destruction of the protectionist policy of
the United States would be of no permanent advan-
tage to the outside world, and a temporary gain to certain
industries in Great Britain and in Belgium would be
succeeded by a lasting loss. Looking at the matter^]
from a purely Canadian point of view, however, I cannot (
but think that the circumstances of Canada point to
the wisdom of absolute Free Trade, and that not only \n
would her resources be more rapidly developed under
such a system, but that greater prosperity would be
more equally diffused throughout her population. At
the same time such opinions are altogether unpopular
in the colony, and there is, in fact, no sign of their
making way.
It is supposed that Free Trade is made impossible Support
of adoption as a policy for Canada because of the Protection
Canadian dislike for direct taxation, but it is somewhat popularity
curious that this should be the case. Many of
I Australasian colonies, with a system at least as demo-
/ cratic as prevails in Canada, show little dislike of direct
taxation, and it must be remembered that in the case of
Canada a large revenue might be raised from customs
by duties on intoxicating liquors and tobacco to supple-
ment direct taxation. Canada would gain by the adop-
tion of a policy of complete Free Trade.
356 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Effect of One of the ablest of modern political essayists l has
upon GCtl ll argued out the question of the effect of Protection upon
wages. wa ges ; but he has unfortunately discussed the subject
as though it were one upon which light could be thrown
only by the example and experience of Great Britain and
of the United States, and, like too many writers, has
ignored the evidence afforded by the history of our colo-
nies. He has shown, as I have also myself contended,
that wages in the United States, though nominally
much higher than in the United Kingdom, are scarcely
higher, except, I should say, at Chicago and in Cali-
fornia, when the purchasing power is taken into account.
But wages in our Southern colonies throughout
Australasia and in South Africa are double as high
as in England, for shorter hours ; and purchasing power
is, on the whole, equal, except with regard to rent, while
as regards rent the difference is chiefly caused by men
with a higher standard of comfort insisting upon vastly
superior accommodation. If I cannot side with those
colonial authorities who believe that Protection is a source
of the enhancement of wages, I am at least forced to
admit that it does not decrease them even from the point
of view of purchasing power. Sir Lyon Playfair asserts
also that "labour disturbances or strikes" are "much
less frequent and acute" in England "than in the
United States with its policy of Protection." But
labour disturbances and strikes are not more frequent
or severe in the protectionist colonies than in Great
Britain, and a colony in which they have been serious
has been the Free Trade colony of New South Wales.
Sir Lyon Playfair indeed mentions Australia, but only
for the purpose of repeating the argument which I have
1 Subjects of Social Welfare, by the Eight Hon. Sir Lyon Playfair.
Cassell and Co., 1889.
CHAP, in PROTECTION OF NATIVE INDUSTRIES 357
named above, drawn from the fallacious comparison
between Victoria and New South Wales ; and his
statement of the comparison involves a partial error, for
he asserts, without reserve, that wages are higher in
"Free Trade New South Wales" than in the "protec-
tionist colony " of Victoria the fact being that on the
average they are for most classes of labour about the same,
and only higher, as I have said, for some forms of un-
skilled labour. Sir Lyon Playfair also attempts to prove
that " Protection leads slowly, but surely, to socialism,
and tends even to communism " ; and he points out
that it is not to State-socialism that, in this phrase,
he intends to object, but to Eevolutionary Socialism.
He thinks that the protectionist " is very near being a
communist, differing very little from the man who
denies the right of property altogether." Now colonial
example, so far from giving support to this contention,
goes to show that Protection in Canada and in Victoria,
where it has been long tried, has a decidedly conserva-
tive effect, and no country in the whole world has less
leaning towards Eevolutionary Socialism or towards com-
munism than has our protectionist colony of Victoria.
CHAPTEK IV
EDUCATION
IN the chapter on Labour and the poor we have seen in
what way the colonial State deals with neglected or
destitute children as State wards, and have now to con-
sider how it treats the children of those who avoid direct
dependence upon the community for maintenance.
British The special and peculiar case of Newfoundland has
America, been dealt with in the first chapter of the first part
of this work, inasmuch as Newfoundland alone among
our self-governing colonies has a strictly denominational
system of education, without "public schools" in the
colonial sense, the Boards governing the schools being
nominated by the respective sects, and entrusted by
The the State with the appropriation of the grants. In
Dominion. r .
the whole 01 the rest of British North America,
although the Provinces group themselves into two
divisions, one of which is far more denominational
than the other, there is no approach to the New-
foundland plan. The common or public school system
of the Dominion, except in New Brunswick, is in a
greater or a less degree compulsory, and (except in
Quebec only) is free; and throughout the Dominion
money is found by the State, and generally, but not
invariably, supplemented by local rates, and dispensed
through public bodies either to public schools only, or
CHAP, iv EDUCATION
359
in some Provinces to "separate" or " dissentient " schools
as well as to the public schools. In Quebec there are
school fees, but they are low, and cannot be called for
from " indigent persons " ; and throughout the Dominion
the total expenditure upon education is enormous, and
the number of children upon the school rolls immense.
In the newer parts of the Dominion, especially in Mani-
toba and in the North -West Territories, something like
one-eighteenth of the total area of the soil has been set
apart as an educational endowment, and the sums
realised by the sale of the blocks of land are invested in
Government securities for the support of education.
The reason for the existence of a " separate or dis-
sentient " system in Ontario and Quebec is that at the
time of confederation guarantees were given to the
Provincial minorities for the continuance of their
separate schools; and the British North America Act
provides that, while the legislature of a Province has
the exclusive right to make laws on the subject of
education, it is nevertheless unable to prejudicially
affect any denominational school systems in existence
before confederation. As regards the "dissentient"
schools of Manitoba there is an appeal to the Governor-
General in Council from any acts of the Provincial
authority affecting any legal rights or privileges of.
the religious minority, and the Parliament of Canada
is armed with powers to enforce the execution of the law,
but has not so far been called upon to take action under
these provisions.
In Ontario the phrase " public schools " includes the
public schools proper and the Roman Catholic separate
schools. Trustees, elected by the ratepayers, appoint
the teachers, levy rates, and administer the public funds
allotted for elementary education, while " dissentient
360 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
trustees" are elected in districts where the minority
object to the management of the schools by the ordinary
trustees, these minorities being in Ontario Roman
Extra- Catholic. The Ontario system is remarkable for the
liteSy fact that it allows children between the ages of five and
of system, twenty-one to attend school free of charge a liberality
unexampled anywhere in the colonial world, although
New Brunswick runs Ontario close in this respect.
Ontario is also distinguished by choosing the whole
of its inspectorate from among teachers, who are pro-
moted to be inspectors as the reward of an educational
career ; and the Ontario authorities declare, as is
shown both in the official handbook and in a useful
English work, 1 that their system is in this respect
infinitely superior to our own. The Ontario men main-
tain that the patronage system which prevails in Eng-
land for the choice of inspectors has been most mischie-
vous in its influence upon elementary schools, and
that men with no fitness for the work, who have been
" pitchforked into their places," " have sown misery in
their districts," the work of education being consequently
retarded. The religious difficulty is, of course, mainly
met in Ontario by the provision of the separate Roman
Catholic schools ; but as regards the non- Catholic public
.schools, which are officially styled " unsectarian," every
school (and much the same rule applies to the higher
schools aided by the Province) must be opened with the
Lord's Prayer, and closed with the reading, without note
or comment, of authorised portions of the Bible, and a
recital of the Lord's Prayer or of a prayer which has
been sanctioned by the Education Department. There
is a conscience clause with regard to attendance on these
1 The Schools of Greater Britain, by John Russell. William Collins,
Sons, and Co.
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 361
readings. The clergy of all denominations, or persons
appointed by them as their representatives, have the
right to give religious instruction to the pupils of their
own Church in each schoolhouse at least once a week
after closing hours. The corporations of school trustees
are small, and, in a rural district, only one trustee goes
out of office each year. They have to raise by rate
as much as is received from the Provincial Government.
Classical schools are aided by the Province, and also
receive help from municipal grants and from rates.
A large number of the high schools are under elective
local bodies and are free. The University of Toronto,
which is the Provincial university of Ontario, and which
is unsectarian and has under it a university college
which admits women, is mainly kept up by the State
or from endowments originally given by the State ; and
there exists also in Ontario provision for technical
education, schools of science and of art, and a College of
Agriculture, all largely helped by the Provincial Govern-
ment. Mechanics' institutes are subsidised by Govern-
ment at the rate of two dollars for every dollar locally
raised. There are a considerable number of denomina-
tional colleges, called universities, which are not under
Provincial control.
In the Province of Quebec there is a system which Quebec,
in theory is similar to that of Ontario, except that
it is not free. It is based, like that of Ontario, upon
the election of school trustees by the ratepayers, with
power to provide schools, and with the right on the part
of the minority, if dissatisfied, to elect minority trustees,
the principal school trustees collecting the rates, but
handing over a proportional share of them to the
" dissentient trustees " for their separate schools. In
practice the schools which are maintained by the school
362 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
trustees throughout Quebec Province are strictly Eoman
Catholic schools, and the dissentient schools are Protest-
ant. As in Ontario, the State and the localities both
contribute towards the support of the elementary schools
and of the grammar schools and high schools. Children
between five and sixteen have a right to attend school
on payment of the low fees exacted, and from seven to
fourteen are made to attend. The school inspectors, as
in Ontario, are chosen from among teachers. Although
the grammar schools of Quebec, like the elementary
schools, are not free, there are a large number of scholar-
ships by which the picked children from the public
elementary schools receive free education, and there is
also an arrangement by which the Protestant children
of Montreal can climb up, by merit, until they obtain
free university education. The fees in Quebec are not
only low, but as a rule are paid for only two children
from one family, and are invariably remitted, upon
recommendation by known persons, on the plea of
poverty. In the cities a more elaborate system has
been devised for dividing the rate between the Pro-
testants and the Koman Catholics than obtains in the
country districts. In the case of the city school -tax
of Montreal which is levied only upon owners, tenants
not being obliged to pay any portion of it unless they
have specially contracted to do so there are separate
lists of Eoman Catholic and of Protestant owners of
real estate. There is also a third list containing cor-
porate and company owners, and persons who are
neither Eoman Catholic nor Protestant, or who are of
unknown religion, as well as a catalogue of properties
jointly owned by persons of different creeds. There is
also a provision that Jews should be allowed to carry
their property from the third list to the Eoman Catholic
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 363
or to the Protestant list at choice. The rates from the
first two lists go to the Eoman Catholic and to the
Protestant commissioners respectively, and those from
the third list are divided between them in proportion to
the numbers of Koman Catholics and of Protestants in
the city.
Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island each possess Nova
a free, compulsory, unsectarian public school system, the
trustees in Nova Scotia being elected at a yearly meeting
of the ratepayers in small districts, and the meeting
deciding the amount to be raised by the rates to supple-
ment grants from the county and the Province. The
Nova Scotian teachers are directed to inculcate a
respect for religion and the principles of Christian
morality, and the Eoman Catholics dislike the system.
There is in Nova Scotia (as in many portions of the
colonies) a strong objection to the principle of payment
by results, and this system does not exist within that
Province. In Prince Edward Island the age of compul-
sion is from eight to thirteen, and in Nova Scotia from
seven to twelve.
In New Brunswick, although there is no compulsion New
its absence being peculiar, inasmuch as all the other
Provinces of the Dominion have compulsion in some
form the system is free from the age of five to
twenty an expansion of the principle of free schools
almost as wide, it will be seen, as that prevailing in
Ontario itself. The New Brunswickers are proud
of their system and of the enormous sums of money
which they spend upon education ; but, as in Nova
Scotia, there is a good deal of grumbling on the part of
the Koman Catholic inhabitants about the " unsectarian "
nature of the public schools, and the absence of provision
for separate denominational schools. The teachers are
364 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
empowered, but not required, to open school by Bible
reading and prayer if permitted by the trustees, and
there is a conscience clause with regard to attendance
at this time. As in many other Provinces, the
inspectors are chosen from among the teachers. The
Province is being urged to introduce a separate school
system for the benefit of the Roman Catholics. It
possesses a Provincial university endowed by the State.
Manitoba. Manitoba has that separate school system whicli
exists in " the two Canadas," and the Manitoba system
generally possesses a considerable resemblance to that of
Ontario ; but the age during which children have the
right to free education extends only from five to sixteen
years instead of from five to twenty-one, the " school
age " being five to fifteen. The Lieutenant-Governor in
Council appoints a Board of Education consisting of a
Protestant section of twelve members and a Roman
Catholic section of nine members, of which the Roman
Catholic section officially makes use of the French
language. In the early days of the Province the Roman
Catholic schools, chiefly then used by the French half-
breeds, exceeded in number the Protestant schools used
by the Scotch settlers, but since the recent large
immigration from Ontario and Europe has taken place,
the Protestant population has greatly grown. Schools
are founded in the most sparsely peopled districts, for
anywhere where ten children of school age can be found
within a three-mile radius five heads of families can
obtain the formation of a school district, and receive a
grant from the Province as well as a grant from the
municipality, and also local rating powers, the Province
laying down the principle that the great cost of education
in sparsely settled districts ought not to prevent the
erection of schools. The Provincial grant is divided
CHAV. iv EDUCATION 365
between the Catholic and the Protestant sections of the
Board of Education, the Protestants now receiving about
four-fifths. There is a Provincial examining university
to which denominational colleges of the Church of
England, the Presbyterians, and the Koman Catholics
are affiliated, and which is aided by the State.
In British Columbia there is a large Provincial British
grant in aid of education ; but in this Province the
legislature finds the money which in other Provinces
comes from local rates. The system is compulsory, free
(in the Nova Scotian age of seven to twelve), and un-
sectarian, and is administered by small boards of trustees
in each district, who are chosen by "the people" a
phrase which in British Columbia includes the women.
Eeligious teaching in the public schools is virtually
prohibited in this Province ; the Lord's Prayer being
sometimes read, but this only by special permission of
the trustees.
In the North- West Territories, as in British Columbia, North-
the schools are free ; but denominational schools are Territories.
helped by the State, and, as a matter of fact, the un-
sectarian schools are not numerous, and the elementary
schools are mostly Protestant or Koman Catholic de-
nominational schools.
In addition to Toronto University, already referred Canadian
to, mention should be made of the MGill College, the SJJ* 1
well-known undenominational University of Montreal ;
and of Laval, the Koman Catholic University of Quebec.
In Australasia there are as many systems as there are Austral-
colonies, but it will be best to mention in the first place
those of Victoria, New Zealand, and Queensland, which
possess a certain resemblance to one another. In all
three education is free. In all three it is in theory
compulsory, although in Queensland the law is not
3 66 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
enforced in practice; and in all three it is either
strictly secular or virtually secular. Generally speak-
ing, throughout Australia the State builds the schools,
pays the teachers, and exercises a general management
and control over the schools through a central depart-
ment ; but a certain concession is made to the principle
of local government by the election in Victoria and in
parts of Queensland by the residents, and selection else-
where in Australia of Boards of Advice, called School
Boards in New South Wales. As a rule their powers
extend only to small matters, and they are unable
to appoint or dismiss teachers. In Australia, in short,
education is more distinctly left in the hands of the
State than it is in British North America, except so far
as British Columbia and the North- West Territories do
not follow the usual Canadian plan. While, however,
the School Boards of New South Wales and Boards of
Advice of the other Australian colonies have little
power, in New Zealand, where elective school commit-
tees themselves elect an Education Board for a large
district, this Board appoints and dismisses teachers, and
administers the considerable State grants, which are
supplemented from the rent of lands granted by the
State and by gifts, but not by rates. The Ministers of
Education of the Australasian colonies have as a rule
no power over universities, and in all the South -Sea
colonies except New Zealand are virtually limited to
the care of elementary education, though in New Zea-
land the middle class schools are within the Minister's
control.
WaL S Uth ^^ e Victorians are strongly attached to their free
victoria system, and hold that in the great cost of education
and South . . . ., ,, .. _ ,
Australia, m young countries the small sum produced by the fee,
with an enormous amount of worry and friction, is not
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 367
worth consideration, and is obtained only by means
which are objectionable from the educational point of
view ; and they think the pauperising effects of remission
of fees to those unable to pay are distinctly noticeable
in the neighbouring colony of New South Wales. Dr.
Pearson, a former Fellow of Oriel, the able Education
Minister of Victoria, has lately travelled through
South Australia and New South Wales, and drawn
up a report which forms a comparison of the system
of the three colonies. He is a thoroughly com-
petent authority, and seems to be well content with
the position of his own colony, except in the matter of
too strict an adherence to the principle of seniority in
the promotion of the teachers. At the same time he
appears to side with the teachers themselves in doubting
the advantage of payment by results, which exists in
Victoria, arid to a trifling extent in South Australia,
but does not exist at all in New South Wales, which shares
the usual Canadian view upon this point. Dr. Pearson
finds that the children under eight in portions of New
South Wales are ahead of the Victorian children of that
age, but that above the age of eight the children in
New South Wales, although pushed on more rapidly
and taught more subjects, are less thoroughly taught
and possess less accurate knowledge than in Victoria
and South Australia. But New South Wales has taught
great numbers of its children Latin, French, and mathe-
matics, and these subjects are better taught and taught
to more children in New South Wales than in the other
colonies ; while singing and drawing are best taught in
Victoria, as a part of the free system. The public
school children of Victoria are supposed to learn to
read easy music at sight before leaving school, and if
only a small proportion of them are able to keep it
368 PROBLEMS OF ORE A TER BRITAIN PART vi
up in after life a good deal has been done for the
education of the popular taste. That the attempt to
teach music, without fee, should be so widely made is
an interesting sign of the willingness of a democratic
country to encourage general culture.
Victoria, New Zealand, and Queensland, as we have
and dif- seen, resemble each other in system pretty closely,
Austral- f and differ considerably from New South Wales, while
systems tne remaining Australian colonies may be said to
occupy a middle position. In South Australia, Tas-
mania, and Western Australia education is generally
compulsory and unsectarian or secular, Western Australia
alone aiding denominational schools in the shape of
fifteen Eoman Catholic schools and one connected with
the Church of England. The school age is most ex-
tended in Victoria, where it is from six to fifteen or
sixteen years. Victoria, New South Wales, and New
Zealand possess- the greatest number of scholars in
proportion to population, and New Zealand the highest
average attendance ; while New South Wales spends the
most money upon education, New Zealand and Victoria
standing next. Victoria stands far before the other
colonies in the proportion of children able to read and
write ; and New Zealand and Victoria stand first in the
elementary education of their entire people. In all the
Australasian colonies the State finds from taxes or
grants of land either the whole or by far the greater
portion of the cost of elementary education, which is
one reason why the School Boards have by law so little
power. Centralisation is not unpopular in Australasia.
Free While the Australian colonies generally adopt the
principle of compulsory education they are about
equally divided with regard to free education. In New
South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania fees are
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 369
charged, to those who are unwilling to obtain remission
upon the ground of poverty, amounting to 4d. a week
in South Australia for children under eight, and 6d.
for children over eight. In New South Wales the charge is
3d. a week for each child up to four of one family, and for
any number beyond four the total amount is not to ex-
ceed Is. The fees go into the consolidated fund. In the
mother-colony school-fees produce about sixty thousand
pounds a year, out of a total cost which still exceeds six
hundred thousand a year. Children of school age are
allowed to travel free to and from the public schools of
Tasmania and of New South Wales ; and in New South
Wales and South Australia itinerant teachers are ap-
pointed in districts where it is not possible to collect a
sufficient number of children to form a permanent
school. In a country where almost every family pays
6d. a week for a newspaper it is no hardship to provide
3d. or 6d. a week for the schooling of each child, and
no doubt an enhanced value is given to education in
the minds of some parents by the direct contribution
of some small amount towards its cost; but, on the
other hand, the difficulties of collection and the dangers
of remission are so great that, when the sum involved is
so small as is discovered by New South Wales ex-
perience, it is almost obviously undesirable to exact fees.
At all events colonial example is strongly upon the
side of the Victorians as against New South Wales in
this respect. Education may be said to be free through-
out almost the whole of British North America, and to
more than half the population of Australasia.
Speaking generally it may be said that Victoria is Sacrifices
-11 ,0, 1J 4.\ CC. madefor
not surpassed by any country in the world in the em- education
ciency of its system of public elementary schools, ^
although Ontario, New Brunswick, and several of the
VOL. II 2 B
370 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
other Provinces of the Dominion stand on the same
level, while South Australia is not far behind. Our
colonies compare favourably with the most advanced
States of the American Union, and altogether surpass
the mother-country in the sacrifices they have made for
education, those sacrifices being perhaps greatest in
parts of Canada and in New Zealand and New South
Wales, although in the last-named colony there was
at one time perhaps some waste. New Zealand is
somewhat decreasing her public expenditure from taxes
upon education, but has endowed her schools with land
upon the scale of the education grants of the new
States of the American Union. Victoria is now making
provision for the endowment of her school system with
lands. The colonies have, however, invented little in
the educational field, and what they have done has been
to pick out the best parts of the systems of the mother-
country and of the various States of the Union, and
make an excellent amalgam for themselves.
Just as elementary instruction is compulsory through
almost the length and breadth of British North America,
so is it through almost the length and breadth of
Australasia, though there are considerable differences in
the degree in which compulsory attendance is enforced
in practice. In South Australia, as in Queensland,
compulsion is more a theory than a fact.
The Australasian colonies, with the exception of
difficulty. Western Australia, avoid all concessions to the denomi-
national system. Western Australia may be said to
possess a system not unlike that of the mother-country,
and there is in this country of the future compulsory
attendance at schools either " public " (and these secular
or virtually secular) or denominational but State aided.
In the whole of the remainder of Australasia only public
CHAP, iv ED UCA TION 37 1
schools are helped, and these are either secular, or, as in
Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia,
unsectarian and not supplemented by the provision of
State-aided denominational schools.
There is no attempt in Australasia to imitate,
with a view to the conciliation of Roman Catholics
hostile to the public schools, the system prevailing
in Ontario and Manitoba. In New South Wales the
teachers have to give lessons, which must be "non-
sectarian," out of the Irish National Series of Scrip-
ture Lessons, and the clergy of the Roman Catholic
Church and a portion of the Church of England clergy
maintain a hopeless agitation against the system. The
law in New South Wales, in New Zealand, in Tasmania,
and in Queensland allows any clergyman of the school
district to attend the school, at such suitable hour as
may be arranged, to give Scripture lessons to the children
of his own denomination, but, in practice, few of them
attend. Here and there some will do so twice a week
for a time, and a teacher is told off to keep order for
them ; but after a year or two, for one reason or
another, the practice drops. In South Australia it
is within the power of the parents to demand the
reading of the Scriptures, but the reading is seldom
asked for. In New Zealand a Bill to compel Bible
reading in the schools was rejected by a large majority
at the time when Sir Robert Stout was Prime Minister
and Minister of Education.
In Victoria, where the system is secular and where in yic-
no religious teaching is allowed in school hours, unless
that vague religion which is to be drawn from Nelson's
Series of Royal Readers can be said to constitute
religious teaching, the clergy are at liberty to use
the buildings for teaching their own flocks ; but here
372 PROBLEMS OF ORE A TER BRITAIN PART vi
also they do not avail themselves of the opportunity,
and confine themselves to a somewhat sterile agita-
tion. Some of the creeds work for the reading of
the Bible without comment, others ask for the books
of the Irish National Series, while the Koman Catho-
lics and a portion of the clergy of the Church of
England refuse to accept any system but one of
denominational schools.
An association, chiefly consisting of ministers
of religion, which was formed for the purpose of
providing religious instruction in the State schools
of Victoria, ceased to exist after a life of two years'
duration ; but there is still " The Bible and State
Schools League," of which Bishop Moorhouse was one
of the founders. There seems before this League as
little prospect of success as lies before the Roman
Catholic Church and those few clergy of the Church of
England who are working for State aid to denominational
schools, for the Education Act appears to have a
marvellously strong hold upon the affections of the
Victorian people, who vote steadily against candidates
who are suspected of a desire to upset it. Pastorals
are issued by the Eoman Catholic Church against those
who send their children to " godless schools " ; but the
difficulty caused by sparse population in the rural dis-
tricts prevents the Roman Catholic community from
supplying accommodation in separate schools for their
own children, and as a matter of fact the Roman
Catholics largely resort to the public schools. At the
same time in New South Wales and in Victoria the
Roman Catholic Church provides school accommodation
for more than one-tenth of the total population of school
age. Aid to small denominational schools in the
thinly peopled districts would mean a large expenditure
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 373
by the State, and there is little chance of the Victorian
voters agreeing to such a system. From time to time
the Eoman Catholic Church refuses Confirmation to
children attending the State schools, and pressure has
been put on the parents in order to procure withdrawal ;
but, nevertheless, the practice of sending Eoman Catholic
children to the public schools continues.
No one can fail to admire the earnestness and con- Roman
sistency which the Roman Catholic Church has shown to AW-
upon this question and the sacrifices which a community, traha *
comparatively speaking poor in the colonies and in the
United States and in Great Britain, has made for Roman
Catholic education ; but these considerations must not
make us shut our eyes to the fact that in none of the
English-speaking countries do the Roman Catholics
make that amount of way upon the question to which
their numbers and political influence would seem to
entitle them. The average view taken by the Aus-
tralian voters, who refuse to help the denominational
system, is that it is the duty of the State to see that
the children are educated in needful branches of secular
instruction, while they think that the Churches exist
mainly for the purpose of providing religious instruc-
tion. The success of the Sunday School system is
pointed to as a proof of the wisdom of the voluntary
system, and the voters say : " We do our part ; do
yours, or leave it alone, as you think best."
Victoria has not yet extended its public system to Higher in
secondary education, except by giving many scholarships st
as the reward of merit to the best pupils of the primary
schools, but wholly supports elementary education and
helps a university and colleges. In New South Wales
the State not only gives a good deal of superior teaching
in its elementary schools, but, like the Canadian Province
374 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
of Ontario, also assists secondary education, and supports
its university in addition to helping the colleges in con-
nection with it. In all the towns of New South Wales
there are schools called superior public schools, which
compete with private high schools. In New Zealand
the State has been mainly instrumental in providing
secondary education, but the cost is great, and the public
provision is being gradually withdrawn in the interests
of economy, and replaced by local help. In New South
Wales, and in those other colonies in which the State
largely helps in the work of secondary education, fees
are charged in the secondary schools to the great majority
of those who attend them, and these schools are practi-
cally self-supporting. The working classes in the colonies
as a rule seem to prefer the scholarship system to the
undertaking of secondary education by the State. Most
of the boys when they are fourteen are wanted by their
families to work, and even the provision of free education
for longer years will not tempt fathers to keep their
children from the trades or callings that they wish them
to pursue. The scholarship system allows the picked
children of the working class to take advantage of free
higher education, and it is only for the picked children
that a demand for such training exists. It is therefore
probable that secondary education will continue in all
the colonies to be carried out mainly by private enter-
prise, or by colleges founded by the various Churches,
or by schools which, if nominally public and aided by
the State, will nevertheless charge fees sufficient to
defray the greater portion of the cost. The character of
secondary education in the colonies is improving every
year, and, on the whole, is satisfactory giving an
excellent liberal training, superior to that of the average
school in England.
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 375
New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Austral-
New Zealand all have universities aided by the State, unmr-
and largely supplied with professors tempted out from Sl1
England by good salaries. Tasmania is now engaged on
the organisation of a similar system. Generally speaking
it may be said of these universities that their pass standard
is higher than a pass degree of Oxford or of Cambridge,
and as high as that of London ; but their honour work is
less good than that of the old English universities. In
their arrangement the colonial universities approximate
more closely to Scotch universities than they do to
English, and there is a considerable similarity between
Melbourne University and the universities of Edinburgh
and of Glasgow. All the Australian universities now
admit women, whose success has been great in proportion
to their numbers, and all of them receive large benefac-
tions. Sydney University has obtained nearly 200,000
from a single donor, and possesses considerably over
300,000 of invested property, besides enjoying one of
the largest annual public grants made to any university
by any State in the whole world. Melbourne University
has a grant only less considerable than that of Sydney,
and great private gifts have been made to the Church of
England and the Presbyterian colleges affiliated to the
university. The New Zealand university is an examining
body without fixed abode, and the teaching in New
Zealand is conducted by the colleges in the chief towns.
In addition to these universities and colleges there are
scholarships tenable at Edinburgh and London, offered
by the University of Adelaide and the South Australian
and Tasmanian Governments, besides the scholarships
tenable at the older English universities which have been
already mentioned.
New South Wales was the first of the Australian
376 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
Technical colonies to make much provision for technical instruction,
education. Technical College is a considerable institution.
The Working Men's College of Melbourne is due to private
benefactors, and has a large number of students, whose
work is of a high level, while the Schools of Mines at
Ballarat and Sandhurst and the Technical College in
Geelong are also flourishing. Land has been set apart
in Victoria as an endowment for agricultural colleges,
and schools of design have been established throughout
the country, as has been seen. South Australia has
a flourishing Agricultural College already in exist-
ence, with a large experimental farm attached to it,
while New Zealand possesses one in the middle or
south island. The mechanics' institutes and Athenaeums,
which are to be found from one end of Australasia
to the other, and which in most of the Australasian
colonies are assisted by the State, as they are in Ontario,
must be mentioned in connection with education ; and
free libraries, which are established in some of the
smallest villages, are also far more generally diffused
in the colonies than they are at home. The cadet
system and teaching of military drill in connection with
education is not general throughout the colonies, but
is pushed far in Victoria.
Newspaper I have already spoken of the colonial weekly news-
papers, and noted their extraordinary bulkiness and
solidity, but it is almost necessary to name them in
connection with popular education in the colonies ; for
their encyclopedic information, if carefully studied, as it
is studied in the bush, constitutes a considerable amount
of practical teaching. The heavy toil of the up-country
stations leaves little time on weekdays for reading or for
keeping up in any way the excellent primary education
which has been given in the colonial schools ; but
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 377
Sunday is, as a general rule, carefully observed as
a day of rest, and largely spent in reading the
. weekly productions of the colonial press ; and the horti-
cultural, agricultural, musical, artistic, literary, and
popular scientific information given in these huge
journals is of a formidable kind.
In some of the colonies, as, for example, in South Australian
Australia, special provision has been made' by law for tS pe -
the punishment of those who "upbraid" any teacher in culiarities -
the presence or hearing of his pupils. In other colonies,
as, for example, in Victoria, the Queen's birthday and
the Prince of Wales's birthday have been set aside as
public school holidays throughout the colony. In all
the colonies there is more mixture of classes in the
public schools than is seen in England ; and in some
of them, or rather in parts of some of them, there
is an absolute mixture of classes in the schools, with
results that are excellent for all. "Mixed schools"
of boys and girls are not so common in the colonies
as in the United States ; but they exist, and in Queens-
land are somewhat numerous. In some of the colonies
private schools are inspected by the State, and in
these cases the State scholarships giving free higher
education are sometimes open to pupils coming from
the inspected non- public (that is, from the Koman
Catholic) schools. In New Zealand the principle of the
cumulative vote is applied in the election of the Educa-
tion Boards, which are, as has been shown, more
important in that colony, from the large size of their
districts, than in any other colony of the Australasian
group.
While then the prevailing system of public education Future O f
in Australasia, and in those parts of Canada which are
not affected by the provision for " dissentient " schools
378 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
made at the time of confederation, is compulsory and
secular or unsectarian, it seems popular among the
majority of colonial communities, and threatened with
no dangers other than those which arise from the
Eoman Catholic difficulty, at which we have already
glanced. I call the colonial religious difficulty Koman
Catholic, because the members of the Church of Eng-
land are divided, and the Protestant bodies in general
fairly contented with matters as they stand. From
time to time some of the Church of England colonial
bishops have denounced secular education, but they
have not been followed by the laity, and their charges
have been ridiculed by the press under the name of
"Protestant Bulls"; and it must be admitted that,
while the grievance of the High Churchmen is the same
as that of the Eoman Catholics, the only leverage which
can ever avail to shake the colonial secular or unsectarian
school system is that of the Eoman Catholic vote. The
Eoman Catholics and a portion of the High Church clergy
undoubtedly feel the being rated for secular or virtually
secular schools a thing offensive to their conscience, and
will use any political power which they may possess to
upset the system. I have said that the opposition is
making but little way in Australasia and in those Pro-
vinces of Canada where there is not already a system
partly denominational ; and I ought to add that the
crime statistics of those colonies which possess a
nearly universal secular system of primary education
give no colour to the view that such a system has a
deteriorating effect upon those subjected to it.
"^ * S necessarv before concluding an examination of
public the present position of education in the great self-
System, governing colonies to briefly discuss the probability of
its permanence. Fierce attacks have been made in
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 379
Victoria, where there has been more feeling aroused in
the matter than elsewhere, upon Dr. Pearson, himself
a decided Churchman, for the supposed excision of the
very name of God from works used in schools.
Bishop Moorhouse's successor in the see of Melbourne
has promoted petitions urging the restoration to the
school-books of passages relating to Christianity which
have been excised from them, and Dr. Pearson has
reprinted speeches made by him in the Assembly in
defence of his official action. Dr. Pearson explains that
he was not in the colony when the Education Act for-
bidding Bible teaching became law, and that he had not
entered colonial political life when Nelson's Series was
substituted for the Irish Series of school-books, or when,
at a later day, passages relating to Christianity were
struck out of the Nelson Headers. He also shows that
in 1887 a motion was carried directing him to report
whether any of the books used in the State schools con-
tained religious dogma, contrary to the provisions of the
Act providing that secular education only should be
given in the schools. But Dr. Pearson admits that he
thinks that the expurgation of the Nelson Series which
took place before his time was unadvisable, and in this
view he will be supported by opinion in the mother-
country. It certainly seems fanatical to attempt to
expunge all references to a religious system of which
such deep traces are to be found throughout our litera-
ture ; and the folly of attempting to do so is seen by
the fact, forcibly shown by Dr. Dale, that many of
the passages struck out are, if carefully considered, far
less objectionable to atheistic parents than the language
of the National Anthem, which is sung in the Victorian
schools. Dr. Pearson successfully repels the charge of
" secularism run mad " in obliterating the name of God
380 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
from the school-books, but he does not attempt to show
the wisdom of the course which had been adopted by
his predecessors. He admits that had he been able to
do so he would have " applied to the House to restore
some of these expurgated passages, the excision of which
has given so much offence," and which include lines in
Burns and Longfellow, and in Tennyson's " May Queen "
the passages in Longfellow being, I believe, the same
as those the excision of which has raised a similar con-
troversy in some States of the American Union.
Proposals Dr. Pearson is able at present to gain an easy victory
opponents over his opponents, because they are not agreed among
secular themselves. He is in a position to show that while the
system. R oman Catholics form the backbone of the opposition
to the public school system in Victoria, they denounce
as strongly the New South Wales system of unsectarian
Bible teaching (which some of those who temporarily
act with them wish to introduce into Victoria) as they
do the Victorian secular system. But Bishop Moorhouse
in his day and other later Church of England leaders in
Victoria have from time to time proposed not only that
unsectarian religious teaching should be introduced into
the State schools, but also that a grant should be given
to the Eoman Catholics in aid of denominational educa-
tion. Bishop Moorhouse was prepared to give a pledge
that the Church of England, or as it is called by
Victorian politicians the Anglican Church, in Victoria
would never ask for any separate grant for itself, even
though the Roman Catholic Church were subsidised,
provided unsectarian teaching in the schools were
allowed. The Presbyterians are very strong in Vic-
toria stronger perhaps than in any colony except New
Zealand and some of the leaders of the Presbyterian
Church support some of the English High Churchmen
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 381
in proposing a grant to denominational schools. On
the other hand, the proposal to grant separate sums of The reply,
money to the Koman Catholic Church for purely de-
nominational education is unpopular with all those who
value the secular results of the present system, and in
resisting it colonial ministers are able to point to the
fact that the majority of the Koman Catholic laity in
practice acquiesce in the secular system. Dr. Pearson
asserts that only 20,000 out of more than 50,000
Eoman Catholic children in Victoria attend Koman
Catholic schools, and he says that this number of
20,000 is subject to deductions. He calculates that
among the 20,000 are included the children of rich
Koman Catholics, who attend denominational schools
in the same way in which the children of rich Pro-
testants attend private schools often denominational,
and that it includes many children who regularly attend
State schools, but are withdrawn for some months be-
fore their first Communion (in order that Confirmation
may not be refused to them) and placed for a time in
Koman Catholic schools. Dr. Pearson calculates that,
when allowance is made for these classes, the public
schools of Victoria may be said to educate two -thirds
of the children of the Koman Catholic community.
The Victorian politicians maintain that Victorian
patriotism is promoted by the destruction of the old
feelings of religious and of racial animosity, by the
children all growing up together, sitting on the same
bench, learning the same lessons, and playing in the
same playground, Protestant and Koman Catholic look-
ing upon one another as fellow-countrymen instead of
as enemies or natural opponents. They assert that
religious hatred is dying out in Victoria, and does not
exist at all among those who have been educated at the
382 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
public schools. It is a remarkable fact upon Dr. Pear-
son's side that one -fourth of the public teachers in
Victoria " are Koman Catholics, who are not deterred by
their religion from teaching in our schools, who rise to
be inspectors and to hold the highest places in the
Department, and many of whom I know to be most
cordially attached to the system."
We may well doubt whether the Koman Catholics,
even though assisted by the authorities of the Church of
England and, it may be, of the Presbyterian Church, will
make way upon this question, and feel certain that they
will not do so unless by the political influence of the
Koman Catholic vote at moments of an equal division of
parties. The feeling, too, in Victoria upon the side of
the public school system is so strong, the conviction of the
majority of the voters that the Sunday school system is a
complete success as regards the religious instruction of the
young so nearly unanimous, that attempts to use the
Koman Catholic vote for the purpose of upsetting the
public school system are apt to cause a coalition of parties
against denominational grants, and to depress for a long
time the fortunes of the party suspected of a leaning
towards them. The Roman Catholic Church is stronger
in portions of the United States than she is in Queens-
land or Victoria, and yet her strength has not pre-
vailed to obtain a revision of the school system of
the States of the American Union in accord with her
demands. If ever the agitation against the complete
exclusion of religion from the public schools should in
the colonies possessing a secular system rise to a height
which makes some form of concession necessary, it
seems possible that that concession will take the shape
of a small recognition of the religious principle in forms
which would be more offensive to Koman Catholic
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 383
opinion than even a strictly secular system, but would
detach the Presbyterians and many of the Churchmen
from the ranks of those who at the present moment are
inclined to lend assistance to the demand for denomina-
tional grants.
Widely different is the problem of public education The Cape,
in South Africa from that presented by Australasia and
British North America. The Cape system of education
for the whites was virtually established by Sir John
Herschel, the Astronomer-Koyal, and supplemented by a
system dealing with the natives which bears the name
of Sir George Grey. The Eoman Catholics did not
receive help under Sir John Herschel's system, because
they rejected that amount of State control which in
some colonies they have since put up with ; but, on the
whole, the plan laid down formed a liberal and compre-
hensive system. There are now in the Cape public
schools for whites largely helped by Government grants,
but the State assists nearly all elementary schools of
every kind as well as secondary schools, and the uni-
versity an examining body. There are free pupils,
who are known as " Queen's scholars," at the South
African College ; and such scholarships are given to
picked boys, and there are free scholarships in the
elementary schools. Grants are made by the Cape to
boarding schools, in order to deal with the sparse popu-
lation of the rural districts a system which is unusual
in the colonies, but not entirely unknown outside the
Cape, as there is something like it in South Australia.
There are in Natal grants, as has been mentioned in the
South African part of this work, for children present at in-
spection who have been under instruction at their homes.
At the Cape there are farm schools, to which grants are
given where they are established six miles from any
384 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
public school and bring together not fewer than five
children to be taught. It is found that the Dutch
colonists teach their children Dutch at home, but
willingly send them to school to learn English, although
a small number of parents who send their children to
the schools express the desire that they should be taught
in Dutch and should not learn English. As regards the
public elementary schools, the local managers (who are
the Municipal Boards or the District Councils, or persons
appointed by them, or, where they refuse to act,
managers elected by householders willing to guarantee
the expenses) have power to provide for religious teach-
ing subject to a conscience clause. The managers in
the Cape have far larger powers than the Australian
Boards of Advice, for they decide the question as to the
teaching of Dutch, fix school fees, and nominate teachers.
The vast majority of the schools of the Cape are two
different classes of schools dealing with dark-skinned
inhabitants, and primary education may be said to be
more widely spread among the native population of the
Cape of Good Hope than among the dark-skinned
majority in colonies where there is a numerous black or
yellow population, except indeed in one or two of the
West-India islands and Hong-Kong. There are in the
Cape scholarships similar to those of South Australia
and Tasmania, of Trinidad and Barbados, to enable
young colonists to take degrees at European universities.
There are several excellent institutions for higher educa-
tion which are aided by the State, of which the South
African College at Cape Town is undenominational, and
the Stellenbosch College Dutch ; while of two diocesan
colleges in connection with the Church of England one
maintains a ladies' college of considerable size.
Natal. In Natal there is a double system, the colony keep-
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 385
ing up public schools in spite of the existence of State-
aided denominational schools, and the state of things in
Natal, as in Western Australia, is somewhat similar to
that which prevails in England. The Natal State grant
is very high, being more than 5 a head on every
scholar; but less is done for native education and for
Hindoo education by Natal than is done for Kafir
education by the Cape.
The Crown Colonies, other than Western Australia crown
and Natal, which have been mentioned, yield examples Colonies -
of every kind of system from those of Hong-Kong and
Barbados, which provide almost as freely for the educa-
tion of the black or yellow population as do the self-
governing colonies for that of their white inhabitants,
down to those which resemble that of India in the paucity
of the numbers of pupils attending school in proportion
to the total population. It is impossible, and if it were
possible it would be useless, to describe in detail the
various plans adopted for education in Crown Colonies.
In Heligoland we have a compulsory system, under
which all the children attend a free, mixed, German and
English school. In St. Helena also there is a compul-
sory system, while the schools consist partly of Govern-
ment schools and partly of schools (more numerous)
merely assisted by the State. In Malta there is a
Government system of free schools ; but the schools are
denominational, and, in fact, strictly Roman Catholic.
In Hong-Kong there is a Government secular system,
but the colony also aids denominational schools. In the
majority of the Crown Colonies, but a majority which
does not contain the most important, the system is one
of denominational schools aided by the State, as, for
example, in British Honduras, British Guiana, The
Gambia, Lagos, and Sierra Leone ; and the Gold Coast
VOL. II 2 C
3 86 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
finds its education chiefly in aided denominational
schools. In Ceylon there are Government unsectarian
schools which are free for vernacular education, while
fees are taken for English teaching ; but there are also
a larger number of State-aided schools, mostly denomina-
tional. In the Straits Settlements there is a similar
system, as well as in Mauritius.
Trinidad. Of the West Indies, Trinidad has had the most
interesting educational history, fully described by a
great writer with leanings towards the secular system
at one time in force in that island under circumstances
which made its adoption a matter of peculiar difficulty. 1
In Trinidad the majority of the population are Eoman
Catholic, and in addition to a large Roman Catholic
black population there is a considerable element of
Roman Catholic Spanish and French whites, yet a
secular system was introduced by a rash Governor,
with the natural result that the Roman Catholic clergy,
assisted, I believe, by the clergy of the Church of
England, took away a large proportion of the children
from the schools. The system had to be withdrawn,
and one of State aid to schools of all descriptions sub-
stituted. There is in Trinidad a secular State college
which might be termed a university, and to which is
affiliated the College of the Immaculate Conception, a
strictly denominational Roman Catholic institution ;
and Trinidad is also remarkable among small colonies
for holding examinations for scholarships at the London
University, as well as giving scholarships of her own to
be held at the older universities of England.
other In Jamaica and the Leeward Islands education is
India increasing among the negroes with remarkable rapidity.
1 At Last, by Charles Kingsley. Macmillan and Co., new edition,
1889.
CHAP, iv EDUCATION 387
Turk's Island has adopted a free and unsectarian system, and
while in the Leeward Islands of Antigua, St. Kitts, and
Nevis the system is denominational with State aid ; but
the fees which are exacted in nearly all the islands are
a hindrance to education among the negroes. In
Grenada there is a double system of Government and
of aided schools ; in Bermuda a compulsory system, but
without free schools ; in Bahamas a free unsectarian
system, partly compulsory, as well as aid to other
schools ; while Barbados heads the list among the West
Indian colonies in the proportion of school attendance
to population, and maintains Government scholarships
to be held at Oxford or Cambridge, as well as
makes grants to the winners of scholarships at London
University.
Except to a student of educational systems, or as a General
branch of the inquiry into the future of the negro, the
position of education in the Crown Colonies is of less
immediate interest than that of education in the self-
governing colonies ; and while we have perhaps little to
be proud of in the extent of education rev.ealed by the
figures relating to India and the Crown Colonies, we
may turn with pleasure to the educational statistics of
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The citizens of
the United States, in spite of their strong and general
opinion against admitting to equality the negro race,
have made far better provision for negro education in
their Southern states than is the case with us in even
the most advanced of our West Indian colonies. On
the other hand, the care which has been shown with
regard to the primary education of the people by the
inhabitants of New Brunswick and Ontario, of Australia
and New Zealand, and, it may be said, of our self-
governing colonies generally, testifies to the determina-
388 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
tion of the colonists to insure the instruction of the
future rulers of the State. Nor have the colonies been
less successful than the States of the American Union
in securing the education of their youth, while the
fact that they have not recently been called upon to
deal with so large an immigration of the poor and
untaught of Europe has enabled them to show in their
criminal statistics even better results from widespread
education than can be found in the statistics of the
United States.
CHAPTER V
RELIGION
THOSE powerful religious influences, which our survey
of the education question has shown us to be at work
within the colonies, are worthy of separate investigation.
Of the self-governing colonies some have grown Variety of
up without an established Church ; others possessed one gioug 6 '"
at an early period of their history, but have abolished Sortie
the system of State aid ; while in Lower Canada, as has colonies -
been seen, there has existed since the French possession
a virtual parochial establishment of the Roman Catholic
Church, and in the Cape, from its earliest days, a pre-
dominance of the Dutch Reformed Church.
By the census of 1881 the Roman Catholic Church Dominion
. of Canada.
stood at the head of the religious denominations of the
Dominion of Canada, but its adherents do not form an
actual majority of the population, the members of other
religious bodies being to the Roman Catholics through-
out the Dominion at that time as more than four to
three a proportion which has probably undergone
alteration by the increase of Protestantism through
immigration. In the newly peopled districts the Presby-
terians are the strongest denomination, the Church of
England standing next, closely followed by the Method-
ists and the Roman Catholics ; but taking the Dominion
as a whole, the Methodists stand second, the Presby-
390 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
terians third, and the Church of England fourth, the
Methodists in British North America being a united
body. Hostility between the Church of England and
the Koman Catholic Church is far stronger in the
Canadian Dominion than in Newfoundland or in the
Southern colonies. In the Koman Catholic Province of
Quebec, as we have seen, the Protestant minority have,
on the whole, lived on good terms with the Eoman
Catholic majority, but in Ontario feeling runs high and
leads to acts of violence. The Roman Catholic Arch-
bishop of Toronto, Dr. Walsh, was attacked on his
"welcome to his diocese" in the latter part of 1889.
His carriage windows were broken by stones, and he
appeared in his cathedral with his arm in a sling.
Throughout Manitoba, and in the Maritime Provinces,
as well as in Ontario, the relations of Protestants and
Roman Catholics have been strained since the passing
of the Jesuit Bill.
Protestant Next to the predominance of Roman Catholicism in
Union. . .
a portion of the Dominion the most interesting feature
connected with the religious life of British North
America is the effort which is being made to form a
united Protestant body. The differences which separate
members of the Church of England, Presbyterians, and
members of the Methodist Church of Canada are prob-
ably too serious to be bridged over ; but the names of
the delegates who have taken part in recent conferences
on Canadian Church Union show that what is aimed at
there has a more practical side than have the schemes
which in the mother -country have been mooted in
the Lambeth Proposals for bringing about the unity of
Christendom. In Canada, and especially in the Province
of Ontario and the city of Montreal, Protestants have
a bond of union which is unfortunately far more
RELIGION 391
powerful than any feeling of brotherhood, namely,
their opposition to and dislike of the Church of Home.
Although the very word " Protestant " is obnoxious to
great numbers of English Churchmen, the movement
towards united Protestantism was started, as has been
seen, by the Anglican United Synod of Montreal ; and
the Methodist Conference and the Presbyterian General
Assembly appointed committees to confer with the
Church of England delegates, who included several
bishops. The only result of the Conferences hitherto
has been the adoption of resolutions to meet again.
The union of the four bodies of Methodists in the The united
Dominion under one Conference took place in 1883, thecimrchof
. contracting bodies being the Methodist Church of Canada,
the Episcopal Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, and America -
the Bible Christians. The unification of Methodism in
Canada (and Methodist " Canada " includes Newfound-
land) has been highly successful in its results, and it
must be conceded that Methodism flourishes in British
North America more conspicuously than does the system
of the Church of England. Throughout the Dominion the
Methodist Church forms not only a religious but also a
social centre for its people, and, although the Methodists
do not act as a united body in either Provincial or
Dominion politics, any more than do the Roman Catholics
themselves, they provide ready-made organisations on
occasions when candidates are fortunate enough to
secure their support. In Canada, as in Australasia, the
Methodists and Presbyterians have in fact the numbers
that they claim on paper, whereas the Roman Catholics
and the Church of England receive the nominal allegiance
of large numbers of persons who neither attend a church
nor give money towards Church purposes of any kind.
The Methodists by the census of 1881 had 743,000
392 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
adherents in the Dominion, as against 676,000 Presby-
terians and 575,000 members of the Church of England.
Out of their 743,000 adherents the Methodists, however,
officially claim only 47,000 " full and accredited Church
members," the conditions of full membership being
narrow and rigid. There are in existence other, but
non-official figures, which set the number of " members "
in Canada vastly higher, and even the " Wesleyan
Methodist Kalendar" claims 213,000 "members" for
the Methodist Church of Canada, as against 78,000
Wesley ans in Australasia ; but the word "members" is in
this case not so strictly limited as in the other statistics
from which I have quoted. The movement towards
coalition between the various Methodist Churches, which
has met with this extraordinary success in Canada, first
in welding those Churches into one, and then in
immensely increasing the membership of the united
body, is now spreading to South Africa, where the
Wesleyans are strong.
The united The Presbyterian Church is governed by the General
Sn y ~ Assembly of Canada (but Presbyterian " Canada," like
British f Methodist Canada, includes Newfoundland), and is also
America ^ ^%^7 prosperous community. In Nova Scotia the
Presbyterian is by far the most powerful Protestant
Church, and in every trade centre of the whole Dominion
the most prominent commercial names are of Scottish
origin, and belong to members of the Presbyterian
Church. Presbyterianism in the colonies is, as a rule,
united, and in Canada union dates from 1875, when the
main body of the Kirk joined forces with the other Pres-
byterian bodies, as, it may be hoped, will one day also
be the case in Scotland in the event of Disestablishment.
There is, however, also a small "Presbyterian Church
of Canada" "in connection with the Church of Scotland."
CHAP, v RELIGION 393
The Church of England has more difficulty in speak- The
. ~ . , . , , Church of
ing in Canada with a single voice than have the other England
religious bodies ; for, less under discipline than the m
Eoman Catholic Church, it differs also from the Presby-
terian Church and from the confederated Methodists in
having no representative body for the whole of British
North America, or even for the Dominion. The Provin-
cial Synod of the Church of England in Canada includes
only the five eastern Provinces, although it is probable
that the Church will shortly be united throughout
British North America under one ecclesiastical jurisdic-
tion. A scheme has been put forward for the erection
of each civil Province into an ecclesiastical province,
presided over by an archbishop ; but, considering that
the Church of England outside the United Kingdom
has not hitherto been given to the foundation of arch-
bishoprics, it seems difficult to treat seriously the
proposal of the Toronto Committee for the simultaneous
creation of seven archbishoprics (followed, I suppose, by
others, as new Provinces spring up) for the benefit of
six hundred thousand people. The union of the Church
throughout the Dominion would be of advantage to it,
but the Church of England will not gain ground by the
mere assumption of high-sounding ceremonial titles
which have no appropriateness in a new country,
although the Koman Catholic Church has indeed five
archbishoprics in Australasia. The Church in Canada
displays great activity in the large centres of population,
but it does not seem to be making headway in the rural
districts.
The reports of the Canadian bishops of the Church
of England show a certain despondency as to the
future. For instance, the Bishop of Ontario writes
that "the members of the Church are only a small
394 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
minority of the population, and are relatively poor.
The wealth of the cities is in the hands of sectarians ;
and the Unions recently formed, both between the
various Presbyterian bodies and the Methodists, have
brought the Church of England face to face with two
powerful antagonistic organisations." That which at
once attracts notice in connection with Church work in
Canada, as indeed throughout the Church of England
outside the United Kingdom, is the great number of
dioceses and of bishops, and the poverty of the young
churches. " The Protestant Episcopal Church in the
United States of America " (to give its official designa-
tion to the Church which is in communion with the
Church of England) is growing rapidly in strength. Mr.
Bryce is unfair to this Church when he assigns to it but
432,000 members, while he credits the principal Baptist
body with 2,732,000, for his figures are supposed to be
founded upon the assertions of those who rule the
Churches, and the American " Episcopal Church" declares
that it has half a million of communicants, one and a
quarter million of baptized members, and great wealth.
The heads of the seventy-four " colonial " dioceses of the
Church of England (or sixty- three excluding the mission-
ary bishops) tell, as a rule, a different story. Some of
the sees have incomes of only 190 or 150, and have but
a very small number of communicants or baptized members
within their limits. The signatures of the bishops in
Canada strike one with astonishment, and point to an
assumption of geographical control which, one would
think, would be best abandoned. " E., Algoma," " M. S.,
Huron," "W. C., Mackenzie Eiver," "J., Moosonee,"
and "A. J. K., Qu'appelle," are not only odd signatures,
but perhaps in some small degree ridiculous under the
circumstances of the case. The dominant tone of the
CHAP, v RELIGION 395
English Church in Canada is Evangelical, for the Church
in Ontario is naturally somewhat anti-Catholic, from
finding itself at close quarters with the Koman Church,
and is much associated with the Orange Lodges. The
Episcopalian Synods have lately passed strong Protestant
resolutions on the Jesuits' Estates Bill, and the proposed
amalgamation of the Church with the Presbyterian and
Methodist bodies, although visionary, is evidence of
Evangelical predominance in the Synods.
A body known as the Eeformed Episcopal Church The
began life in Canada some twelve years ago ; but, Episcopal
although it possesses congregations in Montreal, Toronto, C1
Ottawa, Hamilton, and other places, it is not growing
at the present time, and has to deal with schism in its
own ranks. A portion of this Church is affiliated to a
similar Church in the United States. On the whole,
the Reformed Episcopal Church is an Evangelical body,
which discards vestments and even the surplice ; and it
was started as a protest against the early growth, as
it was supposed, of ritualism in the Church of England.
But in Canada, where the Church of England is such a
body as has been described, there hardly seems room
for the continued existence of the Reformed Episcopal
Church.
The only other denomination which finds large The
support in British North America is the Baptist, strong
in the United States, which claims in the Dominion
the adhesion of 296,000 people. In the Province of
New Brunswick the Baptists stand next to the Roman
Catholics in strength, and have almost twice as many
members as either the Church of England or the Presby-
terians, who stand respectively third and fourth the
Methodists being only fifth in this Province. The
Baptists are, however, not a united body; and the
396 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Baptists of New Brunswick are divided between the
Baptists who are Calvinists and the Free Baptists ; but
The inde- in educational matters they act together. The Congre-
nts ' gationalists possess, throughout the Dominion as else-
where, some of the most distinguished and popular of
city preachers.
Australia. In the early days of New South Wales the Church
of England claimed the position of a State Church in
that colony, which at that time virtually included all
known Australia ; but I doubt whether there was a legal
ground for such a claim, and it certainly never was
allowed to pass without protest by the representatives
of the other religious bodies. At the same time in all
Crown Colonies in early days the Church occupied a
privileged position, though, as a general rule, by favour
of the Government rather than by law ; and in most she
received endowments or annual contributions from State
funds. As Australian settlement increased, and church
building on a large scale began, the practice arose of
giving State contributions to the building funds of the
bodies which were recognised as the four principal
colonial Churches the Church of England, the Eoman
Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian and Wesleyan
bodies ; and grants were also given in New South Wales
towards the salary of the clergymen of the four denomi-
nations. The principle upon which sums were taken in
the Estimates for religious purposes was similar to that
which prevails at the present time in the Australian
colonies with regard to contributions towards hospitals
and other charitable objects, namely, the provision of a
sum to supplement provision by the inhabitants of the
district. The Baptists, the Congregationalists, and the
smaller bodies were left out of the arrangement, but the
burden on the young State was nevertheless considerable,
CHAP, v RELIGION 397
and the ecclesiastical items in colonial budgets grew at a
pace which seemed to threaten indefinite expansion.
An agitation sprang up throughout the settlements
which was conducted on similar lines to that now carried
on by the Liberation Society in the mother-country ; and
in one after another the time came when it was thought
wise to sever the connection between the religions and
the State. The change throughout what once was
New South Wales, and now forms the present colony
with Queensland and Victoria, was connected only with
a partial disendowment. In some cases Church endow-
ments were transferred to educational purposes, but in
many the Churches received the lands that they had
held, often by State gift, in fee-simple, with power to
sell them or to deal with them as they chose, and some
of these land grants which were in suburban neighbour-
hoods speedily became most valuable. The Churches
sold a portion and leased a portion of their land ; and
the purchase money and the rents have become a per-
manent endowment. There is now little trace of a con-
nection remaining between any of the Churches and the
State in the Australian or generally in the self-governing
colonies. In one or two colonies there is a provision
that all Church bodies may secure reservations of land
as sites for churches in the survey of new districts. The
grants payable to the clergy at the time of Disestablish-
ment were, as a rule, continued for the life of the
recipients, and some ten thousand a year is still paid in
New South Wales to the survivors of the old Church of
England, Koman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan
clergy.
The increase of subscriptions for Church purposes, Effects of
f 1^1 i i theaboli-
even in proportion to the increase 01 wealth, has been tkm of
remarkable in Australia since the cessation of con- S1
398 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
current endowment, and it cannot be said that there
has been a falling off in the vigour of Church work,
while the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches have
taken a fresh lease of life under the new system.
Religious activity is now great in the colonies
far greater than it was twenty years ago equal
to the activity in the United States, and, on the
whole, superior to the activity in England. Sunday
Schools, Young Men's Christian Associations, and Mis-
sions flourish ; and if the Church of England is less
strong proportionally, in numbers and in wealth, than
she is at home, it is probable that the difference is
accounted for by the circumstances of young countries,
and by the fact that the immigrant settlers belonged
chiefly to the other Churches, rather than by the with-
drawal of State aid. The influence of Christianity is, on
the whole, greater in the colonies than it is at home, and
there is less ill feeling towards one another among the
religious bodies than in Great Britain, while church-
going or chapel attendance in the towns is more general,
though theology as a study is less pursued. No one in
Australia dares to express a wish to rever,t to the State
aid system. Mr. Bryce has said of the United States
that a main cause in preventing the State organisation
of religion is the American limited conception of the
functions and duties of the State ; but in Australia we
find exactly the same phase of thought upon the
unwisdom of Church establishments, although in no
other part of the world does there prevail so high a
conception of the true position of the State.
There is also to be remarked a more general disinclina-
tion on the part of the laity to allow ecclesiastical organi-
sations to interfere in politics than exists at home, and
parties in Australia frequently attack their opponents on
CHAP, v RELIGION
399
the ground of a supposed use of ecclesiastical influence in
their favour, for the purpose of discrediting and damag-
ing them through this charge. At the same time the
clergy of all denominations in the colonies, as in the
United States, seem anxious to keep aloof from party
strife ; and public opinion, while it assigns to them a
large share of social influence, holds them in this matter
to a course which is recommended to them by the mixed
characters of their flocks. It is true now in all the
English daughter-countries, as it was in the time of
Tocqueville, that the ministers of the gospel "eschew
party with the anxiety attendant upon personal interest."
As a rule in the colonies there is no disqualification
imposed on ministers of religion to prevent their sitting
in either House of Parliament, although in many there
was at one time such a disqualification, which was
repealed when State aid. was withdrawn. A most dis-
tinguished Presbyterian minister in New South Wales
sat in the Upper House, and after the repeal of the
disqualification, which in that colony concerned only
the Assembly, he was elected to represent Sydney in
the Lower House, and was a member for many years.
Other ministers of religion have occasionally sat in
colonial Houses in more recent times, but generally after
having ceased to be actively connected with the ministry
of their Church. In Victoria there has been a case of a
former minister of religion becoming a minister of the
Crown. Nothing can be higher than the respect in
which the ministers of all creeds are held throughout
the colonies a change as regards Australia from the
days when the clergyman was known by the phrase of
the blacks as "dat-fellow-white-man-bin-wear-'m-shirt-
outside-'m-trouser," an allusion, as a Queensland writer
tells us, to the surplice.
400 PROBLEMS OF GJREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
The The position of the Church of England in the
church of Australian colonies from time to time has varied accord-
in AUS- ing to the ability and wisdom of her rulers, and the late
Bishop of Melbourne and present Bishop of Manchester
Dr. Moorhouse had an influence, within and without
his Church, which greatly improved the place of the
Church of England in Victoria a colony in which
the Presbyterians, as in Ontario and in New Zealand, are
rich and numerous, and in which the Wesleyans have also
had from the first great social influence. Dr. Moorhouse
was remarkable as a colonial preacher, but he was also the
most popular of Australian lecturers, and his addresses on
weekday afternoons, on the problems of the day, were
crowded by business men. I have given in my chapter
on Victoria the credit of Australian irrigation schemes
to Mr. Deakin ; but Mr. Deakin himself has said that as
regards these Dr. Moorhouse paved the way ; and indeed
the bishop has left his mark on the present aspect of
many considerable colonial questions, and his name will
not be forgotten in Australia, where he made himself
as remarkable by his able tactics as by his powerful
speech.
High There is in Australia not much tendency towards re-
movement %i us speculation, and the Church of England is not so
much divided by antagonistic schools of thought Angli-
can " Catholic," High Church, Broad Church, or Evangeli-
cal as she is at home. Australian ritualism is rather
connected with the Australian love of sight-seeing and
of the sensational than with doctrine ; and good music
and beautiful vestments attract congregations, as con-
gregations are attracted by fine preaching, and by
preaching upon popular subjects. The same congrega-
tions will flock, attracted by different reasons, to churches
of diverse types, and those colonists who are unused
CHAP, v RELIGION 401
to a particular form of worship are rather drawn to
it by its novelty than repelled, as in England, by the
difficulty of reconciling it to their traditions. The High
Church clergy in Australia complain of general want
of support, and of some discouragement from their
bishops. They maintain that they are working towards
a revival of primitive faith, calculated to bring about
increased fervour in individuals and renewed vigour in
the life of the Church. They admit that the Protest-
antism of New South Wales is robust, and antagonistic
to their movement ; but they contend that in Queens-
land the High Church element is progressive and
prominent among that portion of the inhabitants who
have come from England.
In Victoria and New South "Wales the majority of the
clergy are Low Church, and most of the bishops have
been Low Church bishops. The nomination of bishops
is in the colonies usually in the hands of the older
members of the Synods, who have as a rule strong Pro-
testant leanings, and who are inclined to entrust the
selection of a bishop for a vacant see to men of their
own party in England. While, however, the Bishops
of Sydney and Melbourne are generally Evangelical, the
other Australian sees, and especially those of Queens-
land, are often now occupied by bishops who are more
or less in sympathy with either the High Church or the
Broad Church parties. The present occupants of the
sees of Adelaide, Tasmania, Bathurst, North Queens-
land, Brisbane, and Grafton cannot be numbered among
the Evangelicals; and the same is the case with the
coadjutor-Bishop of Kockhampton. In New South
Wales, as in Ontario, the Church is much associated with
the Orange Lodges, and the Orange element in the
Church is large and combative. There is considerable
VOL. II 2 D
4 02 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
religious resemblance between New South Wales and
the Protestant parts of Canada. In South Australia and
in Queensland the High Church clergy are stronger in
proportion than they are in the more populous colonies.
There is a great deal of ability among the Australian High
Churchmen, and a good deal of scholarship. A consider-
able proportion of the Anglican clergy in the Australian
colonies have, however, belonged to other Churches before
ordination, and these men as a rule have little sympathy
with the historic standpoint of the High Anglican. The
High Church movement in Victoria is slightly gaining
ground as far as can be judged by modern alterations in the
services, but the change is slow. In spite of all difficulties
in its way, the Church of England is on the whole the
first religious organisation in Australasia. The weak
point is shown by the statistics of attendance upon the
principal service of a selected Sunday. In colonies
where, as usual, the Church of England shows by far the
largest nominal army of adherents, the Koman Catholics,
Presbyterians, and "Wesleyans sometimes exhibit a greater
attendance at divine worship, which points to the fact
that the Church returns are swelled by the inclusion of
a good many persons who are in fact somewhat in-
different to her ministrations.
The Church is controlled in each colony by Diocesan
tion of a , . . J J
the church bynocls, containing lay representatives elected by the
LA*" Church members from the various parishes, and the
traiasia. standing committee of the Synod, as a rule, containing
a lay majority. The various Synods are united in
a Grand Synod of Australasia. The rigidity of the
organisation of the Church is a disadvantage to her in
Australia. Some of the clergy have wished to "ex-
change pulpits" with leading Presbyterian and Methodist
ministers, but on the question being referred home by
CHAP, v RELIGION 403
the bishops, an adverse opinion has been expressed
which is not supported by local feeling. It was thought
in Victoria, I know not with what reason, that Bishop
Moorhouse leaned towards permitting the exchange ; at
all events he would not take upon himself to condemn
it, and the English decision, although inevitable, was
unpopular. In New Zealand the Church of England
Bishop of Nelson, who has lately become Primate of
New Zealand, not long since was present with his clergy
at the laying of a foundation stone of a Wesleyan chapel,
and although his action met with general approval in
the Australasian colonies, it has been severely condemned
in certain quarters at home. Some colonial Churchmen,
as, for example, the Bishop of Ballarat, have pointed out
that the colonial Churches are rather separate trees than
branches of the Church of England. There is, accord-
ing to his view, no binding legal connection between the
Church of England and the Church of England in each
colony ; and the Bishop of Ballarat and the ex-Bishop
of Sydney have both advocated the federation of the
Churches in one great Anglican communion. I think,
however, that Dr. Barry does not wish the federated
Church to impose English ideas in the matter of Church
government and of ritual upon the colonies, but rather
to leave them Home Kule in all such matters.
A good deal of trouble has been caused to colonial Question
Governors by questions of precedence, and when-
ever any bishop of the Church of England is
allowed to assume special privileges at a levee, as
happens from time to time, complaints are speedily
heard. At the Centennial Banquet at Sydney Cardinal
Moran very naturally refused to allow a precedence
which some had proposed to grant to Dr. Barry, the
Church of England bishop who held at the time the see
404 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
of Sydney, which is sometimes said, although incorrectly
I believe, to carry with it a Primacy as regards the
Church of England in Australia. According to the
Irish precedents, and to one English precedent, Cardinal
Moran was in the right. Since Disestablishment it has
been held that cardinals should take rank at Dublin
immediately after princes of the blood, and although in
England the case is different, on account of the existence
of an Established Church, in a recent Eoyal Commission,
of which the present Governor of New South Wales was
himself a member, the Crown gave to a cardinal a
precedence over an English marquis and an English
suffragan bishop.
The Despite a marked Australian tendency towards the
catholic assertion of the liberty of individual thought, the Eoman
church. Catholic Church does not lose ground. There is in
Australia less disposition in families to adhere to the
family religion than is the case at home ; and, while men
of pure Scotch descent are generally Presbyterians, those
of English descent seem to move more freely from one
Church to another. At the same time, and in spite of
the often noticed want of veneration among Australians,
the Eoman Catholic Church, though weakened, as in all
English-speaking countries, by a certain unpopularity of
the Irish who form the larger portion of its flocks,
nevertheless attracts to itself a considerable amount of
independent support. There is great difference of
opinion in Australasia, as in the United States, on the
subject of the numbers of the Eoman Catholic popula-
tion. Cardinal Moran some years ago spoke of the
Eoman Catholics in Australasia as numbering 700,000
a number which at that time would have placed them
nearly on an equality with the Church of England ; but
colonial statistics make them the second religious body
CHAP. V
RELIGION
405
in Australasia, with about 700,000 people at the present
time, and considerably inferior to the Anglicans in
numbers, as the latter are now credited with something
like 1,300,000 people in Australasia. In nearly all the
Australian colonies, but not in New Zealand, where the
Presbyterians stand second, the Koman Catholics are a
good second to the Church of England by every test
which can be applied.
The Koman Catholic Church has not been so
happy in its selection of an Australian cardinal as
in its choice in England of Cardinal Manning and in
the United States of Archbishop Gibbons for the scarlet
Hat; for Cardinal Moran is wanting in the broad
popular sympathies which distinguish the present leaders
of the Roman Catholic Church in the American Com-
monwealth and in England. Dr. Moran will be remem-
bered in England as having been the Government
candidate for the Archbishopric of Dublin, at the time
when Dr. Walsh (known to hold pronounced National-
ist opinions) was selected by the Pope. In Australia, as
in the United States, the Roman Catholics spend much
money upon their churches, and St. Patrick's Cathedral
at Melbourne, although unfinished, is one of the finest
buildings in the Empire. But buildings and organisa-
tion are not everything, and not only do the Roman
Catholic authorities in Australia wage war upon what
they style secret societies, as they do in Europe, but
Cardinal Archbishop Moran has, according to a private
circular which has been made public by the ex- Attorney-
General of New South Wales, Mr. Wise, pushed the
prohibition further than it has been carried in England,
by depriving of the services of the Church those who
join the Oddfellows, Foresters, Good Templars, Rechab-
ites, " and all kindred societies." It is difficult indeed
4 o6 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
to draw a line as regards " secrecy " which shall exclude
the Good Templars or the Manchester Unity of Odd-
fellows from approval, and include the various Hibernian
Lodges as worthy of recognition. Such a circular must
be unwise in a society like that of New South Wales, and
can only be read as displaying the intention to force the
Roman Catholics out of the daily life of the colonial State
and into close organisation as a separate community.
Such a course must lessen the chance of the Koman Catholic
Church holding its own against the democratic organisa-
tion of the Wesleyans, and is in marked contrast to the
policy of the Roman hierarchy in the United States.
The Presbyterians and the Methodists in Australasia
terianisni.
do not form completely united Churches, and in spite of
a partial or federal union in 1885 there is among the
Presbyterians no body which contains an overwhelm-
ing proportion of Australasian Presbyterians, as the
Wesleyan Society contains an overwhelming proportion
of Australasian Methodists. Putting together all forms
of Presbyterianism, the Presbyterians stand third among
the religious communities of Australasia, and are not far
from holding the first place in wealth and in church
attendance. They are, however, much stronger in New
Zealand and in Victoria than in New South Wales,
where the returns of church attendance show them to be
strangely weak. The Presbyterian Churches in the
colonies, as in Scotland, are given to the sport of heresy-
hunting, and some four years ago there was a prosecu-
tion for heresy in Victoria, by the Presbyterian General
Assembly, of the pastor of the leading Scottish Church,
who was driven out, and has since founded a separate
Church on broad Christian lines, in which he has the
assistance of a priest who has lately left the Roman
Catholic communion.
CHAP, v RELIGION 407
Wesleyanism in Australasia is not far behind Presby-
terianism in position, even if the Presbyterians should be ism, (
treated as one body. The Wesleyans officially claim in
Australasia (without the smaller islands) nearly 50,000
" full and accredited Church members," and over 300,000
attendants on public worship a number even greater
than they possess in the Canadian Dominion, crediting
them with the whole of the numbers given for the
Methodist Church of Canada there united. Non-official
figures, as in the case of Canada, are far higher, but the
Wesieyan Kalendar gives 78,000 Wesieyan " members "
in Australasia as against the 213,000 " members " which,
as we saw, it assigns to the Methodist Church of Canada.
The number of adherents as given in the statistics of
colonies which take a religious census is always higher
for all churches than that of attendants at the services ;
but the Australian Wesleyans have provided an amount
of church accommodation altogether in excess of the
attendance at worship. It is certain that the itiner-
ant organisation of the Wesieyan Church is suitable to
the colonies, and a cause of the flourishing position of
the Methodists of Greater Britain. There is a Wesieyan
Conference for South Australia ; one for New Zealand ;
one for New South Wales with Queensland ; and one
for Victoria with Tasmania, all under the General Con-
ference of the Australasian Wesieyan Methodist Church,
but there is a separatist agitation among the Wesleyans
of New Zealand. The Victorian Wesleyans have been
recently taking some part in politics on account of their
general desire for the introduction of the Bible in the
schools.
The Primitive Methodists and the Bible Christians other
are strong in the Australasian colonies, and the United ists.
Methodist Free Churches have also many members : the
4 o8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
smaller Wesleyan Churches (or, as the Wesleyans style
them, " the Sister Churches ") having between one-third
and one-fourth as many members in Australasia as the
Wesleyan Society. The Primitive Methodists are the
most numerous of the smaller Methodist bodies throughout
the Australasian colonies ; but in Western Australia all
Methodism is weak, there being only 2000 Methodists,
according to the last census, including the Wesleyans.
The Bible Christians are strong in Victoria and South
Australia, while the United Methodist Free Church is
also strong in Victoria.
congrega- The Independents in Victoria have a powerful
and* 11 preacher in Dr. Bevan, who is, however, not alone in
Baptists. j-^e yi c torian Congregational churches in ability and
preaching power. In New South Wales also the Inde-
pendents have a considerable social and intellectual place.
The Baptists are as numerous as the Congregationalists
in Australasia, and if we take all the great self-governing
colonies, the Baptists exceed the Independents in
number ; but neither the Congregationalists nor the
Baptist Churches can compare with the Methodists or
the Presbyterians in strength. If, however, a union
should one day be brought about between the colonial
Congregationalist and Baptist Churches, the new body
would stand almost on an equality with the united
Methodist or united Presbyterian colonial Churches.
smaller The smaller religious bodies are numerous in the
Australasian colonies, but the comparatively trifling
numbers of their members make it unnecessary to say
much of them. Figures do not support the view that
the absence of an Established Church tends to the
multiplication of sects, for a larger proportion of the
population in the colonies generally, and in each colony
taken separately, belong to four or six religious bodies
CHAP, v RELIGION 409
than is the case in England. In those colonies in which
a religious census has been taken, difficulty has been
found in inducing the people accurately to describe their
religious opinions. A great number of persons have
adopted descriptions which place them in categories by
themselves. For instance, in Victoria one person claims
to belong to the sect of the Waldenses, one returns him-
self as a Huguenot, one as a member of the Church of
Sweden, one as a member of the Keformed Church of
Switzerland, one as a Sankeyite, one as a Borrowite,
one as a Millerite, one as a Walkerite, one as a member
of the Brotherhood of the New Life, one as a Theosophist,
one as a Man of God, one as a Believer in parts of the
Bible, one as a Friend of Justice and Liberty, one as a
Supporter of Free Keligion, one as a " Silent Admirer,"
one as a Humanitarian, one as a Positivist, one as an
Immaterialist, one as an Iconoclast, one as a Fatalist,
one as a Heretic, one as a Sceptic, one as a Worshipper
of Nature, one as a Believer in Free Trade, one as a
Follower of Bishop Colenso, while many thousands
decline from conscientious scruples to state their re-
ligious opinions. Such descriptions, however, are
matters of individual feeling, and do not point to a
multiplication of sects, properly so called ; and it may
be confidently asserted that sects possessing separate
places of worship, or separate religious organisations,
are less numerous in Australia than at home.
The Salvation Army is strong throughout Australia, Salvation
and its barracks, and banners, and morning bands, with
drums and trumpets, and street corner preaching, are
noticeable features in every considerable town ; but the
originators and the officers have come from England.
When the first of the Salvation leaders came out, new
to colonial life, they began a crusade against public-
410 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
houses, and collected crowds before the bars. This
action clashed with the municipal regulations of the
Australian towns, and a struggle followed in which the
Town Councils asserted their authority, and compelled
the Salvation Army to desist from practices which were
disorderly. The organisation is, however, powerful, and
parades in Sydney and in Melbourne from ten to twenty
thousand people upon the racing holidays, when the
Salvationists encourage their friends to show their
absence from the racecourses by attendance in other
portions of the towns. The Salvation Army, who are
particularly strong in New Zealand, carry on in
Australasia a great number of good works. Their
prison -gate brigade and their efforts to reclaim "the
lost " are not only praiseworthy, but effective, and seem
likely to be more permanent than they have been in
some of the countries to which the organisation has
been taken from England.
Tli e same tendency on the part of Protestants to
testantism. unite against the Koman Catholics which we found to
exist in the Canadian Dominion is discernible in Austral-
asia. The opposition of the Eoman Catholics to the
school system of the colonies is the ground of this
movement in Australia, as opposition to the dominance
of the Eoman Catholic Church in the Province of Quebec
is the Canadian cause. We have seen, in the chapter
on Victoria, how marked a tendency there is in Australia
towards political coalitions against the Roman Catholics,
and the religious tendency in the same direction is as
clear. In Australasia, as in Canada, the Protestant
Irish and the Orange societies form the backbone of the
fiercer portion of the movement ; and the existence of
corresponding societies upon the other side, under
various Hibernian names, strengthens the tendency
CHAP, v RELIGION 411
towards that separation between the Eoman Catholics
and the remainder of the community which leads
to a recognition of common Protestantism among the
majority. It is probable that in Australia this is a
transient feeling, for the new Australian population now
growing up is imbued with a tolerant spirit, and the
tendency of Australian feeling towards absolute freedom
of individual thought, in religious as in other matters,
is inconsistent with aggressive Protestantism. On the
other hand, the difficulties in the way of Protestant
alliance are less great in colonies than they are at home.
Many persons hold sittings both in church and chapel,
and attend services of the Church of England and of
the Independent. Wesleyan, or Presbyterian bodies
in different parts of the same day. The Church of
England clergy and the Wesleyan and Presbyterian
ministers commonly attend one another's social meet-
ings, and take part in mixed services in non-ecclesi-
astical buildings more often than is the case in
England. The Anglicans and Presbyterians in Victoria
build joint churches in thinly peopled up-country
districts, as Baptists and Congregationalists sometimes
do at home. The cause of Protestant union is also
aided in the colonies by the Evangelical leanings of the
authorities of the colonial branches of the Church.
While in the United States the body which answers to
the Church of England is of High Church tendencies, at
least so far as is implied by the adoption of an attractive
ritual, throughout the English-speaking communities
of the self-governing colonies the Church is mainly
Evangelical, especially in New South Wales, where it
has a distinctly Puritan tone. When Bishop Moorhouse
refused to pray for rain, on the ground that Victoria had
not taken sufficient interest in water conservation to
412 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
enable him to do so with a clear conscience, the outcry
from the Church in the neighbouring colony of New
South Wales was great ; and when, on another occasion,
he informed his hearers that he smoked tobacco and
enjoyed it, he brought down a storm of denunciation
on his head. Dr. Barry, the late Bishop of Sydney,
found himself somewhat out of his element in New
South Wales, for, in spite of his eloquence, his want
of the qualities of popular oratory, and his scholarly
liberality of thought, were difficulties in his way in
the Church of the mother-colony. The erection of a
marble representation of the Crucifixion in St. Andrew's
Cathedral at Sydney brought a Low Church storm
about his ears, and when the bishop was appealed to
by indignation meetings, and protested that he saw
nothing harmful to the Church in the representa-
tion, the matter was carried to the Synod, and the
panel was removed. Although Dr. Barry had, on
the whole, a less marked general influence in Australia
than had Dr. Moorhouse, when he left New South Wales
all the Protestant creeds were represented by their chiefs
at the farewell banquet held in Sydney, and the heads
of all these Churches made speeches on the occasion.
The bishop in his reply advised the federation of the
Protestant Churches, without, however, using those words,
which provoke objection from High Churchmen; but
his observations as to the necessity of drawing close
the bonds that exist among the Christian bodies were
understood by his hearers in this sense, and as exclud-
ing Roman Catholicism from view.
^ n tlle wllole > Sunday is observed more strictly in
in the the colonies than in England (although there are great
colonies. l i j-rr T &
ocal differences between various towns), and in parts
of the colonies as strictly as in North Britain. In the
CHAP, v RELIGION 413
Dominion Province of Ontario there is severe local
legislation against Sunday excursions. The shops as a
rule in Australian towns are shut as closely as in Scot-
land, and work is as absolutely suspended. Public-
houses are closed in nearly all the colonies on Sunday ;
but, though the Australian streets are as quiet on Sun-
day as the Canadian, there is in Australia little Sunday
gloom. A great many people who have attended church
or chapel in the morning take Sunday outings ; the
parks are crowded, and in fine weather the outskirts
of the towns. But few concerts or public entertain-
ments (except of sacred music) take place on Sunday.
No Sunday newspapers are published in Victoria, and
when a company was started in Melbourne not long
ago for the publication of a newspaper to be called the
" Sunday Times," it is said that a private intimation
was given to the promoters* by the Government that
the publication would be illegal and that they would
be prosecuted. In some of the other colonies Sunday
newspapers are published without hindrance. The
secularists have in several colonies taken steps to test
the legality of selling tickets or taking money for
entertainments on Sundays. The proprietors of places
licensed as theatres or for public performances are
afraid to allow Sunday entertainments, for fear that
their licenses may be cancelled, and attempts to evade
the law have failed. On the whole, Sunday is less
strictly kept in Sydney than in Melbourne, Adelaide,
Hobart, and the chief towns of New Zealand, in spite
of the efforts of the Sydney Morning Herald. The
museums and picture galleries, it must be remembered,
are open on Sunday afternoons in Sydney, though not
in Melbourne, where, however, the Zoological Gardens
are always thronged on Sunday afternoons. As a rule,
4 i4 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
throughout the colonies there is no Sunday traffic on
the main lines of railway, but a large pleasure traffic in
the afternoon upon the suburban lines.
n i i It is not possible. I think, to seriously maintain that
. i 11*
tendencies ^ ere j s much general difference between the colonies
in religious .
thought. an d the mother -country in the matter 01 religious
thought. In Canada non-Catholics are kept together
and are strengthened in their Protestant orthodoxy by
the existence of a powerful Koman Catholic Church,
dominant in one portion of the country. In Australia
the cheerfulness of the national temperament is the
cause of the existence of more " Universalism," in
the American sense, and less Calvinism than in the
older countries. Not many real Australians are
willing to dwell upon the gloomier aspects of religious
thought, and although church attendance and church
membership are widely spread, and religion has in
Australia a powerful bearing upon human conduct,
definite religious convictions sit more lightly upon the
people than they do in the old world. Professed
Unitarianism is not strong, though, as in England,
it is influential out of proportion to its numbers ;
and while dogmatic Atheism exists, as at home,
among a portion of the artisans and of the pro-
fessional men, it is perhaps less strong in Australia
than in the mother-country. Of free thought in its
various forms there has been some growth during the
same fifteen or twenty years that have witnessed an
increase of church subscriptions and church attendance ;
but, as a rule, free- thinking colonists continue their
membership and their attendance at orthodox churches,
even where their beliefs are honeycombed with doubt,
rather than disconnect themselves from the congrega-
tions. Australian free thought is not aggressive in its
CHAP, v RELIGION 415
character. Free -thought lecturers occasionally draw
enormous audiences, but the unbelievers of the working-
class stay at home as a rule on Sunday mornings and
evenings, and do not trouble themselves to join societies
to spread their view r s. The leading Australian news-
papers, except the Sydney Morning Herald, refer
to religious matters from an outside point of view.
The Conservative journals adopt a kind of dignified
reticence in dealing with religious matters, through
which a certain hostility to current creeds may be
discerned ; while the workmen's papers make no pre-
tence of concealment of unorthodox views. At the
same time, in Melbourne the Daily Telegraph, I believe,
belongs to what is called a religious syndicate, has a
clergyman for editor, denounces horse-racing, and decries
the theatre ; and the paper has made some headway under
its new management. Generally speaking it may, I
think, be said that there is among British colonists no
such respect for authority or tradition as is to be found
in the British colonies among persons of foreign race.
The French-Canadian Roman Catholics, the Mennonites
of Manitoba, the Doppers of South Africa, are clerical
conservatives such as cannot be matched among the
English race ; but Christian feeling has an immense and
even an increasing influence on colonial legislation.
Religious life in South Africa is of a very different South
kind from that in the other colonies, and neither the
Wesleyans, the Church of England, the Roman Catholics,
the Independents, nor the Baptists can be said to count
there in the same sense in which they have to be
reckoned with at home, in Australia, in Canada, or in
the United States. The Dutch Reformed Church is the
only religious body which has great influence on the life
and history of Cape Colony, and its services are con-
4 i6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
ducted, and its sermons delivered, mainly in a foreign
tongue. The Colenso controversy in Natal did not
go far beneath the surface of colonial life, notwith-
standing the attention it attracted at home. Eng-
land, of course, has exported her sects to Cape
Colony and Natal, but the Church socially and poli-
tically predominant throughout South Africa is the
Boer National Church the Dutch Keformed Church
with its offshoots.
The latest official return of religious denominations in
Cape Colony puts the Wesleyans first, and the Church of
England second, as to the number of ministers and of con-
gregations; but the Dutch Church, which is placed third
in these respects, is altogether below its right position,
owing to the manner in which the statistics are com-
piled. Then, after a long interval, come the Congre-
gationalists and the Eoman Catholics, and then the
Presbyterians so far as they are separate from the
Dutch and, in the seventh place, the Baptists. The
returns are misleading, because they include mis-
sionary establishments of the Wesleyans and of the
Church of England, and the ministers of small native
churches, and native congregations in the interior, which
are purely nominal. If we compare baptisms, which
are a more serious test, the Dutch Church has nearly
twice as many as the Church of England. The counting
of mission establishments, which are of various degrees
of efficiency, makes all calculations as to religious bodies
in South Africa untrustworthy or misleading. A recent
return of the Cape Government estimates the number
of communicants of the Dutch Reformed Church at over
60,000, of the Wesleyans at 27,000, and of the Church
of England at 15,000, while the Congregationalists
stand next with 9000.
CHAP, v RELIGION 417
We have seen in the chapters on South Africa how Religious
religion enters into the life of the Boer inhabitants, ^erf tt
and forms to a greater extent part of their daily exist-
ence than is the case with other communities except in
Eussia and the United States. A speech by President
Kruger at the opening of the Transvaal Volksraad is
more full of Biblical quotations and allusions than is a
modern English sermon ; and the Boers in ordinary con-
versation introduce references to the special Providence
which watches over their nation, as a peculiar people, in.
the same way in which the English Puritans or Scotch
Covenanters used to do in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The most influential individuals in rural
South Africa are the ministers of the Dutch Eeformed
Church, who live in towns, while the farmers travel
long distances to these centres for the Sunday services.
" Sunday houses " are erected in the neighbourhood of
the churches, which are occupied by the farmers and
their families from Saturday evening to late on Sunday
night; and, where farmers live at such immense dis-
tances from towns that a weekly journey by waggon
thither is impossible, they never miss the quarterly
sacramental feast, when the churches are surrounded by
the camps of those who have no Sunday houses.
Churches and ministers are few, but the attendance is
large and the ministers are well paid.
The Dutch Eeformed Church, like the orthodox The
Church of Eussia, has outside it a body of " old be-
lievers." The " Ee-reformed " or "Dopper" Church,
which is extraordinarily strong in the Transvaal, is a
Church which holds the old Dutch doctrine, and objects
to the modern changes introduced into the Dutch
Eeformed Church. President Kruger is the most dis-
tinguished member of the old-fashioned persuasion.
VOL. II 2 E
4i 8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Scotch The Dutch Keformed Church is in communion with
ministers. ^ Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, and accepts Scotch
ministers without further ordination. It is a curious and
interesting fact that many of the most distinguished
ministers of the Dutch Keformed Church of South Africa
are of Scotch extraction, and the Eev. Andrew Murray,
one of the professors at Stellenbosch College, and others
of these gentlemen enjoy the highest possible reputation
throughout the colonies. Although the Scotchmen
trained in Holland who have lately come into the Dutch
Reformed Church as ministers are not yet the dominant
element among the predicants, the Dutch ministers
as a rule are men of culture. Such men as Mr.
Stegmann, for example, are friendly to the British, and
their influence has been constantly exerted on the
side of peace between the races. The Dutch Church,
however, is separated from the British Churches by its
very different view upon the native question, and it has
sometimes happened that Scotch Presbyterian ministers,
trained in the same school, have come out by the same
ship the one to act as minister for a Dutch congrega-
tion, the other to serve as a Scotch missionary, and thus
to teach, upon the most difficult question in South
African affairs, doctrines diametrically opposed to one
another. The most successful missionary institution
in South Africa belongs to the Free Church of Scotland,
which preaches the doctrine of the equality of races,
abhorrent to the teaching and practice of the Boers.
formerly possessed a system of concurrent endowment
of the principal Churches, but one which in the Cape
was of earlier growth (owing to the strength of the
Dutch Reformed religion, and the comparative weakness
of the Church of England) than in New South Wales,
CHAP, v RELIGION 419
where it was introduced only after the principle of aid
to one Church alone had broken down. Disestablish-
ment in the Cape of Good Hope took place in 1875, by
the passing of what is known as the Voluntary Act,
which, like the New South Wales Act, reserved existing
interests, and in the Cape many thousands a year still
continue to be paid as pensions under the expiring
system. The absence in the Cape, as has been seen in
the last chapter, of the struggle between the Roman
Catholics and the majority, over unsectarian as con-
trasted with denominational education, has prevented
that intrusion of religious difficulties into political life
which exists in the Maritime Provinces of the Dominion,
in Ontario and Manitoba, as well as throughout Austral-
asia. The fact that Sir Gordon Sprigg is an English
Nonconformist, Sir Thomas Upington a Roman Catholic,
Mr. Merriinan a member of the Church of England,
and Mr. Hofmeyr a member of the Dutch Reformed
Church, has no political importance ; and South Africa
is not troubled by the religious controversies which
vex the Australians and the people of British North
America.
Religious life in South Africa cannot be dismissed The
from view without a further reference to the Colenso England
controversy, although Dr. Colenso's name will be
remembered in Natal rather in connection with his
political attitude on the native question than with the
theological opinions associated with his name in England.
Bishop Colenso died in 1883, and since his death the
vacancy in the see of Natal has not been filled. The
Church Council of the Church of England in Natal
petitioned the Queen to appoint a bishop to fill the
vacancy. The reply was that steps would be taken for
the consecration of a bishop if the Archbishop of Canter-
420 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
bury should apply for one. The petitioners were, how-
ever, afterwards recommended to join the Church of the
Province of South Africa, which the Church Council
declined to do, urging that that course would mean the
abandonment of the Church of England in Natal, and
they proceeded to nominate a bishop. The Primate
continuing to refuse to apply for a Queen's mandate for
consecration, it was announced by Government in the
imperial House of Commons that the Queen. would not
be advised to appoint, by letters patent, a successor to
Bishop Colenso. The Church Council of the Church of
England in Natal reply that they do not ask for the
appointment of a bishop by letters patent, but that all
they want is a Eoyal mandate for the consecration of
their nominee as a bishop of the Church of England,
with the view of his exercising episcopal functions in
Natal. They protest against the Archbishop's advice
that they should submit to the Church of the Province
of South Africa, which, he urges, is in full spiritual com-
munion with the Church of England, and point out that
that Church has been declared to be separate and
independent, while they assert that its bishop, claim-
ing to have authority in Natal, is not a bishop of
the Church of England, and was consecrated without
legal authority emanating from the Queen. They
protest, as a colonial Church on behalf of colonial
Churches, against being placed under the personal and
therefore varying control of the Primate for the time
being ; and they urge that, while all religious bodies are
supposed to enjoy full toleration under British law, and
liberty to maintain very different forms of worship and
of Church rites, the Church of England is denied self-
government. The Church Council of the Church of
England in Natal, with Sir Theophilus Shepstone at
CHAP, v RELIGION 421
their head, distinctly repudiate the imputation that
they are a sect of Colensoites having special sympathy
with the doctrines of that prelate. The services at their
cathedral at Maritzburg bear out this contention. The
sermons are orthodox, and the ritual moderate High
Church ; while some bishops of the Church of the Pro-
vince of South Africa have, I believe, been known to
wear mitres in their churches, and be surrounded by
black choristers in scarlet cassocks, and Kafir deacons in
coloured stoles. Owing to the quarrel, the Church of
England in Natal remains an Episcopal Church deprived
of the means of having its buildings consecrated and
its children confirmed. The unfortunate disputes at
Grahams town, during which the Dean locked the
Bishop of the diocese out of his cathedral, display
the scandals to which the position sometimes leads.
The only present importance of the dispute, from a
general colonial point of view, is that it suggests
a strength possessed by the Wesleyan body through-
out Greater Britain which is not shared by the Church
of England. If the Church of England is to hold
her own in the colonies she will be forced to give
Home Rule to her branches, as the Methodist churches
have Home Rule, or she will be exposed either, on the
one hand, to secession or, on the other hand, to depress-
ing and numbing weakness ; and if the Church is to
continue to flourish in Australasia and in the Canadian
Dominion, the sooner .principles are laid down which
have been denied in the case of the Church of England
in Natal the better.
The Wesleyan Methodist Church is active throughout Wesieyans.
South Africa, and has a local self-governing Conference,
but its work is mainly missionary. In the Cape of
Good Hope district the Wesieyans possess " Dutch "
422 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
churches, but it must not be gathered from this fact
that they have a following among the Boers. The
Methodist churches in which Dutch is spoken are kept
up for the benefit of the Hottentots. In Cape Town
the Wesleyan Church is prosperous.
The The Church of Kome is less strong in South Africa
CaXcs. than it is elsewhere in Greater Britain, though equally
active; and less strong, probably, because the Irish
population, which everywhere supplies the majority of
its adherents, is weaker in South Africa than in Austral-
asia or in the Dominion. The Jesuits are energetic in
the matter of education, and have a seminary for
missionaries and an excellent school for boys at
Grahamstown, modelled upon Stonyhurst, and presided
over by a distinguished ecclesiastic who was formerly
superior of the order in England.
The The Salvation Army is as busy in South Africa, pro-
Army, portionately speaking, as in New Zealand, or in Mel-
bourne or in Sydney. Its headquarters are at Port
Elizabeth, and its methods successful with the Hotten-
tots, although it is said that the Dutch ministers view
its proceedings with dismay.
Sunday ob- Owing to Dutch influence, Sunday observance is
carvarmo tf
rigid throughout South Africa, except in the matter of
the sale of drink. It is the custom not to serve late
dinner at hotels on Sunday, and even at some of the
English clubs this rule prevails, although public-houses
are not closed as they are in the. rest of Greater Britain.
The Transvaal Volksraad continues to add to its Statute-
book severe ordinances upon the observance of the
Lord's Day ; and while there is suburban railway traffic
at Cape Town, in the interior Sunday is kept by
travellers in the dry season, as the transport drivers are
given to regard the day, although in the rains they have
servance.
CHAP, v RELIGION 423
to set aside their scruples on account of the danger of
being stopped by floods.
We have already seen, in the chapter on British India.
India, the small amount of direct impression that has
been as yet produced by Christian teaching in the
peninsula of Hindostan. The Koman Catholic Church
has made some way among the natives in Southern
India ; and the American Protestant missionaries, as
well as the missionaries of the Wesleyan Methodist
Missionary Society, those of the London Missionary
Society, and many other agencies, show a considerable
number of teachers and of churches, but only small con-
gregations. The work of the Church of England in
India is twofold. She is the Church of the majority of
the white inhabitants and of the great bulk of the
army, and she is also a missionary body, being aided
by the State in the first but not in the second of
those capacities. State aid to the Church in India
rests upon a somewhat different footing from that
which it formerly occupied in the colonies where
State aid has ceased, or now in those few where
concurrent endowment of all creeds prevails. Every
city in India where there is a white population of con-
siderable size contains a British garrison, and in these
the Church is mainly a military church and the congre-
gations consist chiefly of men in uniform, who are also
well represented in the Koman Catholic, the Presby-
terian, and the Wesleyan congregations. As regards
the missionary side in India of all the Christian creeds,
the accounts of it given in their records are discourag-
ing so far as direct influence or convert-making is con-
cerned. To indirect influence produced by Christian
teaching and example, allusion has been made in the
earlier portions of this volume. The Hindoos have
424 PROBLEMS OF ORE A TER BRITAIN PART vi
lately founded Hindoo Tract Societies for the propaga-
tion of Hindooism and for anti-Christian agitation ; and
the Wesleyan Methodists, who seem to have been speci-
ally marked out for opposition probably because of the
extent to which they push Bible teaching complain of
the decrease of attendance at their girls' schools, some
of which have been emptied through the efforts of the
agents of the Hindoo Tract Societies. The regular
churches also complain, however, in bitter terms, of
the interference of the Salvation Army. On the whole,
the various Church of England and Protestant mission-
ary bodies report advance, but advance which is very
slow ; and they possess more native converts in the
single island of Madagascar than in the whole peninsula
of India, vast as is its population.
crown In most of the Crown Colonies disestablishment of
the Church of England, or withdrawal of State aid in
the case of those in which concurrent endowment pre-
vailed, has been brought about since 1868. Generally
speaking the Christian Churches in them are all in a
flourishing condition ; the Baptists, Wesleyans, Presby-
terians, and Churches founded by the London Mission-
ary Society, but now placed under various Congrega-
tional Unions, reporting, however, on the whole, an
advance more rapid than that described by the Church
of England. In the West Indies the Baptists are
strong among the negroes, and indeed it might be
asserted that the Baptists are an American rather than
a colonial Church powerful in the United States and
in the West Indies, and among the negroes everywhere,
rather than in Australasia, where, as has been seen, the
Presbyterians and Wesleyans leave them in the rear.
The negro majority in the West-India Islands is chiefly
Baptist or Wesleyan, and upon the West- African coast it
< HAP. v RELIGION 425
is principally Wesleyan. While in Jamaica and most of
the other West-India islands all Churches have ceased
to be aided by the State, in Barbados concurrent
endowment still exists the Church of England receiving
a large endowment from the revenue, and the Wesleyans,
Moravians, and Roman Catholics much smaller sums.
The Church of England is established in Barbados, the
bishop and clergy being paid from public moneys, while
the concurrent endowment to the other creeds is by way
of grant of lump sums to their governing bodies ; but
in the remainder of the diocese, which includes the
whole of the Windward Islands, the Church has been
disestablished and disendowed all State aid to other
Churches in the shape of concurrent endowment having,
also, been suspended or withdrawn.
In many of the Crown Colonies, as, for example, in
Malta and in Trinidad, the Roman Catholic population
altogether outnumbers the Protestant. In Trinidad there
are two and a half times as many Roman Catholics as
members of the Church of England, and the small
Protestant bodies account only for an infinitesimal pro-
portion of the population. In this colony the Churches
formerly aided by a concurrent endowment are now being
partially disendowed as vacancies occur among those of
their clergy who have been in receipt of allowances
from the State ; and it has happened that the Church
of England Bishop has ceased to be directly paid by the
State, while the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Port of
Spain continues to receive a thousand a year from
Government for his life. Canon Kingsley, when writ-
ing on the religious condition of Trinidad, argued that
it was natural that the Roman Catholic Church, owing
to the nature of her services, should obtain the greatest
hold upon the negroes ; but this is not the experi-
426 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
other ence of Barbados, where the Church of England is
ildia strong, or of the Southern States of the American
islands. Union, where the negroes are Methodists or Baptists,
or indeed, it may be said, of negro countries generally.
The test of figures shows that it is difficult to maintain
that there is any great difference in religious tendencies
between negroes and white colonists, Methodism being,
on the whole, with both apparently the most flourishing
and advancing Church. In the West-India Islands the
Church of England has gained ground less rapidly than
have the Wesleyan, Baptist, and smaller Protestant
denominations, because she has suffered from having
been the Church of the planters and the whites. The
emancipated negro was likely to join Churches which
would be partly under his control, and he has done so.
The negroes give largely, in proportion to their wages,
to church objects, in spite of the heavy pressure upon
them of payment for the schools ; and there is reason
to think that the Methodists, Baptists, and Moravians
have done more for the improvement of the West Indian
negro population than has any other agency.
Mauritius. Besides Malta and Trinidad, which have been
named, there are other colonies in which the Koman
Catholic element is large, as, for example, the Mauritius,
in which the Christian Churches are still aided by the
State upon the system of concurrent endowment, the
Church of England bishop and the Eoman Catholic arch-
bishop each receiving 7200 rupees of salary. In spite of
common payment by the State, the Mauritian religious
bodies fall out with the Government and with each other.
The Roman Catholic archbishop has complained publicly
to the representative of a newspaper about the treat-
ment of his Church, pointing to the fact that the vast
majority of the Christians among the population of
CHAP, v RELIGION 427
Mauritius belong to the Roman Catholic Church, and
that " the few converts made " by those whom he classes
together as " the Protestants " " are blacks, who, I have
no hesitation in saying, are practically bought, and are
really left without any religion at all." The archbishop
quarrelled with the Governor, who was an Irish Roman
Catholic, because, as he said, the Governor " attempted
to interfere with the appointment of priests, and wished
only French clergy to be engaged," whereas the arch-
bishop somewhat preferred Irishmen. According to the
census of 1881 there were in Mauritius 108,000 Roman
Catholics, and 8000 other Christians ; but the Church
of England and the Presbyterian Church received up to
the end of 1889 payment from the State at more than
eight times the rate per head of their adherents which
obtains in the case of the Roman Catholics. Since the
scale was lately revised the Protestants still receive three-
and-a-half times as much as do the Roman Catholics.
It cannot be doubted that the policy of the dis-
establishment of the Church of England in the few
colonies where it remains established, and of the cessa-
tion of State aid in those few where concurrent endow-
ment continues, will prevail, and that an end will soon
be put to that mixture of systems which in matters of
religion as in matters of education exists in countries
under Colonial Office control. Since 1868 the opinion
of the Office, in the direction of the withdrawal of State
assistance, has been clearly shown, and in no case has
any step been taken that leads the other way, while
in all the colonies where State aid has ceased religion
prospers.
It is impossible to deal here, otherwise than by Pacific
mere mention, with the work which missionaries of the other
English race, American and British, are doing in the m
428 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Pacific and in other portions of the globe, in countries
under British authority or protection as well as in the
open field. Their labours are greater, and the results
which they have achieved larger, on the whole,
than those which have been given or attained by
teachers of all the other races put together. The
various societies of the Church of England, the
Wesleyan Methodist, the Baptist, the " London " or Con-
gregational missionary societies, and many others, and
the American bodies, have for serious rivals only the
French Roman Catholics and the French Evangelicals.
The vast subscriptions received by the British societies,
the armies of missionaries which the British and Ameri-
can societies send forth, leave to the French Roman
Catholics, who stand next, but little chance of competing
with them upon an equal footing ; and if in Southern
India and in parts of China the French missionaries
have been able to hold their own, it is rather because
their system lends itself to success among certain of the
Asiatic peoples than because of a greater average energy
or self-denial in the missionaries sent out. It would be
difficult to overrate the influence which has been exerted
on behalf of British enterprise in the Pacific and in
Africa by the missionary bodies. Men like Mr. Chalmers
of New Guinea are not only religious teachers, but con-
querors who win new worlds to British influence.
We must conclude, then, that the teaching of the
colonies goes to show the success of the principle (now
adopted almost throughout our Empire outside Great
Britain) that the State shall not patronise one form of
religion, and shall hold itself aloof from all. No bad
consequences can be shown to have followed on the
disestablishment that has taken place in some colonies,
or, in others, upon the absence of religious Establishments
sion.
CHAP, v RELIGION 429
from the first ; and the results of the withdrawal of
State aid are not to be discerned in any marked
departure in the colonies from the English standard,
while we have noticed a stricter observance of the
Lord's Day, and the greater power of the Sunday
Schools. The influence of Sunday Schools is far more
widely spread, taking the colonies through, than it is
in England. The number of religious edifices and the
number of the clergy of various denominations, in pro-
portion to the white population, is greater throughout
the colonies than in England ; while if church attend-
ance, under the difficulties occasioned by sparse popula-
tion in vast districts, is less remarkable in extent than
is the provision made for it, it is, on the whole, as large
in proportion as it is at home. Neither is any decline
observable in recent years, but, on the contrary, there
has occurred in most of the colonies the same marked
revival of religious activity which has been recently
witnessed in the mother-country.
CHAPTEK VI
LIQUOR LAWS
So many persons are deeply interested in that sharply
restrictive legislation with regard to the sale of intoxicat-
ing drinks which is almost peculiar to lands of English
speech that no apology need be offered for treating it in
a separate chapter, although peculiarities in the liquor
legislation of various colonies have already been briefly
named in passing. While students of politics are aware
of the tendency that exists to follow in the mother-
country experiments which have been tried by our
colonies in political and social legislation, the general
public are inclined to look upon the colonies as, above
all, countries which, along with the United States, are
testing for us the value of Local Prohibition as regards
the sale of drink.
Canada. Foremost among the colonies which have engaged
in temperance legislation stands the Dominion, which
has dealt with it both as a whole and by Provincial
Acts. In Canada the matter is constitutionally as well
as socially important. Grave legal questions have
arisen in the attempt of the Courts and Parliament of
the Dominion, and of the Privy Council at home, to
decide the rights of the Provincial legislatures to pass
measures which indirectly affect that taxation in aid of
the Dominion revenue which is exclusively within the
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 431
control of the Federal Government. Similar difficulties
were faced before a Dominion Act upon the Liquor
question was pronounced unconstitutional. The limita-
tions within which the Provincial legislatures of the
Dominion may enact measures that affect taxation
confine their powers to such as bear upon the raising of
revenue for local purposes. Laws restricting the sale
of intoxicants diminish Dominion revenue, and are
therefore of doubtful legality. On the other hand, by
its Act of 1883 the Dominion attempted to deal with
matters which had been relegated to the Provinces.
Difficult constitutional questions have also arisen in the
administration of the Canada Temperance Act, 1878,
known as the Scott Act.
The Scott Act is a Dominion Local Option law Local
giving power to close drink shops, by a bare majority
of votes, without compensation the working of which Act
has been watched with intense interest by the Local
Option party throughout the British world. After
a Prohibitionist campaign, the provisions of the Act
were put in force county by county, until the whole
of Prince Edward's Island, the majority of the munici-
palities in Ontario, large sections of Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick, parts of Quebec, and two counties of
Manitoba, had made the sale of intoxicating beverages
illegal. In the Province of British Columbia the Act
was not brought into operation. The Act provided for
a reversal of the local popular judgment in the event of
a change in public opinion, and in some parts of the
country large majorities were found to exist against
Prohibition after it had been for some time in opera-
tion. In many cases the operation of the Act has been
suspended and drink shops reopened. The feeling in
Canada was at one time so strong against the prohibi-
432 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
tory legislation that there was in 1888 a considerable
agitation in favour of the removal of the Act from the
Statute-book. On the other hand, the Methodist Con-
ference, which is, as has been seen, very powerful in
Canada, and which has on this question the support of
many other religious bodies, is in favour of National Pro-
hibition, and is disposed to accept no Local Option law
as the ultimate form of legislation upon the subject.
Canadian Methodist feeling goes so far as to strongly
recommend the disuse of fermented wine for sacra-
mental purposes, and Canada is sharply divided into
two parties upon the Liquor question. In 1888 and
1889 a great number of Ontario counties voted upon
the local suspension of the Scott Act, and in most of
these "repeal" was carried, although in many of the
same counties there had previously been large majorities
in favour of the adoption of the Act. A return upon
the subject which has been presented to the imperial
House of Commons gives a full list of the votes taken
under the Canada Temperance Act since its passing.
In 1878 the decision was in three cases for the adoption,
and in none against, in 1879 in nine cases for, and in
only one against ; that one in Quebec, in 1880 in four
cases for, and in one against ; that one also in Quebec,
in 1881 in ten cases for, and in four against, in 1882
in three cases for, and in one against, in 1883 in only
one case, for adoption, in 1884 in seventeen cases for,
and in five against, in 1885 in twenty-one cases for,
and in seven against, in 1886 two to two. In 1887
there was one decision against repeal, and in 1888 (and,
by Canadian figures, 1889) an overwhelming majority in
favour of repeal. Some districts, however, have tried
three years of Prohibition under the Scott Act, then
three years of licensing, and have now returned to Pro-
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 433
hibition. Reports have been obtained from certain of the
Provincial Governments with regard to the working of
the Act. In Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
the Lieutenant-Governors reported that in most cases
the Act, although adopted by vote of the electors, had
never been thoroughly enforced. It is the case that
the machinery for the enforcement of the Scott Act is
most imperfect, and this allows the party in favour of
Prohibition to declare, with some force, that the failure
of the Act has been owing to its loose construction,
which has led to an amount of evasion calculated to
make it unequal and unpopular.
In Ontario, apart from the Scott Act, the maximum other
number of licenses that can be granted in any district
has long been regulated according to population. By
Provincial Acts of 1887 and 1888 the number of licenses
may be reduced to a minimum of one in any district,
and no new license may be granted against the wish of
the majority of the electors. Sale of drink is forbidden
on Saturday evenings and on Sundays. There is a pro-
vision in the Ontario law that whenever any person
comes to his death, by suicide or otherwise, during in-
toxication, the seller of the liquor that caused the
intoxication is liable to an action for damages. This
clause is copied from the laws of several States of the
American Union, where it is very general, and is known
as the " Civil Damages Clause." In Ontario, and also
in Quebec, the law provides that the relatives of
intemperate persons may notify the sellers of liquor
not to sell it to such persons, and if they sell it after
such notice they are liable to a suit for damages by
the person who gave the notice. Toronto is governed
in liquor matters by the old Ontario Act, which dates
back before the Scott Act, and by which the municipal
VOL. II 2 F
434 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
councils fix the number of licenses (being unable, how-
ever, to grant more than four for the first thousand
of the population, and one for every four hundred
beyond), and have also power to raise high license fees.
Under this Act the Town Council of Toronto have
much reduced the number of licenses, and that without
compensation.
Quebec. In Quebec the local liquor laws are somewhat
similar to those of England, except that liquor cannot
be sold after eight P.M. to soldiers, sailors, apprentices,
or servants, and that, as in almost all colonies, there
is universal Sunday closing. In addition to the Scott
Nova Act there exists in Nova Scotia a License Act and
Provincial prohibitory law, under which municipal
councils can refuse to grant any licenses where the
majority of the ratepayers are opposed to granting them.
Liquor cannot be sold in Nova Scotia in gold districts or
within a mile of any mine. Neither can it be sold to
Indians or to minors, and there is general Sunday closing.
As in Ontario, when any person comes to his death
through intoxication his legal representatives may recover
damages against the person furnishing the liquor. In
New New Brunswick power is given to the county councils
" by the Province to make rules for the regulation of the
sale of liquor. The sale of liquor to apprentices, ser-
vants, or persons under sixteen years of age, without
the consent of the master, parent, or guardian, is for-
bidden ; while in Quebec it is forbidden altogether to
persons under sixteen years of age. There is also uni-
prince versal Sunday closing in New Brunswick. In Prince
f s i a w n a d d Edward Island the sale of liquor to Indians and to
minors is forbidden : there is general Sunday closing, and
the same law on the sale of liquor to intemperate persons
after notice as exists in Ontario and Quebec.
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 435
In Manitoba power is given to the city corporation Manitoba.
of Winnipeg to make by-laws regulating the issue of
licenses within the city, and it is provided that the num-
ber of hotel licenses shall be limited to one for every three
hundred inhabitants. There is also a prohibition in
Manitoba of the sale of liquor to intemperate persons
after notice, besides the provision which exists in some
Australian colonies for an inquiry by a Justice of the
Peace at the request of the relatives (with the addition
in Manitoba of the connections or the clergyman) of any
person who is unable to control himself in the use of
liquor, or is squandering his means or neglecting his
business, or likely to injure himself or others. In the
event of the Justice finding this to be the case he has to
take steps to notify in writing all licensed liquor-sellers
of the fact ; and the liquor-sellers have to post up the
notice in a conspicuous place, and to refrain from selling
or giving liquor to the person interdicted. Where it
appears to the Justice that the interdiction is insufficient
to effect the reform of the person interdicted, he may
commit him to gaol for a period of not less than thirty
and not more than sixty days ; but the person inter-
dicted may appeal to the Provincial Queen's Bench.
There is absolute Sunday closing in Manitoba.
In British Columbia, where the Scott Act does not British
seem popular with the electorate, municipalities may and the
make by-laws with regard to the issue of tavern licenses.
In Vancouver City a large fee is charged for licenses, s y stem -
which brings in a considerable revenue to the muni-
cipality. British Columbia, in short, possesses what
is known in the United States as the High License
system, between which and Prohibition State or local
opinion in the United States is now divided. As
has been well shown by Mr. Edwardes, in his report
43 6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
to the Foreign Office on the various American State
systems, the weak point in prohibitory laws has
been found in the difficulty of preventing evasion and in
the deadly character of the adulterated liquor sold under
an illegal system. While the advocates of Prohibition
are able to show that in the States or districts where it
has been applied it has destroyed the temptation afforded
by open bars, has reduced drunkenness, and the offences
which may be attributed to the use of liquor, as well as
the waste of money upon drink, on the other hand,
evasion is almost everywhere considerable, although
Kansas is said to form an exception to the rule. The
scale has been turned in favour of the High License
system in British Columbia, as in a good many
districts of the American Union, by the fact that,
while the institution commends itself to moderate
temperance reformers by reducing the number of drink-
ing saloons, and by destroying the more disreput-
able places where intoxicating liquors are sold, and
throwing the trade into the hands of a good class of
dealers, it at the same time brings in a large municipal
revenue by a form of taxation from which no one seems
to suffer, and which in fact no one feels. At some places
there is combined with the High License system a pro-
vision for the finding of a large sum under surety by the
licensee as a guarantee for not infringing the various
provisions of the local laws as to sale of intoxicating
drink to minors, to drunkards, and on Sundays, as to
adulteration, and so forth. At the same time the High
License system is obnoxious to some of the rigid Pro-
hibition party, who would almost prefer to it a system
of free trade.
In the North - West Territories the sale, manufac-
tories. . P .
ture, or possession ol intoxicants, is prohibited except
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LA WS 437
with the special written permission of the Lieutenant-
Governor, who is invested with absolute discretion
in the matter, and can prevent the importation of
alcoholic drink ; and the policy of the Dominion
Government has been to entirely prevent all liquor
traffic in the Territories. The late Lieutenant-Governor
of the Territories is now Minister of the Interior for
the Dominion, and in some speeches and addresses
lately pronounced against the system of Prohibition
after nine years' experience in its administration. Pro-
hibition in the North- West Territories was originally
intended to prevent the sale of drink to Indians, but is
now found vexatious by the large white population.
The present Lieutenant-Governor agrees with his pre-
decessor, and has reported that the enforcement of the
Prohibitory Law becomes more and more difficult year
by year. Liquor, he says, is " run " into the country at
every point and in every form. He pleads for lager
beer, and thinks that the sale of light beer would do
more than Prohibition to check spirit drinking. In the
adjoining American territories comprised in the new
States of North Dakota, and South Dakota, total prohi-
bition of the liquor traffic was recently placed in the
Constitution by majorities, so narrow in the case of
North Dakota as to lead to the existence of a wide-
spread doubt whether Prohibition had been carried.
In Montana, Prohibition was rejected by the popular
vote, or, as Transatlantic usage puts it, Montana " went
wet" while the two Dakotas "went dry." The experi-
ence under Prohibition of the State of Kansas has been
very different from that of the North- West Territories,
and in that rising community Prohibition is popular
with the people.
Other peculiarities of Dominion liquor legislation are
438 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
Minor to be found in the minor provisions of the Scott Act
peculiar!- itge j. f or example, power is given to returning officers
and their deputies to seize from all persons within half
a mile of the polling stations, when a poll upon the Act
is being taken, firearms, bludgeons, or other weapons.
All persons convicted of a battery within two miles of
any place where such poll is being held are to be
deemed guilty of an aggravated assault ; and there are
provisions for preventing either non-residents coming
into polling districts when carrying arms or residents
coming armed within one mile of a place where a poll is
being taken. The sale of intoxicating liquors on polling
day is prevented.
The Liquor In 1883 a Licensing Act for the Dominion was passed
Act, 1888. to make the licensing law uniform. It was provided
(with certain exceptions) that the total number of
licenses to be granted should not exceed one for each
250 of the first thousand of the population, and one for
each 500 above the first thousand ; but there were local
powers reserved for municipal regulation of the number
of licenses. There was a provision that no license should
be granted in municipal districts where three-fifths of
the voters declared in favour of Prohibition. There was
complete prohibition of sale of drink on Saturday
evenings and on Sundays, except to boarders at table
during meals between the hours of one and three and
five and seven on Sunday. Sale of drink to persons
under sixteen was forbidden. The Act made provision
for inquiry into the charge that any person by excessive
drinking of liquor wastes or lessens his or her estate, or
greatly injures his or her health, or endangers or inter-
rupts the peace and happiness of his or her family ; and
two Justices were to have power to forbid any licensed
person to sell, for one year, liquor to the drunkard.
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 439
There was also a provision under which the husband or
wife, or father, mother, curator, tutor, or employers of any
person under twenty-one, or the manager of any charit-
able institution in which any " person so addicted " might
reside, would have been able to cause a notice to be
given to any licensed person not to sell liquor to such
interdicted person. But there was a saving clause as
regards earlier legislation, and, especially, nothing in the
Act was to be construed to affect or impair any of the
provisions of the Scott Act, so that many of the pro-
visions mentioned above would in any case have re-
mained in force. This Act of 1883, however, was in
January 1885 declared unconstitutional by a judgment
of the Supreme Court, on the ground that most of its
provisions fell within the jurisdiction of the Provincial
legislatures, and the disallowance of the Act was upheld
by the Privy Council on appeal in November 1885.
The Act is still of interest as an expression of the pre-
vailing opinion in Canada, and as virtually a draft code
made up from the local laws now actually existing in
the Provinces.
Not only have Dominion Liquor Laws sometimes
been declared unconstitutional, but also Provincial
Liquor Acts, or parts of them. In some cases the
method adopted has been held to exceed Provincial
powers, but in others has been held to be good
in law. The point raised in many cases was that the
Provinces were interfering in trade ; but it has been
held that the licensing laws relate to police or muni-
cipal or local matters, and are therefore within Pro-
vincial powers. The Canadian liquor legislation has
been the subject of judicial decisions at home, and
the Privy Council in its judgment upon the consti-
tutionality of the Liquor Act of Ontario decided that
440 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Provinces were able to delegate the powers specially
o-iven them by the constitution of the Dominion, to
authorities created by themselves, such as license
commissioners for municipal areas. The Local Option
law of Canada as a whole has also been referred to the
Courts, and it has been held that that law was within
the competency of the Dominion Parliament, so we find
in Canada two temperance systems the one Provincial
and the other Federal both of which are legal, though
certain laws of each description have been pronounced
invalid.
"With regard to the Canadian legislation generally, it
is maintained by the supporters of Prohibition that the
Scott Act is unpopular in districts where it has not been
really enforced, and that, where drunkenness has under
it been suppressed, the Act has been maintained at
recent polls ; and it is true that in spite of the partial
failure of the Scott Act to secure support there is a
marked movement in Ontario in the direction of
Dominion or Provincial as against district Prohibition.
The majority of the Canadian Liberal party are prohibi-
tionists. The consumption of liquor in Canada is the
smallest per head in any English-speaking country in the
world ; but it is said that there has been an increase in
the consumption of spirits in Ontario in recent years,
although this is denied, and the statistics are mislead-
ing inasmuch as spirits entered for consumption in one
Province are often carried to another. So great has been
the evasion of the Scott Act that it has been even
said that some of the most active prohibitionists have
worked locally for its repeal, holding that their views
were better carried out under the former licensing
system than under nominal Prohibition; and it is a
curious fact that, while the "Liquor party" and the
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 441
publicans were everywhere powerless to prevent the
adoption of the Act, "repeal" has been carried in many
districts by large popular majorities.
The most interesting of the colonies after the New
Canadian Dominion as regards licensing legislation
is New Zealand, where there is a comprehensive Act
of 1881, which has since that time been amended.
There is a steady decrease in the consumption of strong
drink in New Zealand in spite of the increase of the
population, and New Zealand now spends on drink less
per head than does the United Kingdom, and less than
do the principal colonies of the Australian continent.
Not only is the white population becoming sober, but
the Maories are mostly teetotallers, and a majority
of the younger Maories are active members of the
Church of England Temperance Association. The New
Zealand Act creates licensing committees elected
annually by the ratepayers for this special purpose,
persons interested in the manufacture or sale of liquor,
or in licensed premises, being disqualified from acting
upon the committees ; and there is a provision that if
any member of a licensing committee absents himself
from two consecutive quarterly licensing meetings his
office becomes vacant. Vacancies are filled by the
nomination of persons who hold office until the next
election. In districts in which at least half the inhabit-
ants are Maories, Native Licensing Districts are created,
and in these districts assessors are elected by the in-
habitants qualified to vote for Maori representatives in
Parliament, and the sale or gift of intoxicating liquor to
persons of the native race is forbidden. No new licenses
since the passing of the Act in 1881 can be granted
until the ratepayers have determined, on a poll, by a
bare majority, whether the number of licenses may
442 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
be increased. Drunkenness, even entirely unaccom-
panied by disorder, is made a punishable offence where
the drunkard is found on licensed premises, on a high-
way, or in any "public place, whether a building or
not." There is complete Sunday closing in New Zea-
land, as in most of the colonies, but in New Zealand the
prohibition of Sunday sale is subject to a bond fide
traveller clause. The supply of drink to persons appar-
ently under the age of sixteen years is forbidden, and in
New Zealand it is an offence on the part of the publican
to allow drink to be given on his premises to such a
person.
In New Zealand, as in most of the Provinces of the
Dominion of Canada, and in Tasmania and South Aus-
tralia, where any person by excessive drinking "mis-
spends, wastes, or lessens his or her estate, or greatly
injures his or her health, or endangers or interrupts the
peace or happiness of his or her family," such person can
be put under notice, and all licensed persons forbidden to
sell drink to him or her. In New Zealand, when a
drunkard has been put under notice by the Justices, any
person with a knowledge of the Prohibition giving drink
to or procuring it for the prohibited person is also punish-
able. There are in New Zealand inspectors of licensed
premises appointed by the Governor, whose duty it is to
enforce the carrying out of the Act, and to prevent evasion.
The burden of proof is thrown upon all persons found
upon licensed premises when they are searched by the
inspector in a case where liquor is sold contrary to law,
and the persons on the premises are deemed guilty of
an offence under the Act " until the contrary is proved."
Power is given to the Governor to make regulations for
the efficient administration of the Act, and these when
gazetted have the force of law.
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 443
So far the New Zealand law is strong, and calcu-
lated to be more effective than the less detailed pro-
visions of most of the Canadian Acts ; but the 229th
Clause is said in practice to be found by the temper-
ance party to contain a principle fatal to their power.
It enacts that nothing in the statute shall apply to clubs,
except the provisions of this clause itself. The clause
enables clubs existing at the time of the passing of
the Act to apply to the Colonial Secretary for a
charter, and directs the Colonial Secretary if satis-
fied that the club in question is really a voluntary
association of persons combined for promoting social
intercourse and comfort, and providing its own liquors,
and not established for purposes of gain to issue the
charter subject to a payment of 5 by the club. More-
over, when any number of persons not fewer than ten
propose to establish a new club, they have to forward to
the Colonial Secretary an application ' for a provisional
charter, and the Colonial Secretary is at liberty to issue
such a charter for one year, and at the end of one year
is obliged to give a permanent charter if the ordinary
conditions are fulfilled.
The next most comprehensive Act is that of Queens-
Queensland, which establishes a system of Local Option ;
two-thirds of the ratepayers on a poll having power
to close all houses, or a bare majority to reduce the
number of licenses, or to put a stop to the issue
of fresh licenses. One -sixth of the ratepayers are
sufficient to obtain a poll, and they state in their notice
the point upon which the poll is to be held ; but the
provisions for Prohibition and for reduction of licenses
by a specified number have not been popular in Queens-
land, and the polls have been chiefly upon the third
point, namely, the stopping of new licenses. It will be
444 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
seen that the Local Option portion of the Queensland
Act is stronger than that of the New Zealand Act,
because a local majority has in Queensland direct
power to impose complete Prohibition. But it must
be remembered that in New Zealand the licensing
bodies are themselves elective, and elected for the
special purpose, so that the popular control in New
Zealand is as a fact complete, although temperance
reformers would prefer a direct popular vote upon
the question in all cases, in place of the election of
a council. There is in Queensland, as usual, complete
Sunday closing, but with a bond fide traveller clause.
There is also the usual colonial prohibition of the supply
of liquor to aboriginal natives in Queensland the pro-
vision is extended to Polynesians and to half-castes
and of the supply to boys and girls.
other The liquor laws of the remainder of Australia are of
licensing a less drastic nature than those of Canada, of New
Zealand, or of Queensland. While in Victoria there is
Local Option as to the number of licenses, with com-
pensation, and in New South Wales and South Australia
a mild form of Local Option as to new licenses or the
increase of licenses, involving in the mother-colony a
local expression of opinion and in South Australia a
memorial by two-thirds of the ratepayers, in none of
these colonies are the temperance party in the least
satisfied with the state of things which now exists. At
the same time in all of them that present condition gives
them more power than they have in England.
victoria. After the Acts of New Zealand and of Queensland,
that of Victoria has, among Australasian laws, until
lately been the strongest in a temperance sense.
Fierce fights have taken place under its Local Option
clause in various portions of the colony, and in
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 445
one instance an exciting contest between the pub-
licans and the temperance folk resulted in the closing
of twenty -three public-houses in one district at one
time. In all, between one and two hundred public-
houses have as yet been closed in Victoria under the
Local Option clause. Inasmuch as in Victoria, Local
Option concerns not total cessation of the sale of drink,
but only the reduction of the number of public-houses to a
statutory minimum, a commission deciding which public-
houses shall be closed and what compensation shall be
given, the blow falls upon the houses which have the
most indifferent character. The Victorian Act has been
already tinkered several times, and is not likely to last
long in its present form. The figures which have been
taken in Victoria for the ordinary statutory number are
drawn from Canadian Acts ; one to each 250 of the
first thousand inhabitants, and then one to each sub-
sequent 500.
Victoria is, I believe, the only part of the British Compen-
Empire in which the principle of compensation has been
applied. This forms a precedent which will no doubt
be quoted in England, inasmuch as in Victoria the
licenses were granted for the good of the community,
and not for the good of the holders the English prin-
ciple, upon which the United Kingdom Alliance have
based their opposition to compensation in the legislation
of the mother-country.
In South Australia recent proposals have been made south
to Parliament for considerable changes in the existing
law, under which the principle of Local Option is repre-
sented by the efficacy of memorials from two-thirds of
the ratepayers against new licenses. The Corporation
of Adelaide petitioned against the Bill of 1889, and
it was dropped. The outgoing Prime Minister,
446 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
Mr. Playford, had been pledged to bring in a Bill
for complete Local Option, but with compensation.
The existing clauses relating to memorials against
new licenses provide that no new licenses shall be
granted where two-thirds of the ratepayers of the im-
mediate neighbourhood petition against the grant, and
that where a license has been refused on account of the
receipt of such a memorial, future licenses shall not be
issued except upon a memorial by a bare majority to
that effect. There is in South Australia, as in many
colonies, a complete prohibition of the supply of liquor
to aborigines, as well as a prohibition of the supply of
liquor to minors under fifteen ; and, as in New Zealand,
the publican is punishable if he allows any one to give
liquor to such children. The clause already mentioned
in several colonial Acts as to persons, by the habitual or
excessive use of liquor, wasting their means, injuring or
being likely to injure health, or endangering or inter-
rupting the peace or happiness of their families, exists,
as has been seen, in South Australia, and extends,
as in the greater part of Canada, to all persons
who may knowingly, "during the currency" of an
order against a drunkard, supply the person with
liquor. In South Australia the publican is also punish-
able if he allows a person under notice to loiter about
his premises, even although he does not supply him.
As in New Zealand, so too in South Australia there are
special inspectors to obtain the enforcement of the Act.
Tasmania. In Tasmania temperance legislation took place
in 1889, and introduced Local Option, which had
previously been refused. The Bill as presented to
Parliament contained a clause which went less far than
the South Australian Act, and did not much extend the
previous Tasmanian legislation, under which the licens-
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 447
ing Bench were to entertain memorials from the locality,
although they were not bound to follow them. The
Lower House, however, changed this into a provision
that memorials from two-thirds of the ratepayers in the
neighbourhood objecting to the granting of new licenses
were fatal to the granting of such licenses ; and that
where the petition from the locality was directed against
the renewal of an old license the magistrates might
require proof on oath of the allegations of the memorial,
and might then grant or refuse the certificate according
to their opinion whether the allegations had or had not
been sufficiently established. But the " neighbourhood "
is narrowly defined, and consists in the cities of
Hobart and Launceston of the space within a radius of
200 yards, and in other towns within 500 yards, and
elsewhere within a mile. The Local Option clause has,
however, less importance under the new Tasmanian law
than it possesses in South Australia ; because the licens-
ing Bench itself under the new law is partly elective,
although not wholly elective as in New Zealand. The
nominated element of Justices has a slight majority on
each Board, but the number of elected members is so
large that a strong temperance feeling in any district
may lead to the stoppage of licenses. The Upper House
increased the stringency of the Bill and gave a bare
majority of ratepayers, in place of a two-thirds majority,
the right of veto of new licenses. The temperance
party were, however, dissatisfied with the Bill, and
petitioned the Governor for the refusal of the Koyal
assent.
As in New Zealand, no person interested in the
manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors is in Tasmania
to be elected a member of a licensing Bench. A clause
was also inserted in the Bill rendering liable to punish-
448 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
ment persons found upon licensed premises after hours,
and it was supposed in the colony that this clause was a
new departure, in punishing the publican's customer
instead of the publican alone ; but it will be seen
from what has been said above that there exists for
it at least one precedent. The clause relating to
drunkards being placed under notice has existed for
some time in Tasmania ; but, in the form in which it
now stands, it rests on the evidence on oath of any two
persons, instead of, as in most colonies, a declaration by
a member of the family. The drunkard himself is liable
to penalty as well as those who procure drink for him.
Generally speaking, it may be said that all the recent
Australian Acts show that their proposers are well ac-
quainted with modern legislation upon the subject in
other colonies, for each of the Acts takes whole clauses
from the Acts of other colonies without change ; and it
is to be wished that the fulness of knowledge possessed
by colonial temperance reformers concerning the tem-
perance legislation of all parts of Greater Britain extended
to politicians generally and led to somewhat more
uniformity of legislation in English-speaking countries.
New south The licensing law of New South Wales is moderate
as compared with that of Canada, New Zealand, or
Queensland, and timid even as contrasted with that of
the neighbouring colony of Victoria. But, although
little stringent for a colonial liquor law, it is severe as
compared with those which still exist in the United
Kingdom. The New South Wales Acts discourage bars
for the sale of liquor apart from hotels providing board
and lodging and stable accommodation ; and gin palaces
and drinking music halls are unknown, although, as in
most of the colonies, there are shops specially licensed
for the sale of colonial wines. There is a Local Option
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 449
poll, but it is not final as regards licenses, and is in fact
little more than an expression of opinion. While there
is Sunday closing in New South Wales with a bond fide
traveller clause, this clause is narrow in its provisions,
and a New South Wales " traveller " is or rather should
be, if the law were not evaded a traveller indeed. The
same provision, which is general in the colonies, with re-
gard to the serving of minors apparently under fifteen or
sixteen years of age, exists in -New South Wales. There
has been a recent inquiry by a Koyal Commission, and
at the time when the commissioners were appointed it was
supposed that there had been an increase in the con-
sumption of intoxicating liquors, and the commissioners
were directed to inquire into the causes of the supposed
increase ; but they found, as a fact, that there had been
a decrease in the consumption ; and I must once more
warn my readers against believing all that has been
written upon the subject of consumption per head of
intoxicating liquors, inasmuch as there exist no statistics
more misleading. The Commission pointed to the
possibility of the adoption of the New Zealand law for
the punishment of mere drunkenness apart from dis-
orderly conduct ; but no other very stringent measures
were recommended in the report. On the other hand,
a majority of the members returned to the colonial
Parliament at the last election were pledged to vote for
an extension of Local Option, and a large proportion of
them declared against compensation. The Good
Templars supported the protectionist candidates in the
country districts, and returned them ; but in Sydney
some of the protectionists refused to take the required
pledge against compensation, and the Good Templars
voted for the free traders and defeated the pro-
tectionists.
VOL. II 2 G
450 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
Western In Western Australia, with the exception of Sunday
Australia. c } os j n g ? the liquor law is somewhat similar to that of
England, but there is a high fee on publicans' licenses.
The supply of liquor to aboriginal natives by any person
is prohibited in Western Australia except as between
master and servant. There is the usual drunkards'
clause, allowing Justices to prohibit all persons from
supplying liquor to notorious drunkards ; and in Western
Australia the notorious -drunkard himself, if found
loitering about a public-house, may be locked up for a
week with or without hard labour.
Habits of In the chief colonies of Australasia, as in the United
e peop e. j^g^o^ there is a steady decrease of drunkenness, and
a general aversion to the use of stimulants on the part
of the self-respecting portion of the younger population.
Tea is even more widely consumed than is the case
at home, and coffee palaces and temperance hotels
are commoner than they are with us. The early
settlers in Australia took out with them drinking habits,
but the Australian climate has done its work in dimin-
ishing in the race the craving for the use of stimulants,
and the power of the Churches has helped in the reform.
In the digging days the practice of offering drink to
strangers sprang up in Australia, and became general, and
at one time offence was given by refusal to drink. The
practice of " shouting," that is, of " standing treat," has
now all but died out in the more settled portions of the
country. There seems reason to think that the Austra-
lian of the future will be a sober man, and the greatest
of all the differences between the old colonists and the
young Australians lies in the drinking habits of the
former and the repulsion to drink very general among
the latter. A good deal of drunkenness is seen in
Australia from time to time among a limited class the
ance.
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 451
men employed up-country, who visit the capitals only
at rare intervals, and who are apt to spend a portion of
the large savings out of their high wages by " going on
the spree," as it is called. The system known as " knock-
ing down a cheque" has been fully explained by Mr.
Finch-Hatton, 1 but it would be a mistake to suppose
that these occasional outbreaks indicate a large con-
sumption of drink, for such is not the case, and the very
men whose drunkenness is from time to time paraded
in the streets are themselves sober as a rule.
Those who have watched the career of Australian Temper-
youths, and who are able to compare it with the career
of an equal number of persons of the same classes in
the mother-country, feel assured that there is less ruin
in Australia caused by drink than in the United King-
dom, and there is, indeed, less doubt about the fact
than about the reasons for it. Some are inclined to
ascribe the decline in drinking habits almost exclusively
to the climate, since experience has shown that in the
great heats hot tea affords a far better means of quench-
ing thirst than do spirits, wine, or beer. Others are
inclined to set down the change mainly to the greater
influence in the colonies of the Wesleyan and such
bodies, who make temperance a part of their religion.
The result in either case is plain ; the young Austral-
ians are either teetotallers or moderate in their use
of alcohol. As the ranks of the electors day by day
are swelled by an increasing proportion of native-born
Australians, the Local Option principle even to the
extent of national Prohibition gains ground. There is a
general belief among the younger colonists that there
are many people who, if consulted in their reasonable
1 Advance Australia ! by the Hon. Harold Finch-Hatton. Allen and
Co., 1885.
452 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
moments, do not want to drink intoxicating liquor, and
who yet consume it to excess if temptation is thrown in
their way. Public-houses or " hotels," as in Australia
they all are called, and are in fact are closed on
Sundays throughout the colonies, and the result of
colonial experience is to teach that Sunday closing has
diminished drunkenness. In Victoria a crucial experi-
ment was tried : the public-houses were closed on
Sundays in the early days of Melbourne ; then opened
for two hours upon Sundays ; and now wholly closed
once more ; and Victoria supports Sunday closing. The
bond fide traveller clause is, however, though probably
necessary, no doubt made use of for the evasion of the
law. As the whole of the New Zealand law is evaded by
the general establishment of clubs, so the early closing
and Sunday closing clauses of the ordinary Australian
Acts are resisted by the same means, but not to a very
large extent.
south The extreme temperance legislation of Canada, the
strong legislation of New Zealand and of Queensland,
the more moderate Local Option laws of South Australia
and Tasmania, and the Local Option with compensation
of Victoria, seem to establish the rule, in the greater
portion of the white-inhabited colonies, of consultation
of the popular voice with regard to licenses. But the
exception formed in Australia by Western Australia
is strengthened by the South African colonies. The
Cape and Natal stand even below New South Wales
and Western Australia in the scale of stringency of
temperance legislation. At the Cape the principle
of Local Option is not recognised, except as regards
new licenses. We find there the mild provision that
new licenses are not to be granted unless a petition
in favour of the application is signed by one-third of
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 453
the inhabitants of the district, and that they must be
refused if a majority of the voters sign a memorial
against them. The laws of the Cape of Good Hope
respecting the sale of intoxicating liquor were mostly
consolidated in 1883, by an Act which was amended in
1885 and 1887. The Cape followed the ordinary
colonial view, with regard to the selling of drink on
Sunday, in prohibiting that sale, though certain hotels
are specially licensed to serve bond fide travellers on
Sunday. Licensing is left to mixed bodies consisting
partly of magistrates and partly of elected members.
The elective members are not elected for the purpose,
but consist of the mayors or chairmen of municipalities
and of members of the Divisional Council. As regards
the sale of drink to natives the law is theoretically
stringent. The Governor may define areas in which no
licenses can be granted and no liquor sold except with
the permission of the Governor. No such areas, how-
ever, were in existence in 1888 ; that is to say, while the
law is strong, this portion of it is not put in force. In
1887 it was announced by the Prime Minister that, in
consequence of representations made by magistrates in
native territory to the effect that unless the whole
colony were proclaimed the restrictions were productive
of more evil than good, the Government had advised
the Governor to cancel all existing proclamations. There
was a debate and a division in Parliament upon the
question, and the temperance party asserted that their
opponents desired to exterminate the Kafir race as well
as to encourage the trade in Cape brandy ; but the
temperance party in the Cape seemed to give up the
case of the white population, and put forward that of
the black people only. The liquor interest in South
Africa is strong, for the brandy consumed by the natives.
454 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
commonly called " Cape smoke," is manufactured by the
ordinary colonial farmers. The friends of the aborigines
argue that the farmers desire free trade in brandy, both
in the interests of their own profits and because, being
Boers, they desire to destroy the natives ; but the
farmers are too strong for them.
Natal. While the framers of Cape licensing laws have
sometimes begun by stating in the preamble that " the
vice of drunkenness prevails to a great extent," the
Natal laws generally begin by setting forth " the increase
of drunkenness among persons of the native race," and
whites are not within the purview of Natal prohibitions.
There are strong laws in Natal against the sale of liquor
to natives, the brandy interest being less powerful in
that colony than in the Cape. As regards licenses, the
Natal Boards are not even partially elected, like those of
the older South African colony. There is in existence
in Natal a clause permitting the incarceration of persons
for mere drunkenness. Although the brandy interest is
not strong in Natal there is a good deal of rum manu-
factured from the sugar cane upon the coast; and, in
spite of the laws prohibiting the supply of drink to
natives, there is some evasion of the prohibition.
Habits of The . mining population at Kimberley and elsewhere
keeps up a large number of small bars, there called
canteens, such as would not be tolerated in Australia ;
and there is certainly room for temperance legislation in
South Africa other than that directed against drinking
O O
by the Kafirs. The temperance party at the Cape, as
has been seen, accuse the Dutch farmers of desiring to
exterminate the Kafirs by means of drink ; but it is a
remarkable fact that in the Orange Free State the
Dutch are following the inhabitants of Natal in trying
to prevent the sale to natives, rather than the example
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 455
of the Cape in permitting it without practical re-
striction.
The vineyards of South Africa, which used to produce
good wine, and which might largely supply European
markets in the present day, have been turned into
brandy farms, without, however, having succeeded in
manufacturing a grape brandy which can compete with
French Cognac.
Memorials have been presented to the Colonial
Office from Churches, from the Bishop of London,
and from great numbers of temperance bodies, pro-
testing against the granting of licenses by the Cape
Government for the sale of intoxicating drinks in the
Transkei ; but the Cape Government in their reply
stated that, while they were willing to give the Secretary
of State information, they did not "for a moment
acknowledge the right of irresponsible bodies, such as
the Aborigines' Protection Society, to interrogate the
colonial Ministry, who are responsible for measures under-
taken by them within their constitutional rights." There
can be no doubt that public interference from home is
useless, although the Church of England, the Wesleyan
Church, and the Presbyterians of Scotland may be able
to do much by acting upon the Churches in South Africa
with which they are in communion. At the same time
the influence of the Churches has already availed to
modify the Cape proclamations as to the Transkei,
and the sale of spirits to natives is now forbidden
except where permits are obtained from local officers.
In Crown Colonies generally there is the same Crown
variety of legislation with regard to intoxicating liquors
that prevails in other matters. In many Crown Colonies,
as, for example, Barbados, the Leeward Islands, and
St. Vincent, there is general Sunday closing. In
456 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vi
Bahamas there is Local Option, though hotels in
districts where the ordinary sale of intoxicating drink
is stopped are allowed to sell it to their guests. In
some Crown Colonies, as, for example, Mauritius and St.
Vincent, the sale of intoxicants to minors under fifteen
is forbidden, while in Bahamas, Malta, and others the age
is fixed at sixteen. In Cyprus there are no restrictions.
The sale of strong liquor to the dark-skinned popula-
tion is carried on in West Africa to a large extent,
and revenue is derived from it. In Bechuanaland the
sale of spirits and wine to natives is forbidden, though
beer is specially allowed ; in Zululand, as in Natal,
Kafir beer is alone permitted, while in Basutoland the
prohibition is general in its terms. In Fiji the sale
of drink to natives and half-castes is forbidden, and
natives and half-castes are punished if they make use of
intoxicants or even have them in their possession. As
regards Protectorates and spheres of influence, Great
Britain and the United States attempted at the African
Conference at Berlin to check the liquor trade on the
West Coast of Africa, but, through the opposition of
Germany and France, the proposed clause in the pro-
tocols was dropped. At the same time our own West
African colonies, like the Cape of Good Hope, are, as
has been seen, offenders in this matter. I have not
named the colony of Ceylon in this connection, or
written as yet of the case of India, because the temper-
ance party complain that in those countries the State
is promoting the sale of spirits, for revenue purposes
a question which is a different one from those which we
have been discussing. To this matter I will turn after
putting forward a few general considerations on colonial
liquor legislation.
While English and Scotch colonists are generally
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 457
friendly to Local Option, and are gradually extending colonial
its operation, and while in some colonies the settlers j^Lio
of Irish race are disposed to concur in their views,
in others there is opposition from a section of the
Irish, who, in Australia, are closely connected with the
liquor trade, and in all the colonies the German
settlers are opposed to modern liquor legislation. The
dislike of the Germans to local interference with their
beer-drinking habits is so strong that it is thought that
they may not improbably quit districts which put down
the sale of beer for others in which it is permitted. In
some districts of Iowa they have prevented the enforce-
ment of the prohibitory law, but in other parts of the
United States there are great numbers of Germans
inhabiting districts which are under Prohibition. As
regards the other races, the clergy of all denominations
who take in the colonies, as has been seen, but a
slight part in political questions, and indeed hardly any
except upon the education question and the one which
forms the subject of this chapter are strong supporters
of temperance legislation, and use their power to the
full in the direction of Local Option.
Another point which is worthy of some notice is that wine-
while the power of local Prohibition is being freely fnTSo-
given, and while the party in favour of general Pro- hl
hibition is growing stronger every day, in most of the
colonies the prohibitive legislation makes special and
exceptional provision for the extension of the colonial
wine trade. It will indeed be curious to see whether
that wine-growing which has a future in Ontario, and
the possibilities of great extension before it throughout
the Australasian colonies, will modify the prohibitionist
sentiment, or whether wine-producing countries export-
ing spirituous liquors to all parts of the world can
458 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
become or remain prohibitionist as regards home
consumption. Formerly South Australia was the
wine-producing colony, but now Victoria stands first
and New South Wales second, while the other colonies
are also producing wine ; and if in that which was once
pre-eminently the wine-growing colony the Cape
public feeling is opposed to temperance legislation, this
cannot be said to be the case in the Australasian
colonies, and in the wine-growing parts of Ontario.
supposed It has too easily been thought of late in England
Local that the Local Option legislation of the colonies has
been proved a failure. No doubt in some parts of
Canada it is less popular than it was. The present
Lieu tenant-Governor of the North -West Territories in
the Keport which I mentioned has told the Dominion
Government that the sympathy of many of the settlers
is against the Government upon the question of Pro-
hibition. No doubt the Scott Act has gone out of use
in districts where it had previously been put in force,
and no doubt, also, in many parts of Canada and of
Australasia there is evasion of the law, while everywhere
it is difficult to stop an illicit liquor traffic in sparsely
settled countries ; but in Australasia, at least, there is
no sign of a desire to repeal the Local Option Acts^-
on the contrary, the whole political movement sets the
other way, and such Acts are yearly being strengthened,
or introduced into colonies where they had not previously
been in existence. The legislatures of New Zealand and
of several Australian colonies have, too, taken steps
which are likely to be effective in preventing evasion of
the law. Local Option is also spreading in the United
States, and total Prohibition by means of general State
laws polls a large minority of votes. While, however,
American and Canadian example may as yet be doubtful,
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LA IVS 459
Australasian example and opinion cannot be quoted upon
the side of resistance to Local Option views.
The Liquor question in Ceylon and India is different India and
from that which has been discussed above. There is ey
no prohibition of sale of drink to the dark-skinned
population ; but various licensing systems are in force,
which are opposed by the temperance party as being
calculated to stimulate the sale of drink to natives, for
revenue purposes. Not only, in short, is nothing done
to stop the sale of drink, but it is alleged that Govern-
ment does its best to increase it, or is at least tempted
in that direction by the systems which it has continued
or set on foot. The House of Commons has, after full
debate, condemned the liquor policy of the Indian
Government as leading to the establishment of the
liquor trade, in defiance of native opinion and against
the protest of the inhabitants, in places where it did
not formerly exist, and, by giving facilities for drink,
causing a steadily increased consumption, with conse-
quent evil results to the population. There can be no
doubt that almost all recognised organs of native opinion
support the view taken by the majority of the House of
Commons, and Indian religious opinion has been called
into play to support the action of the temperance re-
formers. The Indian systems of excise raise for Govern-
ment a large revenue upon the local sale of foreign
liquors and upon the manufacture of country liquors ;
and this revenue is one which is growing fast ; while
the example set formerly by the East India Company,
and now by our Government, is being imitated in native
states by princes who, under British advice, are glad
by this means to increase their revenue even against the
religious feeling of their people.
The statements which have been made by the temper-
460 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vi
ance reformers have been sharply denied by many repre-
sentatives of the Indian Government, but the denials
hardly meet the points which have here been briefly
stated. At the same time it is not true that, taking India
through, there has been a recent adoption of an evil
system, for even in the time of the Company revenue was
raised by a liquor-farming system ; and the Government
argue that the increased consumption of liquor, where
there is an increase, is owing to improvement in wages
and increase of industrial employment. It is doubtful,
according to writers who support in this matter the
Government view, whether a general increase in the
consumption of strong drink has in fact taken place,
because while a great deal more liquor becomes the
subject of duty than was formerly the case, it is supposed
that there is less smuggling and illicit distillation. Mr.
Gust has stated that " the great increase of the Excise
in recent years really represents much less liquor sold,
and an infinitely better regulated consumption than the
smaller Kevenue of former years. . . . The great increase
in the Kevenue, which is unquestionable, does not mark
the extension of drinking habits, but is the result of a
great and general increase of the rate of tax, which it
would have been entirely impossible to realise but for
the great improvement in the preventive measures."
The Government assert that in raising the liquor taxes
they have intended to check consumption, but the Indian
National Congress has, by a unanimous vote, condemned
the existing system ; the House of Commons has con-
demned it ; and the Government of India will be forced
to devise a liquor system less contrary to the drift of
modern opinion than any of those which have, it may
be admitted, long existed within the territories which
they govern. While, however, it would be easy to
CHAP, vi LIQUOR LAWS 461
sacrifice the Indian revenue from liquor, it is difficult to
see how, without enacting absolute prohibition (such as
exists in the North-West Territories of Canada) of the
importation, manufacture, and possession of drink, illicit
distillation could be prevented in such a country as
India.
India forms no exception to the general principle Restriction
that restriction of the sale of intoxicating liquors glinf^ ei
finds more and more favour every day throughout^
Greater Britain.
PAET VII
FUTUEE EELATIONS BETWEEN THE
MOTHEE-COUNTEY AND THE EE-
MAINDEE OF THE EMPIEE
PART VII
FUTURE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MOTHER-COUNTRY AND
THE REMAINDER OF THE EMPIRE
ON the 15th November last, at a meeting at the Mansion- Present
House to receive Mr. Parkin, who has recently spoken of the n
for the Imperial Federation League in all parts
Canada, as well as in Australia and New Zealand, P r P sals -
Lord Eosebery and other speakers adopted a more
moderate programme than that which has been some-
times put forward in the name of the League. Lord
Rosebery, indeed, receded from at least one sugges-
tion formerly made by himself. He explained a
" fatal " objection to his own scheme for introduc-
ing colonial representatives to the House of Lords,
as well as the " double objection " to the idea of
introducing such representatives into the House of
Commons an idea, however, which he, in common with
Mr. Forster, the parent of the League, had been con-
sistent in condemning. He showed that the extension
of the Privy Council by the inclusion of the Agents-
General, as proposed by Lord Grey, was a matter of
extreme difficulty, and that the project of a Zollverein,
or customs union, was by no means a practical proposal
towards the consolidation of the Empire. On the other
hand, Lord Rosebery (followed upon the point by Lord
Carnarvon) maintained that we already possess a form
VOL. II 2 H
466 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vn
of Imperial Federation inaugurated by the Colonial
Conference of 1 8 8 7. One of the chief speakers, declaring
that the Conference had made recommendations upon
matters which concerned the common good of the Empire,
exclaimed, amid the cheers of the members of the League,
that " if that was not Imperial Federation," he did " not
know what is." At a later period in the meeting a
resolution was carried to the effect that a series of such
gatherings as the Conference of 1887 would tend to the
consolidation of the Empire, and that it was undesirable
that a long interval should elapse before another con-
ference was summoned ; and Lord Carnarvon, in second-
ing the resolution, declared in the name of the League
that " all that they claimed and desired was that the
question " [that of Imperial Federation] " which was
excluded at the last Conference formally and deliber-
ately, and no doubt wisely, excluded should not be
excluded in the future." The resolution was supported
by Mr. Parkin, the orator of the League, fresh from the
triumphs of his eloquence in Canada and Victoria,
and from his total failure in New South Wales ; but
not one word did Mr. Parkin say of that which those
who went to hear him most expected the willingness
of the Australian colonies to act upon the principles
formerly suggested by Mr. Forster and other officers of
the League, or even to support the moderate platform of
Lords Eosebery and Carnarvon.
Themoder- In face of the limited programme now put forward
gramme, by the authorised exponents of the views of the Im-
perial Federation League, it is useless to discuss at
length the projects which have been sketched by
ingenious persons for the reconstruction of the Empire.
The League now asks only for a series of conferences at
which the subject of Imperial Federation is, though not
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 467
proclaimed as the chief matter of discussion, not to be
actually tabooed. The conferences cannot be frequent
if colonial Prime Ministers are to attend, or even
colonists of the second political rank. Moreover, Sir
John Downer and Sir Samuel Griffith did not improve
their position in their colonies by their visit to England
in 1887 ; and it will be difficult indeed to persuade the
statesmen of Queensland and New South Wales and
South Australia to attend at all in London. Again, the
exclusion of the subject of Imperial Federation from the
debates of 1887 was made at that time an actual con-
dition by New South Wales and some other colonies ;
and it is by no means certain that those colonies would
be represented, even by their Agents-General, if it were
not again excluded. As matters stand it is almost
certain that Queensland, for one, would not attend a
conference called upon the Carnarvon base, and it is
possible that she would decline to attend a conference of
any kind. It may, however, be conceded that a fuller
form of Australian federation must soon come, and that
the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, the United
States of Australasia (to use the Victorian and South
Australian name), or British States of Australia (to use
Sir Henry Parkes's name), the Cape, and New Zealand,
if she were still outside the Australian federation that
is, all the self-governing colonies possessing responsible
institutions might, after Australian confederation, be
willing to attend.
How far the credit for the Conference of 1887confer-
belongs rightly to the Imperial Federation League, and
how far to Mr. Stanhope, it is difficult to say. The
suggestion came from the former, but Mr. Stanhope
himself and the Cabinet seem to be entitled to praise
for the manner in which they overcame the difficulties
468 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
presented by the question. As I have often attacked
a portion of Mr. Stanhope's proposals upon the army,
I am the more willing to declare that his circular
calling the first Conference was admirably conceived,
and that he deserves the highest approbation for having
seen in advance exactly what could and what could
not be done. When sufficient time has passed to
make it possible again to obtain the presence in London
of colonial statesmen of position not inferior to that
of the representatives at the Conference of 1887, no
doubt a further conference might be called, especially
if Australian federation had become complete in the
meantime- a conference which might lead to useful
common legislation, and even possibly, though that
is far more doubtful, to such a discussion upon the
general future relations of the Empire as might clear
the air.
Future The first and most difficult subject which must be
treated at all such conferences is that of defence, which
I reserve for separate discussion in the next chapter,
merely pointing out that the difficulties of the question
will be lessened after Australian federation, inasmuch
as there would be little trouble in dealing with
the group, compared to that of facing the separate
Parliaments of Queensland and New South Wales.
Besides defence, however, there are no doubt many
matters in which a closer union of the component parts
of the Empire is not only desirable, but possible of
attainment ; such, for example, as posts, telegraphs and
cables, steamship subsidies, patents, currency, weights
and measures, census and statistics, extradition, natural-
isation, judgments, criminal law, commercial and mari-
time law, law of status, courts of appeal, loans, and
many others. Although this list of subjects avoids the
PART viz FUTURE RELATIONS 469
most difficult, namely, common revenue, common con-
trol of foreign affairs, decision as to peace and war, and
the conduct of wars, still it includes some of high
importance. In posts and telegraphs, already discussed
at the last Conference, but most imperfectly, the Empire
is behind many other portions of the world. The fact
that English agencies should be in the habit of sending
to the Continent letters and newspapers intended for
their clients in the greater portion of the British
Empire, in order that they may be posted there at
cheaper rates, and the fact that the cheaper postage
from some foreign countries to India leads to circulars
intended for parts of Greater Britain being printed, as
well as posted, abroad, are not creditable to us. German
letters to almost all portions of the British Empire out-
side the United Kingdom cost about one-half the sums
which have to be paid upon English letters to the same
places. These are matters which ought to be settled by
agreement in London between the mother -country,
India, and the colonies.
The subsidies of steamship lines, and several other
subjects that I have named, are also essentially matters
for agreement ; but it is doubtful whether we in
England are yet in the frame of mind for conceding
to the colonies and to India their due share in con-
trolling the policy of the Empire even upon secondary
questions. It seems hardly noticed at home that we
are not in the habit of admitting the colonies to
freely legislate even upon all matters which con-
cern their own home affairs. We may take for an
example the divorce Bills which have been recently
passed in several colonies, and the first of which was
vetoed because inconsistent with home ideas, although
the legalisation of marriage with the deceased wife's
470 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
sister has after a struggle been permitted in Canada
and Australia. In this and many other matters too,
while the legislation has been at last allowed, it has
been consented to in a grudging spirit ; and I believe
that the wife of a most distinguished late Agent-
General, legally married though she was according to
the colonial law, was not long since treated in England
as though her marriage had been an English one and
consequently illegal. On the other hand, the Minister
of a foreign Court who was here at the same time, and
whose wife was his own niece, which was legal accord-
ing to the laws of his country, found no difficulty in
securing the reception of his wife at Court. In other
words, that is still recognised in the case of foreign
countries which is refused to our colonists in matters
which are supposed to be entirely of domestic concern.
Colonial judgments, too, are still treated in the United
Kingdom as though they were foreign judgments.
Loans and One of the most difficult of the subjects which I
financial j -i -i
federation, have named in my list is that of loans, and I cannot
but think that the fact that the mother- country (which
has the fewest public assets to show for her heavy debt)
has the best credit, in itself points towards a general
financial federation of the debts of the whole Empire.
This matter has been sometimes raised in connection
, with the subject of defence, because the savings which
could be made for the colonies, by means of a consoli-
dated debt resting upon the credit of the whole Empire,
might be used for defence purposes. No means so sure
could be found of popularising in the colonies the con-
nection with the mother-country as that of giving them
the direct advantage of cheaper money ; and although
our own credit stands immensely high at the present
moment, it rests upon a less sure basis as regards the
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 471
future than does that of many of the colonies to which
we still deny the right of obtaining trust fund invest-
ments. Even the most heavily indebted of all the
colonies has been shown to possess a substantially sound
financial position, as well as magnificent prospects for
the future. No doubt the giving of control to the
whole Empire over the borrowing of a colony is difficult,
but I cannot believe that it transcends the resources of
our statesmanship. Mr. Gresswell has discussed this
matter with ability, and has powerfully put forward the
advantages of financial union, which is further recom-
mended to us by the fact that the colonial debts are
mainly in British hands, and are more and more becom-
ing one of the chief resources of the investors of the
mother-country.
Although the President of the Imperial Federation A customs
League now puts aside not only projects for close U1
political union, but even those for the creation of a
customs union or Zollverein, many of his supporters by
no means reject the possibility of a customs union. It
is, however, necessary to point out that most of the
colonists who agitate for what they call a commercial
union or customs union mean something very different
from what we call by the same names. When our mer-
chants ask for it they express their wish to secure a better
market for our goods by getting rid of colonial tariffs,
and for this end some of them are willing to adopt
protective measures against the outside world ; but the
colonists repudiate the idea of relying largely upon
direct taxation to make up a deficiency in their customs
revenue. What the Canadians ask for is that we should
concede advantages to colonial goods over the goods of
foreign countries, and many of them distinctly explain .
that they would not admit British manufactured articles
472 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vn
into Canada without duties. They propose, however, to
subject them to duties somewhat less heavy than those
which would be levied upon foreign goods. Two schemes
have been put forward, which are in fact the same,
one for an additional duty throughout the British
Empire upon all foreign goods the money to be spent
upon imperial defence ; the other for a reduction of
duties upon British and colonial goods in colonial ports,
accompanied by differential treatment of foreign as con-
trasted with colonial goods in home ports. Both these
proposals involve Protection in England in a greater or
less degree, and as they have been repudiated by Lord
Eosebery, the President of the League, they possess
little importance for the moment except that it must be
understood that they lie behind the Canadian suggestions
for a conference upon imperial union. There was a
debate in 1889 in Canada upon commercial intercourse
between the mother-country and the colonies. It was
introduced by the Canadian advocates of Imperial
Federation, and their proposals met with considerable
public favour, although there was a disposition on the
part of the leading men to avoid committing themselves
to a somewhat indefinite movement.
Mr. Mr. Hofmeyr's scheme put forward in connection
with the Conference of 1887, for "promoting a closer
union between the various parts of the British Empire
by means of an imperial tariff of customs," was less im-
portant on account of its intrinsic practicability than on
account of its author's position in South Africa, where,
as has been seen, he is the politician of the greatest
power, the leader of the Dutch party, and the maker
and unmaker of Cape Ministries. Mr. Hofmeyr's scheme,
which may be brought up at a future conference by the
Canadian delegates, is to promote an imperial tariff of
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 473
customs, to be levied independently of the duties payable
under existing tariffs on all goods entering the Empire
from abroad ; and the revenue derived from the new
tariff is to be devoted to general defence. As Mr.
Hofmeyr is the leader of the Afrikander party, to
which has been imputed a desire for separation from the
British Empire, it is important to notice his words : "I
have taken this matter in hand with two objects : to
promote the union of the Empire, and at the same
time to obtain revenue for the purposes of general
defence." Mr. Hofmeyr declared that by his scheme he
wished to counteract what he called " territorialism," or
the tendency of local interests to bring about the disin-
tegration of the Empire. He instanced the West Indies,
where the planters find themselves unable to sell their
sugar profitably in British markets, and consequently
look to the United States, but fail to make arrangements
with the Americans on account of imperial treaties. A
feeling natural] y arises in favour of annexation to the
American Union, as the attachment of the West
Indies to the Empire becomes opposed to the self-
interest of a portion of the inhabitants. This state of
things Mr. Hofmeyr thinks would be remedied by differ-
ential treatment. So, too, in the case of Canada, Mr.
Hofmeyr points out that if she asks for partial or
complete commercial union with the United States we
can concede it or refuse it, but that the dissatisfaction
which would be aroused by refusal, and the dependence
upon the United States which would result from the
concession, would be equally dangerous to the unity of
the Empire.
With regard to defence Mr. Hofmeyr showed that
subsidies by the colonies to the mother -country for
naval defence may be said by objectors, as in Queens-
474 PROBLEMS OF GREATER^ BRITAIN PART vn
land, to constitute taxation without representation or
"Tribute," but that the colonies might consent to
indirect taxes of such a kind as admitted their right
to greater fiscal privileges within the Empire than are
accorded to foreigners. Mr. Hofmeyr proposed a 2 per
cent all round duty, raising a revenue of between seven
and eight millions sterling to be devoted to naval defence.
In answer to opposition, founded upon free-trade prin-
ciples, Mr. Hofmeyr argued that his proposed duty is no
worse than differential duties, kept up, not for the sake
of promoting trade between colony and colony, but
between a colony and a foreign State the Orange
Kepublic. Grain imported into the Cape from Australia
pays duty, while that imported from the Free State, a
foreign country, pays no tax whatever. The former
reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United
States was another instance of the same kind. Mr.
Hofmeyr meets the very serious objection that his
proposal would be an infraction of the most-favoured-
nation clauses of our treaties by suggesting that in
future treaties we should draw such a most-favoured-
nation clause as would allow us to give special privileges
to our colonies. Some of the French colonies are forced
by the mother -country to give special privileges to
French trade, and French most-favoured-nation clauses
are held not to be violated by the provision. Mr.
Hofmeyr tried to meet the free-trade arguments as to
taxing the food of the British working man, and as to
taxing the raw materials of British manufactures, by
suggesting that at the present moment the taxpayer of
the United Kingdom has to maintain almost single-
handed the army and navy of the Empire, while under
the Hofmeyr plan the burden would be divided.
Mr. Hofmeyr's position, power, and character render
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 475
his scheme interesting, as it shows the leader of the The
Afrikander party, of all prominent colonial statesmen, of
one of the most zealous on behalf of the Imperial idea ; verem *
but it gains practical importance by the fact that it
receives countenance from Canada, and will probably be
put forward by Canada at some later date. Any form
of Imperial Federation proposed by Canada will be
Imperial Federation upon a protectionist base, the
popularity of which in the mother -country will be
problematical to say the least. Moreover, it will, as has
been shown earlier in the present work, not admit the
goods of the mother-country and of India freely to the
colonial markets, because it is of the mother -country
and of India that protected manufacturers are the most
afraid.
The crux of Imperial Federation lies in this tariff Difficulties
question. The British Empire for customs purposes common
consists of a great number of foreign and almost hostile ta
countries, and it is as difficult to conceive the whole of
the colonies becoming free - trade communities as to
expect the mother-country to become protectionist. under
such temptation as the Canadians could hold out to her.
We have not yet been able to reduce to harmony, or to
found upon a base of principle, the tariffs even of those
Crown Colonies in which we are all-powerful, and there
seems indeed but little hope of the adoption of a
common system for the Empire as a whole. In declaring
"that a Zollverein is by no means a practical proposal
towards the consolidation of the Empire, Lord Kosebery
no doubt thinks that any commercial union tempting the
mother-country into the paths of Protection is impos-
sible, just because colonial protectionists are more anxious
to keep out the goods of Great Britain and of India
than those of any other portion of the world ; but he
47 6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
perhaps also feels that, were it possible of attainment,
such a Zollverein would be opposed to our best hopes
for the future of the world. Instead of doing ourl
utmost to break down the barriers between peoples, we /
should be setting up new ones which would help to *
parcel the globe into three or four great systems of the \
future, shut off from, and hostile to, one another.
Decisions The Conference of 1887 was merely consultative,
and, distinguished and powerful as were its members, its
decisions were not binding until they had been ratified
and adopted by the Parliaments of the various colonies
which were affected by the arrangements made. Sir
Samuel Griffith took a leading part in the Conference,
Queens- and he was Prime Minister of Queensland ; but it will
be remembered that the Queensland Parliament rejected
the Defence Bill and turned out the Ministry. This
seems an additional reason, besides others which have
Local been given, why the extension of the federal system
Deration. throughout the various groups of which the Empire is
composed should precede the series of frequent confer-
ences looked for by Lord Rosebery and Lord Carnarvon.
It matters perhaps but little, from this point of view,
whether Newfoundland should join or should continue
to refuse to join the Canadian Dominion, or whether
New Zealand should permanently stand aloof from
Australia ; because the more detached are New Zealand
and Newfoundland from the colonies in their neighbour-
hood, the more certain are they to lean steadily upon
the imperial connection. But the case is different with
the colonies of the Australian mainland, and little indeed
can be done in the direction of consolidation until New
South "Wales has joined, under one system or another,
the colonies which send representatives to the Federal
Council of Australasia. It took Switzerland 557 years
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 477
to grow from a league of perpetual alliance into a con-
federation, and progress in such matters cannot be rapid ;
and it is difficult to say that Lord Salisbury's letter of The
July 1889, declining to summon a meeting of represent- Salisbury
atives, from various parts of the Empire, to consider spomience.
the possibility of establishing a closer union, was at the
time unwise, although its form was open to misconcep-
tion. The previous declarations of Mr. Smith and Mr.
Stanhope in favour of Imperial Federation, and the
paragraph pointing to it in the Queen's Speech of
September 1886, are to some degree in conflict with the
later declarations of Lord Salisbury.
While the Conservative Cabinet have toned down General
their opinions in favour of Imperial Federation, the ofThTneed
Imperial Federation League itself, although it has for caution '
never changed its official programme, has, as we have
seen, also shown a tendency towards some modifica-
tion of its views. Nothing can be more catholic than
the tone which has always been exhibited by its official
organ, a paper which has been conducted with an
impartiality which might with advantage be extended
in political discussions. Imperial Federation has, how-
ever (while it has always given fair play to all sides),
sharply criticised the writings of those who have asked
disagreeable questions bearing upon the possibility of
the adoption of a close union, such as the question how
the Federation would deal with customs, or, if taxation
was to continue to be treated locally, with the refusal
of a member of the confederation at any future time
to provide money for imperial defence. Then, too, some varieties
of the Executive Committee of the League have put
forward elaborate schemes for close union diametrically
opposed to the views now enunciated by others among Leagu
their number. Sir Frederick Young, for example, has
478 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vn
written strongly in favour of colonial representation
in the Imperial Parliament, a scheme which Mr.
Forster, the first President, discouraged and which
Lord Eosebery, the present President of the League,
has condemned. Sir Frederick Young, writing before
Home Rule Home Eule had been taken up by the Liberal party,
' frankly admitted that true federation would necessitate
the creation of local Parliaments in the various portions
of the United Kingdom, and that " Viceroys " "in Lon-
don, Edinburgh, and Dublin " must be supplied with
executives composed of advisers taken from the local
Houses.
The discussions on Home Kule for Ireland have
indeed, at a later period, somewhat weakened the influ-
ence of the Imperial Federation League, although its
speakers and its organ have been most careful to avoid
committing themselves upon the question. The fact
that Lord Eosebery, the President of the League, is in
favour of Home Kule for Ireland has been a weakness
to the League in Victoria, where the prevailing senti-
" imperial- ments are what is commonly styled " anti-Irish "; while,
curiously enough, at the same time the fact that the
majority of the Committee of the League are Conserva-
tives, and that it uses the word "Imperial" in that
phrase " Imperial Federation" which I believe was first
invented by a Eadical, Mr. Edward Jenkins has been
against the League in New South Wales and Queensland,
where there exists at present a terror of the word " Im-
perial." Such an institution as the Imperial Federation
League is necessarily exposed, in the present stages of
the discussion which it has raised, to differences of
opinion in its ranks, and to the publication of much
which is "viewy" and "amateurish;" and when Mr.
Froude, Professor Seeley, and Sir Eawson Eawson the
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 479
most competent of judges were set to allot prizes given
by the London Chamber of Commerce (the secretary
and founder of which is on the Committee of the League)
to the authors of essays upon Imperial Federation, the
result of their performance of their difficult task was the
selection of prize essays containing arguments mutually
destructive.
One suggestion which is in the air, though it has The
not yet, I think, been made in print, has grown out of
the relations between the Irish Home Eule party and
some South African imperialists, which arose from the
contribution given by Mr. Khodes to Parnellite funds.
The idea which has been broached is that of a permissive
Federation the establishment of a federal system, to be
brought into being at once as regards England, Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, of which colonies, or federated
groups of colonies, might severally become members by
applying for admittance upon certain terms. In order
to be allowed representation in the imperial as con-
trasted with local Parliaments, the colonies making
application would have to contribute towards the cost
of the common army and marine ; for the authors of the
plan (to which I daresay Mr. Parnell is in no way bound)
intend to leave the fiscal system to each federal Province.
The suggestors of this scheme couple it, however, with
the adoption of the Hofmeyr or some similar plan, by
which Canadian wheat (Indian they forget or do not
name), Cape wine, West Indian sugar, and Australian
wool would come into the United Kingdom on terms
slightly more favourable than those accorded to the
wheat of the United States, the wine and sugar of the
European Continent, and the wool of South America.
Besides the difficulty of obtaining the adhesion of Great
Britain to such a protective scheme there are diffi-
4 8o PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
culties upon the colonial side. It would be possible that
New Zealand might apply for admission to the Federa-
tion, the whole of Australia remaining out, and that
under the irritation which would arise New Zealand
might become an Italy to Australia's France. Canada
and Ireland, however, might conceivably agree in
suggesting such a scheme, and it is this which gives it
some importance.
Power of It must, I think, be admitted, whatever the political
n ' opinions or predispositions of those who deal with the
question, that, even supposing that the obstacles to a
customs union could be avoided, the conduct of foreign
affairs and of wars would offer immense difficulties under
a federation covering enormous distances, unless it were
accompanied by an increase of the power of the Crown.
If the Australians and the people of the United Kingdom
were willing to give to the Crown in military affairs and
in foreign affairs the same predominance which is assigned
to it under the Austro-Hungarian constitution, or by the
practice of the German Empire, no doubt many diffi-
culties would be at an end ; but the assent of the people
of the United Kingdom, of New South Wales, and of
Queensland to such a system would be doubtful, to say
the least.
colonial It seems of little use to discuss the details of schemes
for the future government of the Empire, involving a
closer connection between the mother-country and the
colonies than that which exists at present, unless colonial
feeling generally would tolerate an attempt to draw
more taut the ties that bind the component parts of
the Empire to one another. In the chapters on the
self-governing colonies it has been shown that many of
the leading colonists and distinguished politicians that
Greater Britain has produced are in favour of Imperial
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 481
Federation ; but it has been seen that some of the com-
munities they represent on other questions seem on this
one disinclined to follow their lead, and that in the last
two years there has been in the eastern Australian colonies Recent
a marked change in the direction of opposition to the
idea of Imperial Federation.
It is generally assumed in Great Britain that the sub- Australia.
ject of Imperial Federation is one regarded with much
interest by colonists, while some think that there is in
the colonies a positive enthusiasm for the cause. As a
fact the majority of Australian colonists are disinclined
to trouble their heads upon the question, and, when
they are forced to do so, treat the suggestion as a dream,
in much the same way in which we are inclined to behave
towards ideas of Anglo-Saxon reunion. The references
made to Imperial Federation by those of the leading men
of Australia who are in favour of it are not taken up by
popular feeling, and their authors are often looked upon
as politicians of the past or ridiculed by the press for
adherence to impracticable views. The feeling of the
Australian democracy is that the existing bond with the
mother-country may be one not actually hurtful to the
colonies, and, if it does no good, a matter of no great
consequence ; but there is an unwillingness to discuss
changes in the direction of strengthening the tie.
Among the older settlers the leaning towards closer
relations with the mother-country is connected with a
conservatism in politics and in matters of property
which places them out of sympathy with the ruling
democracies of the Australian colonies ; while the native-
born Australians look upon imperial affairs with a
languid interest, and are apt to turn impatiently from
their discussion to matters which to them are more real
and of more practical importance in their lives. The
VOL. II 2 I
482 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
bond between the old land and the new is more and
more regarded as a sentimental tradition, and less and
less as one of the facts of politics.
The late Mr. W. E. Forster seems to have come in
contact chiefly with the leading men of the Australian
colonies and those belonging to the land -holding and
commercial classes, and the views held by the parent
of the Imperial Federation League are not shared by
those who have a more general acquaintance with
Australia. It is doubtful, for example, whether a well-
informed colonial governor, such as Lord Carrington,
would be found to share the confident belief of
some that the ties between the mother -country and
Australia can be drawn much closer. The undertones
Lord of Lord Carrington's speeches seem to show that he
n " shares the views of Sir Henry Parkes and Mr. Dibbs,
the leaders of the two parties in his colony, and that he
expects Australia to grow out of her allegiance to the
Empire, and sees that the tendency among her population
is towards independence. In laying the foundation-
stone of the new Houses of Parliament at Sydney
during the Centennial festivities Lord Carrington said,
" In years to come Australia will be taking her place
among the nations " ; and although he insisted upon the
advantage to Australia, which for military reasons the
connection will continue to possess so long as the popu-
lation of the new continent consists only of a few
millions, his language seemed to point to the independ-
ence of Australia when those millions have expanded
into numbers sufficiently great to hold their own against
the world. Although for commercial reasons Canada is
less hostile, as a whole, to a closer union, the Canadian
speeches of Lord DufFerin and Lord Lome contained
many similar phrases. Now most Australians think,
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 483
and rightly think, that they are already able to hold
their own if united among themselves by a closer
federation. Canada and South Africa, on the other
hand, are exposed to local difficulties and dangers which
are likely to hold in check the sentiment of independence ;
but a federation of the Empire without Australia would
be as lame as a federation without India, while the
difficulties of obtaining Australian consent are now as
great as those of devising a system under which India
can be brought in to take her share in the government
of a democratic empire. It is probable that Australia
will soon be united against the rest of Greater Britain
in trade matters ; brought into Australian federa-
tion on the basis of protective duties directed against
the mother -country and against India. Commercial
estrangement will in this case work against that union
which the necessities of defence alone would, for a time,
continue to promote.
Australia is gliding by insensible degrees into a Australian
national life, and, while an alliance between herself and "Sty. 11 '
the mother-country on the present conditions may long
continue, any active attempt to replace it by a tighter
hold is likely to be dangerous. The Centennial Magazine
of Sydney in June 1889 published an article on the
future of the Australasian colonies which is looked upon
as having been representative of the sentiments of the
young Australians, and the article was itself a Prize
Essay at the University of New South Wales. The
argument of the article was that the present relations
between Great Britain and the colonies were not only
anomalous, but also unlikely to be permanent, inasmuch
as the colonies were exposed to be precipitated into war
and to have their trade destroyed in a cause of which
they might know nothing and care nothing. The author
484 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vn
maintained that the relationship of Australasia to the
United States was as close as her relationship to Eng-
land, and that the Union had as great a right to the
friendship of Australasia as had Great Britain. He held,
therefore, that the relations of the countries could not,
in face of this fact, be decided by sentiment, but only by
considerations of self-interest, while he maintained that
Great Britain was by reason of her geographical position
and of her hold on India so deeply involved in Con-
tinental complications that the interests of Australia
made for separation.
Queens- Such views are so widely spread in Queensland as
New South we ll as m New South Wales that it is unlikely that the
Wales. Governments of those colonies would consent to take
part in negotiations intended to draw closer the bonds
which unite the mother-country to the colonies. To
summon a conference of the colonies upon Imperial
Federation, as suggested by Sir Charles Tupper, would
be likely to produce a refusal from these two colonies ;
and to enter upon steps pointing to an Imperial Federa-
tion from which large portions of the Empire would be
omitted would be a mistaken course. The difficulty
may be removed by the creation of a real Australian
federation, for in Australia as a whole there is less
unwillingness, and a federal Government could be
more easily sounded in advance than can the separate
colonies. Mr. Parkin, when on his recent journey on
behalf of the Imperial Federation League, was well
received throughout Australasia, except at a public
meeting in Sydney ; but he made few converts, and Im-
perial Federation is now very generally described in the
eastern colonies of Australia as " the subjection of Aus-
tralia to England." Mr. Patchett Martin has said, prob-
ably with truth, that no body of practical politicians in
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 485
Australia will ever seriously contemplate a legislative
union between Australia and the mother-country. As
regards the greater portion of Australia, a good deal of
difficulty will be found in establishing, even for defence
purposes, a closer connection with the mother-country.
Lord Knutsford has consistently maintained on
behalf of the home Government that any proposals for
union must come from the colonies themselves, and
must follow rather than precede complete Australian
federation ; but there are friends of Imperial Federa-
tion in Australasia who consider that Australian federa-
tion will be a step away from instead of a step
towards imperial unity. Imperial unity would seem,
however, to be impossible as long as the Australian
colonies are consulted one by one. It has been assumed
in England that the recent declarations of Sir Henry
Parkes in favour of Australian union constitute a " new
departure " ; but the Prime Minister of New South
Wales went little farther in his recent utterances than
he had already gone two years ago. It is clear from the
words with which he accompanied his suggestions that
he looks forward to Australia, like Canada, remaining
what has been called "a Federal Kepublic within the
Empire," without any closer union. Sir Henry Parkes
has, for all practical purposes, abandoned the suggestion,
which he made in a Keview article some years ago, that
the British States of Australia should be represented
on a council sitting in London, if by representation
anything real is meant ; while he undoubtedly con-
tinues to adhere to the view he then expressed that the
functions of Governors should become ceremonial, and
be unaccompanied by the practical use of the suspensory
power as regards laws.
To summon a conference upon Imperial Federation
486 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
destined to show that it could not be brought about
would be a step in the wrong direction, and Lord Salis-
bury will be justified in refusing to call a conference
until Australian federation has become complete.
The Sir Julius Vogel, who was one of the first colonial
secession, statesmen who advocated Imperial Federation, has
written in favour of declaring to the colonies at a Con-
ference that the breaking up of the Empire by the
secession of a colony or colonies would not be allowed,
and has hinted that the real object of some of those who are
pushing forward Australian Federation is to interpose a
barrier to the consolidation of the Empire. I cannot agree
with Sir Julius Vogel that a break-up of the Empire will
be facilitated by Australian Federation. At the present
moment there is a risk of a declaration of independence
on the part of Queensland, and there can be no doubt
that federation gives Victoria a great deal of power in
preventing such isolated action by a single colony. If,
on the other hand, the dominant feeling in Australia as
a whole should at some future time become favourable
to complete independence, it is certain that the mother-
country would not attempt to coerce united Australia
into remaining unwillingly in the connection.
Canadian Canada has been named above as being less un-
view. n . ,,
inendly to the idea of closer union than Australia, but
it must not be imagined that even in Canada the way is
clear for Imperial Federation. While the old United
Empire feeling, which is still strong in the Dominion,
leads some to a real wish for imperial union, they are
but a minority unless joined by the representatives of
the Canadian democracy at large. Such willingness to
ally themselves to the cause of Imperial Federation as
has been found among the Canadian electors is largely
based upon the desire for a wider market, and when it '
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 487
is seen, as there is reason to fear must be the case,
that commercial union is as little practical as Lord
Rosebery has already called it, this main support of^
the imperial unity idea in Canada will fall away. Then, /
too, many of the strongest friends of Imperial Federa-
tion among the Canadians of English, Scotch, and
American -Loyalist race are strong Protestants, and
the discovery that the Roman Catholic Church is and
will continue to be politically predominant in large
portions of the Dominion is alienating them from
the Empire ; so that a most distinguished Unionist
writer the best judge of British colonial feeling that I
know, although I do not share all his views has spoken
of " a time when the British Canadians will link . their
fortunes with the people of the United States, if that
should appear to them the only method of overcom-
ing and amalgamating the foreign element in their
midst." The French Canadians are divided upon the
question of Imperial Federation, Mr. Laurier being
more or less in favour of it, while Sir Hector Langevin
is more or less unfriendly, and Mr. Mercier violently
opposed to it. Generally speaking, the Canadian poli-
ticians have not held steady and uniform language upon
this subject. Sir John Macdonald and Mr. Blake,
formerly leader of the Opposition, have each of them
been quoted upon both sides, while Sir Charles Tupper,
who now suggests a convention for the discussion of
Imperial Federation, was formerly, I believe, hostile to
the idea. It must be accepted as a fact that both the
Canadian Governmental party and the Canadian Opposi-
tion are divided with regard to closer union ; but Sir
John Macdonald and his friends may be said to take
the view that federation is desirable if possible, but is
of doubtful possibility, and that the Empire will con-
488 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vn
tinue to exist whether it federates or whether it does
not. Sir John Macdonald is a member of the Imperial
Federation League, and has put out a scheme of imperial
defence based on the idea of the supply by the Dominion
and by an Australian federation of auxiliary armies and
fleets paid for by themselves ; in fact,' the old-world idea
of contingents. Meanwhile Canada is taking a practical
step towards imperial unity by sending a leading
member of the Upper House to Australia on a mission
for the promotion of commercial relations between Aus-
tralia and the Dominion.
New The dominant opinion in New Zealand has long been
opinion, opposed to Australasian and favourable to Imperial
Federation. In a debate of 1885 both the present Prime
Minister and the present leader of the Opposition,
although belonging even at that time to different parties,
declared that Imperial Federation was possible and
would come, but seemed to think that it would
come only after the Imperial Parliament had created
State legislatures for the principal parts of the United
Kingdom. Sir Eobert Stout, the former leader of the
Liberal party, is also, like Sir Harry Atkinson and
Mr. Ballance, a strong supporter of United Empire.
Mr. Parkin When the Canadian orator of the Imperial Federa-
tion League lately attempted to convert New South
Wales, in which colony I believe there exists no such
formal organisation of the League as is to be found in
most other colonies, he met with a bad reception. At
his Sydney public meeting, although he had the
support upon the platform of members of the two
Houses who like Mr. M c Millan, the Finance Minister
are by no means strong supporters of Imperial
Federation, there were few persons present in the body
of the hall except avowed opponents. Mr. Parkin's
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 489
lecture was a good deal interrupted ; and when he sat
down a resolution was moved by a member of the
Upper House, and seconded by a member of the Lower
House, to the effect " that the inevitable destiny of the
Australian colonies is to unite and form among them-
selves one free and independent nation." The Chairman
refused to put the motion on the ground that it did not
concern the purpose of the gathering, and the meeting
terminated in disorder. While the Liberal and Eadical
papers of the colony condemned Mr. Parkin's views, the
Conservative Morning Herald gave him but cold
comfort. It declared that the reports of Mr. Parkin's
reception in New South Wales would be read in England
with " surprise and disappointment," but that it was
w r ell " that in matters of such importance no illusions
should be entertained " ; and it ascribed the " patent "
fact " that within the last few years the opponents of
closer union even the advocates of separation have
gathered courage . . . and taken an aggressive attitude"
to the New Guinea and Pacific questions, and to the
indifference of Australians " to interests that lie outside
the Australian world." Mr. Parkin afterwards spoke to
meetings less open to the colonial public, and was
charged with having changed his tone by suggesting a
union on a democratic basis, in which Great Britain would
be only a junior partner or vassal state, never to move
hand or foot except by previous colonial permission.
The Australian Star, after this, assured Mr. Parkin that
he would have to find " a different kind of salt to shake
on the emu's tail."
Much light was thrown upon the feeling in New The
Western
South Wales with regard to the future relations of the Australia
mother-country and the colonies by the already-named
debate on the Western Australia Bill, which took place
490 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
in the Assembly at Sydney about the middle of
1889. Sir Henry Parkes, Mr. Dibbs (the leader of the
Opposition), and Mr. Traill, who took part in it, all
looked forward to the speedy creation of a united
Australia, independent or semi -independent of the
mother-country, and all looked upon Imperial Federa-
tion either as a dream or as possible only by union upon
equal terms. Sir Henry Parkes not only put forward,
as I have said, the doctrine of "Australia for the
Australians," but urged the right of Australia, without
reference to home opinion, to decide what the future of
every acre of the continent shall be. He went out of
his way to say that he could not bring himself to agree
with that theory of Imperial Federation which had been
promulgated by very eminent men at home, for the
more he thought upon it the more sure he felt that
there could be no federation "by a great central
power with a number of weaker powers." The
leader of the Opposition on his part declared that he
looked forward to the existence of a different form of
government in Australia, under which she would spring
from the position of a dependency to that of an inde-
pendent state, and maintained that Australia was already
as closely bound to England as could ever be the case.
The next speaker, Mr. Traill, the representative of the
independent protectionists, agreed with the Prime
Minister and the leader of the Opposition so far as he
did not go beyond them. It seems clear that, if we call
on New South Wales to give us her view of the future of
the Empire, she is likely to agree with Queensland in
suggesting the selection of Governors by the people, and
the abolition of the practice of suspending Bills for
consideration at home, and to make no proposal for
closer union.
PART viz FUTURE RELATIONS 491
In Victoria, where he met with a far better reception victoria.
than in New South Wales, Mr. Parkin's chief difficulty
was the one already named that Lord Kosebery, the
President of his League, was a Home Kuler. The
dominant party in Victoria, who are in theory favour-
able to the idea of closer union in the Empire, form,
as has been seen, a coalition defending secular educa-
tion, which of necessity has an anti- Roman Catholic
and therefore an anti -Irish tinge. The conservative
papers in Victoria, especially the Argus and the
Australasian, were, nevertheless, generally friendly to
Mr. Parkin's mission, while the democratic papers,
notably the Age and the Leader, expressed the view
that matters are well as they are, and that a closer
connection is not needed. Moreover, the representatives
of the colonial workmen seem to think that Imperial
Federation is an upper class movement, chiefly favoured
by the Court and aristocracy, and this view is calculated,
if Federation is strongly pushed, to arouse among
colonial artisans a separatist agitation. Mr. Bent, who
has occupied a high position among the minority in
Victoria, has declared that the majority of the native-
born population, even in this most loyal of Australian
colonies, look forward to something very like ultimate
separation ; and it must not be assumed that in the
event of a consultation of colonial opinion the dele-
gates of Victoria would be able to disassociate them-
selves from those of New South Wales. The colonies
represented on the Federal Council of Australasia would
probably adopt a common attitude, and this would of
necessity be a compromise between the opinions of
Victoria and of Queensland. It is still possible that in
the event of a dangerous war, not unjust, but forced
upon the mother-country, a wave of enthusiasm might
492 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vn
sweep across Victoria and some other portions of
Australia; but all would depend upon the manner in
which the circumstances of the day presented them-
selves to the men who were at the helm. The recent
anti-Chinese agitation throughout Australasia has shown
clearly that the Australians are determined that if the
imperial policy comes into conflict with Australasian
interests the latter must prevail. Alliance with China
is important to the Empire, but Australia declines to
consider that importance, and insists upon having her
own way not only in fact but in form. This considera-
tion is by no means encouraging to the prospects of a
closer union.
The Cape. The proposals of Mr. Hofmeyr have been already
dealt with ; but it must not be supposed that those are
the only proposals that have been put forward from
South Africa for imperial union. Mr. Merriman has
adopted Lord Grey's suggestion for creating from the
Agents-General a council of advice for the Secretary of
State for the colonies. He admits that it will, if
adopted, diminish the office of Governor of a colony to
an ornamental sinecure ; but he values the opportunity
for bringing the colonial Ministry into direct touch with
the imperial Government. Mr. Merriman points out,
what is very true, that to some extent the change has
already taken place, although he regrets that the new
practice is only adopted by favour and out of courtesy,
and not as of right.
TheAgents- The suggestion of the creation of a Council of the
General. * ^ ,
Agents-General may be taken in connection with that of
the election by the colonies of their Governors. This change
is advocated only in Australia, and Australian federation
upon the Canadian plan will give the colonists the virtual
election of the Provincial Lieutenant -Governors, the
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 493
Viceroy alone being named by the Ministry in the
United Kingdom. Mr. Patchett Martin, 1 who is favour-
able to colonial selection of Governors, has also put
forward some practical suggestions which are of value,
as, for instance, the gradual elevation of the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council into the place filled by
the Supreme Court of the United States, and the
admission to it of a fair proportion of colonial legists.
The colonial title "The Honourable" should be used on
formal occasions by our Government for colonial Minis-
ters when in England, as it is recognised in the colonies
themselves. Something might be done to draw the mother-
country and the colonies together by offering appoint-
ments in the Civil Service and by extending the system
of offering employment in the army and navy to young
colonists, by giving colonial governorships to distin-
guished colonists of other colonies (as was done in the
case of Sir Ambrose Shea), and by drawing closer the
ties which bind the colonial universities to the old
English universities. There is more hope about such
schemes than attaches to the larger systems of imperial
union which have been devised.
The creation of a Council of Agents-General would A Council
bring out the fact that the colonies, as a rule, have at General S
present little interest in one another's business ; but no
such objection can be offered to an improvement in the
position of the Agents -General. The practice might
spring up of inviting Agents -General to attend meet-
ings of the Cabinet when matters are under discussion
on which their advice might be useful, just as generals
about to proceed to take command of armies in the
field, as well as law officers of the Crown, are invited,
from time to time, to ministerial meetings. Sir John
1 Australia and the Empire, by A. Patchett Martin : Edinburgh, David Douglas.
494
PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vn
Gorst has wisely said that closer union should be
looked for in the more intimate concert of execu-
tives, for change is hardly sought except as regards
defence and foreign policy (being impracticable as re-
gards tariffs), and defence and foreign affairs are chiefly
dealt with by executives. In many little matters, too,
the position of the Agents -General might be better
recognised. They should be treated as ambassadors as
regards taxation, while at the present time many of
them pay income-tax twice over. Their formal consti-
tution as a Council is a more doubtful matter, for no
one who knows Sir Henry Parkes would like him to
feel that he was ruled by a Victorian ; and Sir Arthur
Blyth, another distinguished Agent - General, like Sir
Graham Berry of Victoria, has strong opinions on
Australian questions, though not the same opinions.
A colony may be disinclined to allow the mother-country
to declare that a thing cannot be done on account of
imperial interests or imperial treaties, but each colony
would admit the validity of such a declaration from the
mother-country more readily than she would tolerate
interference from the representatives of other colonies.
At the same time, while it is difficult to make a Council
of the Agents-General, there is no reason why we should
not give them a nominal position which would corre-
spond in dignity with the services that they already
render. They are, in fact, taken individually, among the
most trusted of the councillors of the Empire, and those
who have held for some years the position, and who have
had the confidence of successive Governments, might well
be placed formally in the Imperial Privy Council.
NO pro- It cannot be said that the idea of imperial unitv has
spect of , . ..
fun con- made rapid progress of a practical kind. The idea is
far from modern. It was pointed at as regards Canada
federation.
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 495
by Adam Smith, and put forward by Montgomery
Martin in his history of the colonies published before
the present reign, to which, it is perhaps worth notice,
both Her Majesty the Queen and Mr. Gladstone were
subscribers. It is useless to underrate the difficulties in
the way. Mr. Seeley has written of England proving
" able to do what the United States does so easily,
that is, hold together in a federal union countries very
remote from each other." But the territories of the
United States, with the exception of Alaska, which has no
population, are contiguous territories; and even Professor
Seeley seems inclined to " exclude India from considera-
tion. " He thinks that the British Empire of the future will
be far stronger than what he calls the "conglomeration" of
races " which we call Kussia." But the vast majority of
the people of Kussia speak one tongue, and the Russian
territories are contiguous. I, too, think that the British
Empire of the future will be stronger than even the
Russian Empire, powerful as that is ; but its strength
will not be promoted by attempts to force the Australian
colonies into an imperial union for which they are not
prepared. It may be conceded that in Australia itself
there may possibly come a change in the direction of
closer union. The Maritime Provinces of British North
America rejected by large majorities the confederation
resolutions but a short time before the Dominion became
a single power ; and New South Wales and Queensland
may possibly come to see their interest in union. If
such changes should take place at home as may put an
end to Irish disaffection one enormous difficulty in the
way of closer union will have been removed, for in
Australia the Irish difficulty both in Queensland and
in New South Wales upon the one hand, and in Victoria
on the other stops the way.
496 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
Existing I shall deal in my concluding chapter with some of
tweeiT those ties, increasing in strength by the operation of
paSTof the natural causes, which at present hold together the British
Empire. Empire. A certain association between the various
parts of the Queen's dominions is produced by the habit
of wealthy men from all corners of the Empire to not
only visit, but often settle in London ; and some of our
political and constitutional usages facilitate the merger
of distinctions between the various parts of Greater
Britain which takes place when the Queen's subjects leave
one part for another part of the countries that are under
her rule. The fact that gentlemen like Mr. Ghose, coming
from even those dependencies of the United Kingdom
which do not enjoy representative institutions, obtain
the suffrage and the right to sit in Parliament (although
they have as yet failed to secure election) when they
come to England, forms a bond throughout the Empire
that may grow in strength with time. It is a singular
fact that the Hindoos and Mohammedans of French India
have votes in India and lose their votes if they come to
France, whereas the Hindoos, Parsees, and Mohammedans
of British India who have no political votes in India
possess votes in the United Kingdom when they fulfil,
as many of them now do, the conditions of property
or residence which are required by law.
Practical A most thoughtful paper read before the Eoyal
befrinVon 8 Colonial Institute by Sir Graham Berry has suggested
steps which might be taken in the way of a closer union
for defence, and Sir Graham Berry, like Mr. Service,
has declared that the Australian colonies should be pre-
pared to bear some of the burdens of the Empire, which
have hitherto almost exclusively fallen upon the " some-
what overweighted shoulders " of the old country. Sir
Graham Berry saw that, as regards Australia, local
PART vii FUTURE RELATIONS 497
federation must be preliminary to satisfactory arrange-
ments upon the larger matter, because each successful
federation reduces the number of different and prob-
ably conflicting opinions upon the subject. I shall
deal in the next chapter with the details of defence,
but the present difficulties may be seen from the con-
sideration of the fact that the moderate proposals of
the Conference of 1887 are now known in Queensland
as the "Naval Tribute Bill." Strong declarations have
been made that Queensland will never suffer itself to
be taxed by any body outside of Queensland, or even by
its own representatives, by way of contribution towards
moneys, any part of which is to be spent outside its
boundaries. Not only was Sir Samuel Griffith defeated
on his return from the Conference on the very ground
of his " Imperialism," but it is doubtful whether, after
what took place in Queensland, the Naval Defence Bill
could have been carried, at a later moment than that
chosen, in the adjoining colony the mother-colony, New
South Wales.
Victoria goes farther in the direction of federa-
tion for imperial defence than do the other Australian
colonies ; but since the days when the Bill of the
Conference of 1887 was carried by all the Australian
legislatures except one, Australian Nationalism has
become a party cry. It- would be difficult to induce
Australian Parliaments, with the possible exception of
the Parliament of Victoria, to contribute towards the
support of the general defensive power of the Empire,
and measures of defence will have to be presented to
them as being merely what Mr. Wise has called " the
most economical method of preserving their own shores
from hostile attack."
An attempt was made not long ago to unite some
VOL. II 2 K
498 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vn
hundred young Australians and New Zealanders in
residence at the two old English universities in favour
of a scheme for the organisation of the Empire as a
naval confederation, controlling a fleet paid for and
manned by all portions of the Empire ; but little came
of it; and the Australians at Oxford and Cambridge,
even had -they agreed upon such a scheme, could not
have been held to represent the opinions of Australian
democracy. So great, however, is the importance of the
defence problem that it must be considered in a
separate chapter.
PAET VIII
IMPEEIAL DEFENCE
PAKT VIII
IMPERIAL DEFENCE
THE defence of Canada and of Australia has already seif-
been treated in the first two parts of this work, and i
has been shown that Australia is in a position to defend
itself from any attack that is likely to be brought
against it, while the Canadian Dominion could not, with
our present means, be defended at all against the United
States. The Australian troops now number something-
like 30,000 men, or 40,000 with those of New Zealand,
but these are divided into local forces, at present tied
to their own ground ; while Canada possesses some
36,000, under a single military organisation, aided by
an excellent system for training officers.
It is to be hoped and to be expected that in Australia Australia,
powers will speedily be obtained for simplifying the
command and enabling the forces of one colony to be
moved if necessary into another without difficulties con-
cerning discipline. The Australians are, however, to be
congratulated upon what they have already done, and
especially upon the perfection of the local defences of
Melbourne the best defended commercial city of the
Empire. In his recent report to the War Office, Major-
General Edwards, after inspecting' the forces and the
defences of the whole of the colonies, discouraged
volunteers, as unsuited to the colonies, encouraged the
5 02 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
" partially paid " militia, and proposed an extension of
rifle clubs. He pointed out a general deficiency in the
Australian supplies of reserve rifles for arming increased
forces in the event of sudden war. The proposals for
the future included the organisation of the forces of
Queensland and of South Australia in the form of a
brigade from each, the Queensland field brigade to be
united into a division in time of war with the northern
brigade of New South Wales under the Queensland
commandant, while the South Australian brigade with
the western brigade of Victoria would form a division
under the South Australian commandant. The five
colonies of the Australian mainland have among them
about a thousand permanently and fully paid regular
soldiers to work their big guns and to manage their
mine -fields and torpedo defences. These will doubtless
ultimately be formed into an Australian fortress corps,
and will take charge of King George's Sound, Thursday
Island, and Port Darwin, as suggested in the report of
Major- General Edwards.
Tasmania The defence of New Zealand and Tasmania is in a
and New
Zealand, less satisfactory position than is that of the Australian
continent, and except so far as Port Darwin is for the
present exposed to occupation they are more likely
to be attacked. In New Zealand the configuration of
the coast necessarily scatters the defending troops and
exposes to the enemy the railway system of the colony ;
and the coal-fields of the Westport district, which yield
perhaps the finest steam-coal of the world, are open to
seizure. General Edwards has reported of Tasmania " if
the isolation of Western Australia and Port Darwin is a
menace to Australia, the position of Tasmania is still
more dangerous . . . and it might even become necessary
to send troops from the other colonies to protect It in
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 503
time of war. No enemy could seriously threaten
Australia, until he had established a convenient base
near at hand, and such a base he would find in Tasmania
with its numerous harbours and supply of coal." It is a
curious fact that General Edwards' useful report attracted
but little attention in Great Britain, and was not printed
by the newspapers of the mother -country although it
had appeared in the colonial press.
In the event of a war in which the United States Canada,
was neutral, Canada would be able to strongly garrison
the important station of Vancouver Island, and would
be able and might be willing to supply a contingent
of brave troops for imperial service. The three groups
of colonies comprised under the names of British
North America, Australasia, and South Africa have of
drilled men a force of over 80,000, besides rifle clubs
and cadets. The defence of India against the possible India -
advance of Eussia has been already treated in detail,
and it now remains to examine the conditions of the
defence of the Empire as a whole, and to try to find
some general principle for our guidance.
A school of naval officers, not without support from Naval
some authorities connected with the army, are accus-
tomed in their writings to maintain that we should be
safe if we put our trust in the dominion of the sea alone.
They seem to assert that the navy is not only the first
" line of defence," but the sole defence that is of value ;
and an impression is conveyed to the public mind that
as the navy ensures the food supply of the British Isles,
an inability on its part to perform its duties wquld at
once reduce us to submission and to payment of the
penalties that defeat would bring, including perhaps the
surrender of colonies. The deduction is not unnaturally
drawn from this argument that money spent upon
504
PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vin
fortifications, except slight works to resist stray cruisers,
is thrown away, or at least diverted from the only
important end the increase of the fleet.
Blockade We have been invited to believe that it is possible
enemy's to make of the enemy's coast our frontier, and to so
ports ' blockade the whole of his ports that it would be impos-
sible for his fleets to issue forth. I was present in May
1888 at the Koyal United Service Institution when
Admiral Colomb read a paper upon blockade with
special application to wars past and possible between
Great Britain and France. He appeared to recommend
the blockade of all French ports and a fleet in the
Channel in lieu of land defences. As Sir Charles Nugent
showed in reply, the Admiral's policy implied or required
a superiority of naval force which we do not possess, and,
I may now add, which we shall not possess even when
the recent proposals for additions to the navy have been
carried out. In four years' time we shall have the ships
which were ordered in 1889, and probably enough guns
for them as well as for our fortifications, but with an
insufficient reserve of guns for a great war. At the same
time, the French are spending ten and a half millions
sterling a year upon the services under the Ministry of
Marine, and although these figures include a certain
amount of colonial expenditure, they are, on the other
hand, reduced by the existence of a naval conscription,
so that we must always remember that France is far from
standing still.
One of Admiral Colomb's chief supporters in the dis-
cussion which followed the reading of his paper admitted
that under present circumstances, and under any which
could be foreseen as likely to exist for a considerable time,
if we went to war with France alone we should be unable
to maintain a blockade, and should be compelled to with-
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 505
draw from Egypt, abandon the command of the Medi-
terranean, and uncover Malta either to a blockade or to
an attack in force. The difficulties of blockade in these
days of steam, stated by me in a recent work, 1 have
been illustrated by the naval manoeuvres of 1888 and
1889. In the former year it will be remembered that
although the blockading squadrons possessed a consider-
able superiority in force the blockaded ships escaped
with the greatest ease, and the blockaders found them-
selves at once obliged to concentrate for the defence of
London. Then commenced that harrying of our coasts
by an enemy of inferior strength which aroused indigna-
tion among such persons as put their faith in the
humanity of modern methods of war, and startled the
dwellers on the banks of the Clyde by practical demon-
stration of the fact that their homes might be desecrated
even on a Sunday morning during church time.
It may be admitted that there is always a tendency The navy
among military engineers to over- fortify the countries
in which they are allowed a free hand. Vauban
himself built far too many fortresses even for an age
when a siege was regarded as a pleasant relaxation from
the hardships of campaigning in the open field. In
1888 the French war ministry decided that portions of the
new French frontier had been over-fortified and would
lock up garrisons which would be more useful as part
of the field army. Still, there is no sign of the Germans
allowing the works of either Metz or Strasburg, or of
their eastern fortresses, to decay, nor of the French
selling the forts of Paris as building sites, however
valuable the ground may be on which they stand. As
with land fortresses so with coast defence, and it is
perhaps enough to say that the responsible authorities
1 The British Army, pp. 374, 375. Chapman and Hall, 1888.
5 o6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
at the Admiralty are of all people the most urgent in
their insistence that the fortifications now in progress at
the coaling stations should be carried out, that the
commercial ports should be defended from the shore, and
that the fortification of the arsenals should be improved.
It is the naval authorities rather than the War Office
who have laid down the conditions under which coast
defence and the defences of coaling stations should be
provided, and the works which are being built are in
fact the creations of the navy, though erected by the
War Department.
Blockade In 1888 the blockaded fleets escaped, and in 1889
the manoeuvres proceeded upon the principle that it had
been proved that an active enemy would be able to
escape unless shut in by an overwhelming force, such
as against France we could not now supply. The
proportion which the British fleets bore in the man-
oeuvres of 1888 to the enemy's fleet was, roughly
speaking, that which our fleet in European waters
bore to the French fleet at home. The fastest ships
of the supposed enemy broke out, joined others,
conducted raids, and forced the British admiral to
raise his blockades and to sail for the Channel and
the Thames. He was helpless, because the enemy might
either have brought a superior force to bear against one
of his squadrons, or have broken up into units, to trace
and follow all of which by ships of superior size would
be impossible. If, however, London had been able to
take care of itself for a week or two, Admiral Baird
might have acted with greater boldness, and followed
the enemy, destroying or capturing such ships as he
could catch. There could hardly be a better instance of
the need for fortification and coast defence, or a better
warning against neglecting to provide them in the
PART viir IMPERIAL DEFENCE 507
degree suitable to each case. The result of the 1888
manoeuvres has been that the Admiralty have continued
to press for the completion of coast fortifications, and of
the protective measures that are being taken at the
coaling stations. In 1889 the British admiral
gave up the policy of blockade, and adopted that of
masking the enemy's fleet. It became clear that under
such a system the full protection of British commerce,
without a vast increase in the number of our fast cruisers,
would be impossible.
It cannot be said that the naval manoeuvres of either Defence
1888 or 1889 have been encouraging to those who desire stations 8 ^
to leave all defence to the navy. We have hitherto con- the navy-
sidered the home case, but shall form, I think, the same
opinion if we look abroad. British travellers who con-
sult the superior officers of our fortresses across the seas
as to their ability under present circumstances to defend
the posts committed to their charge, receive an answer
which might be stereotyped : " With existing means
we could not hold out long against a serious attack, but
we trust, of course, to the protection of the fleet." Sup-
posing such combinations against us as are now within
the sphere of practical politics, and upon the dread of
which the present Government are rightly acting in
their increase of armour-clad line-of-battle ships that
is, supposing two naval powers to unite against us, of
which one was the second naval power of the world
our whole fleet, even when the new programme has been
completely carried out, will hardly be more than equal
to those of the second naval power and another power
(other than Italy, the third). It is clear, and now I
think admitted, that we could not blockade their
squadrons, which would require a superiority, according
to the report of the umpires upon our naval manoeuvres,
508 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
such as we do not possess. The fleets of our enemies
will be free, and the ordinary laws of strategy will govern
the situation. Either the enemy will succeed in concen-
trating a superior force against an inferior force of ours,
or we shall successfully carry out an attempt to do so
against the enemy. In either case there must be concen-
tration by us at a spot which the enemy will try to avoid,
bringing his force to bear where we are weak. Instead
of the fleet defending Malta and Gibraltar, we should
be more likely to see those fortresses abandoned by our
ships, forced under present circumstances to meet in
home waters for purposes of home defence.
Proposed I do not for a moment question the statement that
defence by the British navy is fully able to defend the United
Kingdom if it is concentrated in home waters. Nothing,
however, in war is more certain to be ultimately fatal
than to relinquish the power of the initiative and of
attack. If our fleets are to be concentrated for home
defence they must abandon the remainder of the Empire,
of which only some portions are able to defend them-
selves, and we must sooner or later be ruined or partially
starved in the British Isles. The abandonment of Greater
Britain would involve the destruction of our commerce
and would be as severe a blow to the Empire as the
invasion of England and capture of London itself. When,
therefore, the naval school which I have mentioned
points to supposed facts in proof of the contention that a
superior naval force in home waters could defend the
country against invasion, I have only to ask what is the
practical application of this platitude to a scheme of
defence of the British Empire. If we were to concen-
trate at the Nore and in the Channel a fleet superior in
strength to those of two European powers, they would
not be mad enough to attack our huge armada, but
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 509
would sweep our cruisers from the ocean, capture our
merchant ships, direct expeditions against our coaling
stations and our colonies, and destroy the whole edifice
of that commerce by which the population of the
United Kingdom is supported. It would not have been
necessary to argue this point at all but for a ridiculous
tone of triumph in which some have pointed to the
manoeuvres of 1889 as proving a proposition which no
one in his senses has denied.
To go no farther from our own shores than the channel
Channel Islands, we find in them a part of the Empire Islands -
which is either to be given up in the event of a war with
France or to be entrusted to our overburdened fleet.
The little army known as the Channel Islands militia,
and based on general liability to military service without
pay, has been recently described by a competent French
critic in the Revue Militaire de VEtranger as a mere
paper force ; and the armament which has been laid
down as necessary for the Channel Islands has not
been provided. It seems to be thought that, in the
event of a war with France, ships detached to protect
the islands, even if they could be spared, would be
exposed to being caught in a trap, and to be under-
stood that no defence will be attempted, the view
having been taken by the authorities that if the French
beat us they would insist on the cession of the islands,
and that if we beat the French the islands would be
restored to us in the treaty of peace. Public opinion in
England is, however, probably not prepared to accept
the private decision upon this point of the high
authorities, and the loss of the Channel Islands at the
beginning of a war would be visited on those who had
so managed the defences of the Empire as to make it
certain.
510 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
increase of While the statements which I have made concern
the navy. ^ p resent anc [ the immediate future, there may be
those who think that by a great increase of the navy it
would be possible to so meet the difficulties of blockade
that we might revert to the policy (scientifically admir-
able if it be only possible of adoption) of blockade. No
doubt it was the old English naval principle to consider
the coast of our enemy as the first line of defence, and
to protect at once our commerce and our shores by
shutting up the hostile fleets in their own ports. This
policy would need, if we had two possible enemies only,
a fleet at least one-third greater than ours will be at the
close of the new period of construction, and even then
the chances would be against the permanent success of
the blockade. The independence of wind and tide
which steam procures, the difficulty of coaling at sea in
rough weather, the invention of the torpedo-boat, the
advantages as to information and communication which
squadrons possess when in their own ports, over hostile
fleets at sea, have made the blockade of warships in
these modern days, in my opinion, virtually impossible,
unless the blockaders have something like the superiority
of force which the Great Powers brought against Greece
a few years ago. If one squadron escapes, it steams
. off at once to assist any other squadron, with which it
communicates by telegraph; their joint attack may
overwhelm the blockaders at that point, and the last
state of the country of the blockading fleet will be worse
than it would have been if a wholly different policy had
been followed.
Even with an increased navy, the policy of blockade
to my mind is fatal to the other portion of the
argument of its defenders the sufficiency of the fleet
as a means of home defence. For us safely to
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 511
blockade our enemy we should have to follow the
advice which has already been given to us by some
naval men to double the fleet, and even then make
up our minds to resign the power of efficiently protect-
ing commerce. The exaggerated opinion against which
I am contending is really based on the supposition that
in a future naval war it would be possible for us from
the first to obtain the same overwhelming superiority
at sea which Nelson won for us by the crowning victory
of Trafalgar. No conceivable increase of strength would
be sufficient to make us safe if we trust to naval defence
alone, in face of the facilities for concentration which
steam affords. Moreover, trade is given up in all
such schemes, for it must be remembered that in the
time of our greatest superiority at sea when not only
had we destroyed every hostile fleet, but had impressed
the imagination of the world with the belief that all
attempt to contend with us on the waters must be vain
the capture of British ships, even in the Channel,
occurred daily. In dealing with the problem of the
organisation of the British Empire against a possible
attack, the navy should be estimated at its full value as
by far the greatest factor in defence, but we must care-
fully guard ourselves against the view that, even putting
aside the necessities of India, it can be the sole defence.
Nothing can be more tempting at first sight than the
argument that, as islanders, we have only to keep up a
sufficient fleet to make invasion impossible. Unfortu-
nately, apart from the case of India, the problem of
Imperial Defence is a good deal too complicated to be
solved so easily.
There exists another school which assures us that, by Alliances.
a proper choice of our alliances, our trade and colonies
will be safe, and we ourselves protected against in-
512 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
vasion ; and the adherents of this school generally end
by advising us to join the " League of Peace." We are
assured that without our moving a man of the land forces,
without indeed our possessing land forces of a modern
type, the British fleet would be of vast importance to
German and Italian allies in their international con-
tests, and that Prince Bismarck approves of the notion
of our concentrating our whole attention on the navy.
We have, however, to deal with what is possible, and
Lord Salisbury thinks that it is impossible to find
majorities in the House of Commons or the con-
stituencies in favour of an alliance with the Central
Powers. Moreover, our dangers do not lie in general
European war, but in grounds of quarrel which will not
bring Central Europe into the field.
Work of It i g possible then, I think, to lay down the proposi-
the navy. ^ on \\^(j ^ e nav y niiist be our chief agent in defence,
but backed by fortification and by land forces ; and it is
necessary to consider what would be the tasks confided
to our ocean fleets and cruisers which would form in
war the connection between the various detached por-
tions of the Empire. In these days in which hostilities
spring up suddenly, in order that the attacking country
may obtain the advantage of surprising its opponent, it
is necessary that the British squadrons afloat in distant
seas should be strong enough to hold their own without
reinforcement against probable enemies on the same
Coaling station. The possession of innumerable safe ports in all
parts of the world forms one of the chief elements of our
maritime power. There are few more astounding proofs
of the curious carelessness with which Imperial Defence
was treated some years ago than the fact that the
coaling stations, as they are now called, were left by us
in a condition in which they were unable to protect
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 513
themselves even for the shortest space of time. When,
however, the country discovered in what degree its
vital interests had been neglected in this respect an
almost equally astonishing mistake was made. While
the navy was indeed consulted as to the places to be
fortified, no one asked the question " Fortified against
what ? " After a time, however, the necessary " steps
were taken to request the Admiralty to lay down for
the guidance of the War Office the probabilities as to
the strength of the enemy against which each individual
coaling station ought to be prepared to guard. The
answer showed that we had been overestimating the
necessary works in some places, such, for example, as
Bermuda, and underestimating them in others.
While congratulating ourselves upon the tardy adop-
tion of measures for the defence of coaling stations based
upon naval views it is well to ask ourselves whether there
are other questions upon which the naval authorities
should be consulted by the War Department. The
forts and guns for the coaling stations are being
gradually provided, but the garrisons are weak indeed. Their
I raised this point in writing upon the British army, ga
and it appears that the suggestion of calling for local
levies for the defence of coaling stations has been acted
upon, though tardily. It is obvious, however, to all
who inquire into the provision made for garrisons for
the coaling stations in time of war, that it is still in-
complete, and it is a matter of importance that it should
be settled in time of peace what reinforcement will be
necessary on the outbreak of war, and how it is to be
effected. It is important, for example, that the naval
authorities should know whether they are expected
to undertake the task of conveying or convoying
troops to coaling stations, which would be an addi-
VOL. II 2 L
514 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
tion to manifold duties having to be suddenly per-
formed in a moment of great pressure. The War Office
are a little like the heroes of the novelist who periodi-
cally got their bills together, docketed them with care,
and then went to bed with a consciousness that their
duty to their creditors had been fulfilled. When I
wrote upon the army two years ago I was at first
accused of overstatement, but my criticisms have since
been confirmed by the reports of committees, and by
the admissions of the Secretary of State for War. This
confirmation, however, is but the docketing of the
bills, and as regards many of them we do not seem to
be nearer payment. The matter of the garrisoning of
the coaling stations has been considered, but, as far as
I can learn, has not been settled. The only satisfactory
arrangement will be to have the necessary troops on the
spot in time of peace ; but next to this, if that plan be
in some degree impossible of adoption, it is needful to
arrange with the navy exactly what is to happen in the
case of sudden war. Until the one system or the other
has been adopted for each case the defence of our
coaling stations cannot be said to have been adequately
considered.
Suez or Before taking the coaling stations in detail I must
Cape ? -, , .
touch upon another important question. It is necessary
that we should be clear in our minds as to which route
we are to rely upon in time of war for communication
with the East that by the Suez Canal, or that by the
Cape. In the Mediterranean our enemies in the event
of war might easily be too strong for us. We hold only
Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus, of which the last in its
present state is a source of weakness, not of strength,
possessing as it does no sufficient guns or fortifications,
or garrison for its own defence. We cannot pretend to
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 515
guard trade routes on the Mediterranean, and, unless we
had Italy for an ally, it is probable that we should be
overmatched in Mediterranean waters, at least in the
early stages of a war. The French possess a series of
magnificent bases on the Mediterranean, and would be
able, were they opposed to us, in all probability to force
us to relinquish, for a time at least, the Mediterranean
line. This change would set India, as well as Hong- Kong
and the Straits, much farther off from England, and
would add to other pressing reasons for making the Indian
Empire self-supporting in the matter of manufacturing
war stores, guns, and ammunition for herself and for her
British neighbours. Our interests on that side of the
world are great enough to prevent us from continuing
the present system of supply ; but a frank recognition
of the state of things would also bring out the fact that
the naval authorities are not yet satisfied with the
amount of dock accommodation which they have in
eastern waters. It should be remembered that naval
predominance does not rest on the number of ships
alone, but on the power possessed by them of obtaining
succour and supplies, and the possibility of denying
these advantages to their enemy.
It is clear that a power which commands the sea Suez Canal,
can forbid the use of the Suez Canal to others by
guarding all approaches to it ; but in our case this
would only be an additional task for a fleet already
supposed to be almost ubiquitous. Moreover, it is
not certain that in keeping out our enemies from it
we could preserve the use of the canal for ourselves.
The canal, considered as a means of communication
in time of war, is as delicate as a thread of a spider's
web. A ship or two sunk in it; two or three
charges of dynamite exploded in the portion nearest
516 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
to the Gulf of Suez ; a few torpedoes laid down in
the night none of these difficult matters to manage,
especially when we remember that we are forbidden to
take full military steps for watching the canal would
close the passage against ships for days or weeks, and
would prevent the transport by the Mediterranean of
anything except troops without baggage. It would be
difficult to keep the canal open, even if it lay within
the limits of the British Empire, and the task of guard-
ing it would lock up a considerable force of troops, and
that of watching the approaches to it a portion of our
active fleet. But we possess no special rights as
regards the canal, and have no power to prevent a
dozen merchant ships from sinking themselves in mid-
channel.
When nations have been some time at war the
morality of peace gives way to a desperate craving
for success, and many acts are done which international
law condemns ; but I doubt whether a British Cabinet
would dare to found its system of Imperial Defence
upon such a high-handed proceeding as the seizure of
the canal at the outbreak of a war and the refusal of
passage to all merchant ships except our own. If we
cannot count on the use of the canal for ourselves, we
should have to set aside a portion of our navy in order
to forbid its use by others. We should probably
rather welcome the interruption of this route in war-
time, and base our plans upon making the sea road
by the Cape of Good Hope our main reliance for com-
munication with the East. So much for a war in
which we were opposed by a great naval power. In
the event of a single-handed war with Eussia, and still
more in that of a war in which the United Kingdom
and Italy were opposed to Eussia, the Suez Canal route
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 517
would be of value. Small reinforcements of troops for
India, in the event of a war in which France was not
against us, might go by Egypt ; but the heavy stores of
an army would even then be more safe if sent round the
Cape. At the best, in my opinion, the Suez Canal can
only be an alternative route for war purposes ; and in enu-
merating coaling stations I will begin with those of the
Cape route, although Gibraltar stands first in either case.
The progress of modern artillery has to a certain Gibraltar
extent deposed Gibraltar from its position of pre-
eminence. While ships may still take refuge under the
shadow of The Rock, they would not be safe from bom-
bardment either from the sea or from Spanish territory
A Spanish artillery officer has written upon the subject
a series of articles which show clearly how, in a war in
which Spain was opposed to us, the bay could be closed
to our shipping. Gibraltar, however, is still so important
as a coaling station, and would be so annoying to us if
in an adversary's possession, that we are forced to hold
it or to substitute for it another port of equal value near
at hand. Putting sentiment aside, it is certain that if a
point upon the African coast were equally well fortified
it would be as useful to us as Gibraltar ; but the works
would cost some millions, and take a long time to con-
struct. Besides which, to make Ceuta really strong we
should have to annex a considerable portion of the
mainland of Morocco. As regards defence of Gibraltar
against bombardment from the sea, it can be dealt with
by the transference of artillery to higher levels, at which
the fire of the bombarding ships becomes innocuous,
while the guns of the defence can act powerfully against
decks at present the weakest points in most warships.
It is impossible to add heavy deck armour to the
enormous weights which ironclads carry. They can
518 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
protect their armoured decks against each other, but not
against heavy land artillery directed from considerable
heights and employing curved fire. If the French ever
try to enter Spezia they will realise the truth of what I
say. Old short muzzle-loading guns can be transformed
by us, as they have been transformed by the Italians,
into excellent howitzers for this purpose. The sea
within range would be divided into sections, with the
ranges marked at the batteries, and such defence supple-
mented by a few of the new breech-loaders would make
The Kock as impregnable as ever from the sea. Bom-
bardment of the port, however, from the sea can only
be rendered absolutely impossible by means of an active
defence by torpedo-boats. The French, who have a fine
fleet, as well as a powerful army, have never dreamt of
relying for the protection of any land station upon
naval defence alone, and everywhere proceed upon the
principle that bombardment must be guarded against by
fixed defences supplemented by torpedo-boats. Against
bombardment of Gibraltar from the land there is, owing
to the configuration of the coast, no adequate possibility
of defence, were Spain to join our enemies,
sierra Pursuing our journey to the Cape along the African
Leone. coast we come next to gj erra Leone, passing, however, a
French stronghold upon our way, as well as the tiny
British colony of the Gambia, already almost swallowed
up by her French neighbours. The navy clings to.
the possession of Sierra Leone as a coaling station,
although it is questionable whether, according to our
present plans, it is sufficiently guarded in the event of
war with France. The French have so strong a position
at Dakar that we should find Sierra Leone, where
the civil white population consists, I believe, of only
between one and two hundred souls, a case in which
PART vi 1 1 IMPERIAL DEFENCE 519
naval defence would be called for, and which would
help to cause a scattering of ships, rendering them liable
to be destroyed by a concentrated attack of the hostile
forces. If our naval authorities continue to desire the
protection of Sierra Leone as a coaling station it must
be made self-protecting and receive its war garrison ;
but this is a serious matter in the unhealthy climate of
the central West Coast. ' Sierra Leone is one of the places
which, if it is to be retained as a fortified coaling station,
should receive a full garrison of black troops. It cannot
be considered as now safe, for its small garrison of three
or four hundred West Indian negroes could not defend
it against attack from Dakar, and would need to be
reinforced from what point is not clear. The French
keep in Senegal, considered apart from the remainder of
their West Coast Settlements, about 2250 white troops
and about 2000 native troops, and 250 sailors for the
local fleet. This force of 4500 men is additional to the
sailors who might be landed from the French Senegal
squadron, which would, of course, be available to support
an attack upon our settlements. Sierra Leone has the
best harbour on the West Coast, and, if it were not a
British, would become a French coaling-station.
The Chairman of the Commission of 1878 hasR ep0 rtof
lately said that Sierra Leone is a post which was
after very careful consideration by the Commission
reported to be strategically of high value, situate
as it is half-way between Gibraltar and the Cape,
on the track of our eastern commerce, and close to a
French settlement where there is a large military force.
The advice of the Commission has been so far followed
that forts have been constructed ; but Lord Carnarvon
tells us that there are neither gunners nor armament,
and that, in the event of war with France, Sierra Leone
520 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
would be immediately occupied by the enemy, the forts
which we have built turned against us, and our line
of communications broken. With regard to armament
he urges that neither our home fortresses, nor our
navy, nor our commercial ports are yet supplied, while
the imperial stations abroad are unarmed, although
Victoria, which supplies herself in the open market, has
purchased, transported 12,000 miles, and placed in
position guns of the most recent pattern. Even if
modern guns are supplied to Sierra Leone, the difficulty
of garrison remains, and the guns would only improve
the value of the capture which the French would make.
If it was intended not to garrison Sierra Leone in such
a way as to protect it against Dakar, it was a singular
mistake on the part of the War Office to approve the
report of the Koyal Commission in this respect, and to
sanction the building of the forts ; but if the Commission
was right, then the supply of a garrison is obviously neces-
sary to the defence of the forts which have been built.
Ascension. Ascension may be looked upon as a fixed storeship
of the navy, and is so dependent on the sea that it must
inevitably remain with, or fall to, the strongest naval
st. Helena, power. St. Helena might be made defensible, is more likely
to be attacked than Ascension, and could not be defended
at the present time, for it lacks a sufficient garrison. The
population is scanty and decreasing, and as St. Helena,
from its situation on the Cape route, must be retained,
it is probable that in case of war it would suddenly be
discovered that a garrison must be sent out to it. Here
we meet with another of the tasks which would fall to
our overtaxed navy, and which ought certainly to be
provided against in time of peace. The garrison at
present consists of under 300 men, and the local militia
organisation has been allowed to fall into decay.
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 521
Considered from the imperial, from the Indian, and The cape
from the Australian point of view, as an aid to our Hope,
maritime power, no spot on earth is more important to
us than the Cape with its twin harbours Table Bay and
Simon's Bay. Table Bay is exposed to the wind in
some of the worst months. Simon's Bay is sheltered
against the winds to which Table Bay is open, but is
not a very good harbour, although, on the whole, pre-
ferred by the Admiralty for the naval station. All
other harbours are, however, inferior to this until we
reach Delagoa Bay. Some think that Saldanha Bay, a
land-locked harbour seventy miles north of Cape Town,
once used by the "Alabama," might be seized by a
hostile squadron as a base, and should be fortified.
Whatever use might be made of the Suez Canal in war ;
whether or not we could send troops and stores by that
route to India, it is, as I have shown, certain that we
could prevent states weaker than ourselves at sea from
reaching the canal at either end, provided that our fleets
are not tied to the British Channel by the defencelessness
of the shores of the United Kingdom. But great as are
our advantages at sea, they disappear without safe sup-
plies of coal ; and it must have struck any student of
the naval manoeuvres of 1888 and 1889 how frequently
the ships had to return to harbour for coaling purposes.
If coaling is necessary in a short period of time
spent in the narrow seas, how much more will the
difficulty of want of coal be felt in a voyage of 10,000
miles to Colombo round the Cape ? Every ton . of
armour piled on to ships or added to turrets, every
additional ton weight of guns, every cubic yard filled
with engines and machinery, is so much subtracted from
the power of carrying coal. As a vessel steaming from
British ports for India, or China, or Australia in time of
522 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
war begins to approach the point of exhaustion of its
coal supply it finds itself in a region of storms, far from
any shelter except that at the Cape of Good Hope. The
position of that refuge and the certainty of being, able
to deny it to an enemy, combined with the command of
the Ked Sea route, even if only for the purpose of
stopping it, draws therefore on behalf of England an
almost impassable line on this side of the globe between
the eastern and the western hemispheres.
French Here is the reason for the fortification and torpedo-boat
substitutes
for the defence of Dakar, and acquisition on the part of France of
Diego Suarez. Being unable to break her journey at the
Cape she divides it into sections, and attempts imperfectly
to replace the absence of a footing in South Africa by a
fortified station in the northern tropics of the Atlantic,
and another in the southern tropics of the Indian Ocean
upon the island of Madagascar. Thus France strives to
divide the immense stretch of ocean lying between her
European ports and her possessions in the farther East.
The difficulty which our ownership of the Cape places in
the way of possible opponents, even more than the
refuge afforded to our own ships, constitutes in war the
supreme advantage of the possession of the Cape of
Good Hope as a naval station.
It; * remarkable instance of past imperial careless-
ness that the very principles upon which the burden of
defence should be divided between ourselves and colonies,
and of the proportions in which it should be borne, have
never been settled. We have lived from hand to mouth
as regards South African military expenditure. When we
began to fortify the coaling stations we were met with
the questions whether it was necessary to fortify both
Simon's Bay and Table Bay, and who should pay for
the erection of the works; and a fierce and prolonged
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 523
controversy arose. The Cape, although the most im-
portant, is the most easily defended of all our coaling
stations. The iron-bound coasts of South Africa, as
Lord Brassey has shown, are approachable only at few
places, and the enemy could find no base.
There are now excellent defences at Table Bay,
and at least one modern gun mounted on the latest
principles of artillery science ; while important works
are in course of construction at both Table Bay and
Simon's Bay, and a railway to connect them is all but
complete. The Table Bay harbour and other works
are being constructed, the railway extension to Simon's
Bay made, and the forts erected that are deemed neces-
sary by the War Office and Admiralty all by the
colony, which is also to garrison the forts ; and the
imperial Government are to supply the armament
and ammunition, as to which, as usual, there has been
much delay. Until very lately the dispute between
the home Government and the Cape Government had
left this most important of our stations unguarded, and
even now it is not in an adequate position of defence.
The Cape Mounted Kifles and the police are a fine cape
force, but are none too numerous for the purposes for fo
which they exist, and are not organised for the defence of
works. The Cape Mounted Rifles consist of nearly 800
men with 600 horses ; and the police, who may lawfully
be employed for defence, consist of 800 men, now being
increased to 1000, of whom about one-fifth are mounted.
There are between four and five thousand volunteers,
and there exists in Cape Colony a general liability to
military service, regularised by the Burghers' Force and
Levies Act of 1878, making every able-bodied man
between eighteen and fifty years of age liable for military
service, both within and without the colony. This
524 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
burgher service is intended for fighting against Kafirs,
and does not produce a force readily available for the
defence of coaling stations against European attack.
During the Basuto war the Cape had 18,000 men
under arms; and in 1878 the Cape volunteers were
massed with the regular troops, and fought gallantly in
several engagements on and beyond the Kei river, and
their artillery was commended by the imperial officers
in command. Generals are, however, sometimes forced
to be diplomatic, and home military opinion denies the
efficiency for regular war of the Cape volunteers.
Mauritius. After rounding the Cape we come, in the Indian
Ocean, to Mauritius, which has an admirable harbour
and convenient coaling station. The additional works
recommended by the Eoyal Commission are being built,
and there is a local torpedo service corps directed by
non-commissioned officers from the Eoyal Engineers.
Here again also we find the garrison incomplete in time
of peace. Until lately our defences at Mauritius have
been altogether inferior to those which were thrown up
by the French during the time of their possession of the
island ; and Port Louis was a fortified walled city until
we allowed the fortifications to tumble down. It should
be remembered that, as regards Mauritius, French
military writers count upon a French expedition being
welcomed by the sympathies of a portion of the French-
speaking population. Another warning connected with
the history of Mauritius is to be found in the fact that
the French lost the island to ourselves by keeping there
too small a garrison. We have seen in the Crown
Colonies part of the present volume how fully M. de
Lanessan counts on being able to conquer Mauritius for
France, in the event of war, by means of an expedition
from Reunion or from Diego Suarez.
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 525
Mauritius is so much nearer to India than to
Great Britain that it is impossible not to regret the
centralisation which makes all the coaling stations look
towards England for help. It would seem to be a wiser
system to affiliate them to the nearest considerable posts,
and, without anticipating a closer union of the Empire,
which may one day estimate at its full value and utilise
the military strength of the Australasian and South
African colonies, we might easily place Mauritius in
dependence for guns and stores upon India, at a dis-
tance of little more than 2000 as against 8000 miles.
A larger garrison will, however, be required. Military
calculations should be exact not left as political esti-
mates are left to the gradual development of events,
difficulties being met as they occur. Until the read-
justment of our military centres takes place there
should at least be a complete understanding between
the army authorities and the Admiralty as to how the
garrisons at such remote stations are to be reinforced in
case of war against two naval powers.
Ceylon has two naval stations Colombo and Trin- Ceylon.
comalee. Both are well forward in works and arma-
ment, and the neighbourhood of India in this case is an
additional protection. There is a want of gunners, but
the large number of planters in the island might supply
volunteers in the event of a dangerous war. Additional
trained men are needed for the heavy ordnance.
Eastward from Ceylon lies a portion of the world Singapore.
important to us whether considered in the light of trade
or of Imperial Defence. In time of peace our squadrons
in the China seas are now of sufficient strength, and if
France and Kussia or other powers were to increase
their naval force we could do likewise ; but it does not
follow that hostile powers might not be able, by previous
526 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
arrangement, to concentrate their force against a portion
of our own. There never yet was a war in which even
the winning side did not suffer some reverses, and a
check in the West Pacific, in the China seas or the
Archipelago, would place us in a position of much
danger as regards coaling stations for the remainder of
the war, if Singapore and Hong- Kong, Labuan and
Port Darwin, were left without adequate protection.
Our naval authorities have decided that Singapore
should be strong enough to withstand attack not only
from cruisers but from a squadron of moderate strength ;
and the provision of guns of a new pattern has caused
delay. Money has been freely given towards the works
by the wealthy inhabitants of the Straits Settlements,
and Singapore will help to keep open for the navy and
for trade the shorter passage to the China seas.
Australia. On the south-east, upon the way to Brisbane and
Sydney and New Zealand, between the coasts of
Australia and of New Guinea, Torres Straits claim
attention as an important line of naval communication.
It has been decided to fortify Thursday Island, which,
with King George's Sound, at the other extremity of
Australia, and Port Darwin upon the north, are the
three points upon the Australian continent as to which
there has been some difficulty in providing for defence.
Australia is so large that Port Darwin is unreachable for
military purposes from South Australia which governs
it, and Thursday Island from Queensland ; while King
George's Sound lies in Western Australia, which at
present is neither populous nor rich. Hence has come
the need for making application to the Australian
colonies generally as regards such spots, and the
Colonial Conference did not upon this matter come to
a satisfactory conclusion. The completion of the defence
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 527
of the three places is essential to a full protection of the
Australian trade.
To the north from Singapore or from Australia lie Labuan
Labuan and Hong-Kong, of which the latter is a station Kong.
of high' political, commercial, and strategical importance.
There we are in touch with China, a power with which
it is most necessary to be on terms of friendship, as our
interests in southern and eastern Asia are the same as
hers, and bound up with the preservation of the status
quo. Her strength is our strength, and her alliance in
the case of war would be perhaps the most valuable
that we could obtain. Lord Carnarvon wrote to the
Times, in the course of 1889, to complain that Hong-
Kong still remains armed with guns of low calibre.
The position of the harbour of Hong-Kong is one of the
most defensible in the world, and our trade renders it a
port of such vast importance that, apart from its value
as a naval coaling station, no argument is necessary
with regard to the wisdom of making it secure. When
I was there, now fourteen years ago, the defences were
weak in the extreme ; but since that date, and especi-
ally in the last three years, a good deal has been done
as regards every point except that of garrison. Hong-
Kong has been called the Spithead of the east, for the
anchorage is situate within an island ; but it has
hitherto been a Spithead without the Spithead or Ports-
down forts or the Portsmouth garrison ; and when Sir
William Grossman, who in political life is the member
for Portsmouth, became the designer of the works for
the protection of Hong - Kong, he must have been
struck with the difficulty of defending such a place
with such small means as regards men. There exists a
scheme for recruiting a local battalion from India, in
addition to the local Sikh police, who are so recruited ;
528 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
but I am struck with the time which has elapsed
between the decision that the battalion is required and
its creation. India, as matters stand, cannot spare
troops ; but India under a better organisation of
Imperial Defence would become the eastern centre of
defence from which our garrisons in half the world
would be aided, and upon which, rather than upon
home arsenals, they would depend for their supplies.
Hong-Kong will never be safe so long as it is supplied
and administered from this side of the globe.
The resources of India as a centre for the East have
' been illustrated by the recruiting of the Burmah military
police. 18,000 men have been raised, chiefly from the
North- West frontier and the Punjab, and the majority
of them were raw recruits who had not served previously
as soldiers or policemen. They are under-officered, but,
nevertheless, form a body of singular efficiency, and are
in fact excellent troops.
The cond ition f tn e Indian naval stations, such as
Bombay and Karachi, forms to some extent a portion of
the general question of Indian Defence which I have
treated in the first chapter of this volume. India has
been for six years awaiting 10 -inch breech-loaders
ordered six years ago, and there is as yet no sign of
their arrival. It seems, moreover, important to point
out in the present connection that if any serious damage
should occur to the armament of, let us say, Bombay,
there is no means of repairing it or of manufacturing
a new gun in the Indian Empire. I have already
written of the system of military centralisation which
prevails throughout the British Empire, and is
detrimental to all arrangements for defence. On a
logical system of Imperial Defence India would
possess the dockyards and the arsenals of the British
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 529
East, and the creation of an eastern Woolwich is an
imperial need.
Keturning towards England by the Eed Sea route Aden and
we find Aden, which has long been strong and which has
of late been greatly further strengthened. Happily it
is dependent upon India for its garrison. Aden is in-
deed, although distant nearly 2000 miles from Hindostan,
a part of British India ; although Singapore, which is
nearer to Calcutta than is Aden to Bombay, has been
wholly detached from the Indian system. Would that
the sensible plan which has been adopted in the case of
Aden had prevailed elsewhere in the eastern seas. While
Aden is strong, Perim, which has an excellent harbour,
and one which can be used for coaling with less loss of
time, is virtually undefended. I lately had the oppor-
tunity of spending some hours upon the island, and was
struck with the capacity and safety of the harbour,
which I visited in a large steamer, and which would hold
several ships of even more considerable size.
In Egypt we find coaling stations at Suez and at Egypt.
Port Said, which are intended to be neutral in time of
war, and which are left to the Egyptians in time of
peace, while the citadel at Cairo and the barracks at
Alexandria contain a small British force. The present
military position in Egypt affords a curious example of
the way in which parliamentary questions in England
wax and wane. Some years ago the military occupation
by us of the capital and its port seemed to form the
only question which was exciting to the British people,
while now the occupation is almost forgotten. Daily
in Parliament members used to ask "How long"
the occupation was to continue "A year?" -"Two
years ? " ; and Governments were continually called upon
to "name the date" at which they would leave the
VOL. II 2 M
530 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
country. The occupation now continues, and no one
says a word ; yet all who have considered the question
know that the occupation in peace of a country which
in all probability would be abandoned in time of
dangerous war can hardly be looked upon as a source of
strength. At the same time although I have been
from the first a disbeliever in the wisdom of the occupa-
tion, and think, as I have said, that we should have left
the country immediately after Tel-el-Kebir, giving diplo-
matic support to Sir Evelyn Wood and carrying out
his military policy impartiality forces me to admit
that wars might conceivably arise in which our alliances
would be such that a British garrison might continue to
be maintained at Cairo with advantage to our interests.
Cyprus. it i s difficult to write of Cyprus without raising
party questions. The island is unfortified and virtually
without a garrison, for the few British troops that are
kept there would be wholly unable to defend it against
serious attack. No money has been spent upon the
harbour of Famagusta, which by a large expenditure
might have been made into a good port, and Cyprus
cannot be regarded as one of our chief military or naval
stations.
Malta. If we are to attempt to hold the Mediterranean in
time of war Malta is a station of first-class importance.
It has, indeed, been called, by a great foreign military
writer, the " pivot " of English maritime operations in
southern and eastern Europe and in northern Africa.
Even, moreover, if the Mediterranean route to India
be considered unsuitable for a war road, this fact
would not put an end to our Mediterranean interests
and the necessity for their defence. It is intended
by our Government that Malta, with its magnificent
harbours, should be able to fully protect itself against
I-ARTVIII IMPERIAL DEFENCE 531
bombardment, as well as against attempted landing
in the absence of the fleet. Malta was too long
neglected, but its works are now being improved, its
armament completed, and supplies organised. The
principle of making use of troops drawn from local
sources is being extended very wisely in the islands
which we call by the name of Malta. Still, taking into
account the full numbers of the necessary garrison, and
including the local troops, there would remain to be
provided from home in case of war at least 3000 men
to make up the force required for the fortress. Even if,
after war broke out, an energetic governor should exert
himself to organise the whole able-bodied population for
defence, officers would be lacking. The best informed
among our authorities are of opinion that the places
which would be attacked by a sudden rush on or before
the declaration of war would be Sierra Leone and Malta,
and that there exists special reason for seeing that their
garrisons are sufficient if not complete.
In France and Germany every Army Corps possesses Decentrai-
J J isation of
works at which it is able to manufacture the greater part manufac-
of its equipment. I have already suggested that India
should be provided with the means for executing large ments>
repairs to heavy guns, which are certain to be necessary
in future wars, as regards ordnance afloat and ashore,
and I cannot but think that Malta, if it is to be retained
and to lock up 12,000 men, should be provided with a
similar establishment on a smaller scale. Naval guns
are subjected to much wear and tear, because our ships
carry on gunnery practice with heavy charges which
rapidly destroy the interior of the bore and bring the
guns into such a condition that the accuracy of shooting
is affected. In war this fact would be detrimental to
the efficiency of squadrons which were far from home,
532 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
and would prove a dangerous source of weakness to our
fleets. If we were in alliance with Italy we could be
helped at Spezia or at the Naples Armstrong-yard ; but
our greatest dangers will come upon us in a war in
which Italy will be neutral. Modern ships concentrate
a far greater proportion of their armament in one gun
than has been the case in former wars, and the system
of centralisation which requires that a gun should be
sent to Woolwich to be "lined" stands of necessity
condemned. When the requisite number of guns have
been made for the fleet every ship will have reserve guns
set aside for her ; these should be available without the
necessity of her leaving her station and coming home to
seek them, and damaged pieces of ordnance ought to be re-
paired upon the spot. We should try to rouse ourselves
to understand that the defence of our scattered Empire
cannot be carried out successfully on the old lines.
western With Gibraltar, of which I have already spoken, the
seas. eastern protected naval stations come to an end. The
western seas are also studded here and there with our
stepping-stones coaling stations which are to the navy
as depdts to the communications of an army in the field.
In the western world, however, our dangers are not so
great, because no powers ever likely to be hostile to us
possess large establishments there, with the exception of
the French, who have a strong garrison in Martinique.
The naval power of the United States is at present small
(though fast growing), and unlikely to be used against
us. Halifax is strong, and is valuable as the winter
port of Canada, the military power of which (by no
means inconsiderable against an enemy coming from
the sea) stands behind the Nova-Scotian capital to
Bermuda, support it. Bermuda is also strong enough consider-
ing its position, for it is most unlikely that a European
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 533
naval power would send an expeditionary force 3000
miles at least from its base to a spot at which success
would be of no great value. There would be too much
risk of being caught by that superior force which we
could provide, supposing that we possess adequate
defence upon the coasts of the United Kingdom and
are not forced to keep the greater portion of our ships
at home. Bermuda has been a favourite spot for mili-
tary engineers to exercise their wits upon, and there,
more than anywhere else, has a risk existed of wasting
our resources by over-fortification. A comparison of the
best naval and military opinion has saved the nation
from that mistake.
Jamaica may perhaps be considered as fairly well The west
provided with defence, but France, as has been seen, has
troops in West Indian islands, and a change of the
political situation would necessitate a reconsideration of
the defences of Jamaica. It possesses a fine harbour
and a dockyard, and in the event of the construction of
a canal across the Isthmus, would become an important
station for the fleet. St. Lucia has been selected as the
principal coaling station of the West Indies, as the
harbour of Port Castries is supposed to be less open to
the possibility of bombardment by the long-range guns
of a hostile fleet than are the stations at Barbados and
at Port Eoyal in Jamaica. The island legislature has
spent upon the wharves and other works for rendering
the harbour suitable as a coaling station no less a sum
than 70,000.
The station at the Falkland Islands will be useful for Falkland
ships trading round Cape Horn and for our cruisers in
the event of war. Of our stations in the Pacific, to
which ships bound from British Columbia to Australia,
or from Cape Horn to the China seas, would make their
534 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
way, Fiji is the most important, and is supplied by
nature with admirable harbours.
Vancouver Upon the west side of America lies Vancouver Island,
protecting Vancouver City and New Westminster, and
containing the coaling station of Esquimalt, the im-
portance of which, always great as regards naval opera-
tions in the North Pacific, has been increased by the
opening of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The arrange-
ments for its protection are unfortunately not yet
complete, but in any war in which the United States is
neutral Canada may be safely trusted with that defence.
Esquimalt is, however, a station of such value, as shown
by its selection as the site of a graving dock, that it
is a disgraceful scandal that it should still be armed
only with four heavy muzzle - loaders, mounted on
obsolete and rotten wooden carriages, and some seven or
eight old 64 -pounder muzzle-loaders.
station? ^ must appear from the account which has been
generally, given that while some years ago we had no adequate
conception of the necessity to the Empire of the coaling
stations, their importance is now admitted. Fortifica-
tions have been built, mostly by the colonies, which
have been imperfectly armed by the mother -country,
and are as yet unprovided with sufficient garrisons to
man the forts and work the guns. The result of this
state of things must be, if war should break out soon
and suddenly, that several of our possessions would pass
into the enemy's hands. Sierra Leone and Castries are
among those coaling stations which are near to large
foreign garrisons and possess no sufficient garrisons of
their own. Mauritius contains a smaller force than is
kept up by the French at Reunion in its neighbourhood.
It is a significant fact that, under the French mobilisa-
tion scheme, in the event of the anticipation of im-
PART vni IMPERIAL DEFENCE 535
mediate war, all "reservists" and persons belonging
to the territorial army of French India (phrases which
include a large number of the natives) are at once to
leave for Diego Suarez in Madagascar. 1 The important
stations of King George's Sound, Thursday Island,
and Port Darwin, as we have seen, are not yet pro-
tected, and garrisons are needed for these, as well
as for St. Helena and other stations that have been
named.
It is of some interest to turn from the views of our French
own naval experts, as they are being worked out by 01
the War Office, to the opinion entertained of our position
in distant parts of the world by foreign observers writ-
ing for their own countrymen. There is one French poli-
tician, already named, not remarkable for hostility to this
country, who has studied the .question for himself and
written much upon it. M. de Lanessan, who has held
office under the French Government, and who long has
been a deputy of the Seine, has, in his I! Expansion
coloniale de la France, written upon the future move-
ments of the war fleets of Europe in the remoter seas.
He has pointed out the strength of the French position in
the Pacific, and has throughout alluded to it as a position
not of defence but of offence against foreign trade, and
has recommended the conversion into an arsenal, similar
to that of Dakar, of Noumea in New Caledonia. M. de
Lanessan's statements go far to justify the terror with
which some Australians regard the presence of the French
in New Caledonia. The ground upon which Noumea is
to be rendered strong is that it is near Australia, which
is " extremely rich," and " would need enormous forces
to protect the many points at which that continent is
1 Trait^ de Legislation coloniale, par Paul Dislere ; 4ikme partie.
Paris, Dupont, 1888.
53 6 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
vulnerable." 1 "It may easily be seen what could be
done with a French fleet having New Caledonia for a
base." With regard to New Caledonia, however, I
think that in the event of war the Australians would
themselves capture these French islands. The Repub-
lican deputy, and deputy with a future, calls for the
use of Diego Suarez, of Obock on the Eed Sea, of
Saigon, and of Tahiti, as well as of Noumea, and
of Martinique, and of Dakar, as posts from which
France might undertake the destruction of the trade
of the United Kingdom with Greater Britain. It
will be remembered in connection with the French
position in the Pacific how the French disregarded their
engagement with regard to the island of Rapa. M.
de Lanessan in arguing, before the question was finally
settled, against any idea of quitting Rapa, said : " Eapa,
it is true, is but a barren rock, but that rock has an
excellent roadstead, and is situate on the route from
the Isthmus of Panama to Australia. It forms, from
the military point of view, a Gibraltar of the Pacific,
and a military fleet basing itself upon this port, which
would be for it both a shelter and a victualling
spot, would bar the route of all traders crossing
Oceania."
M. de Lanessan's policy, explained in the clearest
language on the last page of his book, is to provide such
ocean fortresses that "in the event of war between
France and any European power, the trade of the latter
would be immediately arrested by our fleets, and if that
nation were England, that enormous workshop unable
to remain at rest during a few months without her social
edifice crumbling, peace would be brought about more
easily by the complete stop to trade through the action
1 L 'Expansion coloniale de la France, p. 675.
PART vni IMPERIAL DEFENCE 537
of our fleet in all the seas of the globe than by battles
in European waters." 1
In 1870 France felt and showed the same confidence False
in her military superiority that we have in the naval
supremacy of Great Britain. The general principles of
organisation and of strategy for land and sea service do
not differ. At sea, just as much as on shore, a strong
force will beat a weak one, and concentration is a
necessary step towards strength. A number of weak
forces, though in the aggregate they may be superior
to an enemy, may be beaten one after another if they
are scattered. It is as dangerous for us to postpone
the arrangements for the reinforcement of our garrisons
until the last moment as it was for France to fail in
due organisation of her mobilisation arrangements be-
fore the war of 1870; and in our case, as in hers,
nothing is more likely to lead to disaster than the
neglect to study the strength as well as the weakness
of an enemy in advance. The German official account
of the war of 1870 begins by saying of the French : "An
error was committed in assuming that the concentration
of an army could be effected with order and precision
without thorough preparation." In August 1870 was
seen the result of the want of calculation in time of
peace. It had been taken for granted that a system
which had once raised France to a pinnacle of military
glory was good enough for the present and the future,
and that, when war began, dash and valour would suffice.
When our authorities talk of reinforcing garrisons and in Great
mobilising reserves, I do not feel sure that they know
exactly and have settled in advance how the garrisons
of Gibraltar, Malta, and all the naval stations, some of
them on the other side of the globe, are to be raised at
1 P. 1007.
538 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
the beginning of a war to their proper strength, and I
should prefer to see the garrisons in existence in time of
peace. It is not likely that Great Britain will declare
war in haste ; but she cannot possibly be sure that war
will not be declared against her suddenly, or even
practically commenced by the necessary mobilisation of
naval and military forces before an official state of war
exists. We should be warned, too, by the past. The
confessions which have been wrung from Ministers
from time to time have shown how blindly we have
been trusting in the past to a supposed readiness for war
which did not exist. The more we recognise how much
depends upon the complete fitness of both army and navy
in all respects for the duties which they will have to
perform, and that our naval superiority is based as much
upon the safety of the coaling stations and sufficiency of
their garrisons as on the number of our ships, the more
determined should we be that they should be in a state
of readiness even in time of peace. It is essential that
the mobilisation and concentration of our squadrons
should not be delayed for want of guns and stokers,
that we should not have to burden our ships at the
commencement of the war with the task of carrying out
reinforcement for the garrisons and for India, and that
our whole navy should be prepared to assume the
initiative immediately that its reserves are ready. The
very establishment of a Naval Intelligence Department
is a measure of recent adoption. The public hardly seems
to have estimated at its full force the circumstance that
during the manoeuvres of 1889 the arrangements for
obtaining information from the commanders of the ships
were in working order for the first time. The British
public was awakened last year upon this question, but
it must remain awake, and not trust to ministers or
PART vni IMPERIAL DEFENCE 539
officials, however able, to carry out in time of peace
preparations in which the country shows no interest.
Colonial defence against an enemy coming by sea is The
reasonably provided for by a superior fleet supplied ancuhe
with fortified coaling stations when, but when only, fleet>
these have been provided with their garrisons. The fleet
itself is imperial, and, with slight exceptions, paid for
from the imperial exchequer. Australasia, except
Queensland, has taken voluntarily a share in our naval
burdens, not as regards general but only as regards local
defence. Australia had, however, already shown an
exceptionally good example to Greater Britain in other
ways. Her people have made, as we have seen, some
of her ports the strongest commercial harbours in the
Empire, and have raised defensive forces which are really
trustworthy. But the contributions of the colonies to-
wards the navy are inconsiderable, and there has been
much difficulty in the case of some colonies in obtaining
grants towards the defence of coaling stations needed
for their trade as well as ours. The example of Victoria
seems to show that as the colonies grow up they may
possibly become more ready to assume honourable
burdens, fairly proportioned to the protection which
they claim and receive.
As for defence against attacks across land frontiers Land de-
there is little to be said except that which has been Greater
already said of Canada and India, for in Australia and Bl
South Africa no danger is to be discerned at present.
Mr. Rhodes seems ready without the help of British
regular troops to push his way in Africa, as in America
our colonists made their own way, in all self-reliance,
two or three centuries ago. Frontier questions at the
Cape seem likely to solve themselves. The trepidation
shown by some at home as to the condition of South
540 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vm
Africa is without sufficient cause, and we have only to
look on for a few years as spectators though with
interest and sympathy to find that there will be no more
need there for British troops, and no objection on the
part of the colonists to accept due burdens for defence.
Food Before turning to the question of the home defence
of the nucleus and the capital of the Empire there is a
of war? question which concerns all parts of it, but especially
the mother-country, which must be considered. It is
necessary to gain some definite notion how the food
supply is to be kept up in the event of war, both with
reference to isolated stations and also to the British Isles.
India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada
may be looked upon as self-sufficing as regards food ;
but that cannot be held to be the case with many of the
small stations, and it is wholly untrue of the United
Kingdom. As for the remote settlements, it would be
difficult for us to find a sufficient fleet to have ships
always upon duty near the ports of entry. Captures
would undoubtedly be made by enemies' cruisers,
probably even in large numbers, but captures not com-
parable in importance to the lists which adorned the
reports sent in by naval officers after the late manoeuvres.
It is one thing to lie in wait on a well-known track of
commerce, but quite another thing to catch the swift
steamers which more and more are monopolising all
commerce of importance. In peace manoeuvres a mail
steamer does not turn out of her track to avoid or race
with a warship of a so-called enemy. In war the
capture of fast - steaming merchant ships would be
extremely difficult. No attempt, however, to carry out
a system of blockading an enemy in his ports could
possibly prevent his placing cruisers on the ocean to
prey upon our trade. The fast cruisers are exactly
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 541
those vessels which are most likely to break blockades,
and this fact tells indeed in favour of a bolder strategy.
Instead of allowing the enemy to neutralise our superior
force by remaining patiently in port, while we wore out
our ships by hanging round his harbours, we should try
to defeat his squadrons in the open sea, after which we
should be in a better position to find and capture his
scattered cruisers. No doubt we should put many
cruisers of our own upon the waters, and make use
also of a large number of mercantile steamers in addi-
tion to the fast ships of the navy, yet, when all is
done, the vast extent of the ocean traversed by our
merchantmen could not be watched. Were there not
other chances in our favour, no reasonable increase of
the fleet could of itself fully protect our mercantile
marine.
There is, however, a point, already suggested in Advan-
what I said about the Cape, which from the beginning possessed
of a war would tell strongly in our favour, and might do
so still more greatly as time went on. It is an advan-
tage which we did not possess in former naval wars,
when the enemy's ships might stay for many weeks or
even months at sea without putting into port at all.
In these days , they must coal, and the opportunities of
an enemy for so doing would be fewer than our own,
because his coaling stations would be less numerous.
As whalers know that whales must rise to the surface
that they may breathe, so we should know that an
enemy's cruisers must in the long-run come to the
shore to coal. For a short period they might be
supplied at sea by coalships, and in the manner
described in The "Russia's Hope" 1 but the coalships
themselves would be a considerable time at sea, or, if
1 Chapman and Hall, 1888.
542 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
steamships, would require coal for the long voyages
which they would have to make. To say nothing of
the many chances in our favour of catching the coal-
ships, dep6ts on land would have to be established,
which we could find and burn, for we have seen
in the manosuvres how difficult and uncertain is the
operation of taking in coal at sea. Our policy would
be to cut off the enemy's supplies of fuel by attacking
and capturing not only his coalships but his coaling
stations ; and our squadrons would be better em-
ployed in such active work as burning up or stealing
the enemy's coal than in crawling about the home
waters by way of protecting the end only of our long
lines of communication. If I am right in supposing
that we could make most of the distant oceans as
inhospitable to the enemy's cruisers as is an Arabian
desert to a European traveller, simply by our possession
of almost all the coaling stations, it is difficult to see
why the process of starving-out should not be applied
to the sea trade of a hostile power. As for our own
vessels the tendency of trade is to make more and more
use of large and fast steamships, which need not always
follow the well-known tracks where they would be looked
for. If sighted by an enemy they must trust to speed
and to the protection of the darkness. They will not be
dependent on the winds, and may turn in any direction
under cover of the night.
Fuel. As some armies are now adopting smokeless powder,
with great gain to their efficiency, so will that naval
power have an advantage which adopts the nearest
approach to smokeless fuel ; and there could be no dis-
covery which would be of much greater value in war
to a maritime nation than the invention of a cheap and
effective means of obtaining motive power without
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 543
smoke. Much may even now be done by improved
methods of feeding engine fires, and even by skilful
stoking. The lack of skilled stokers during the late
manoeuvres was shown, among other proofs, by the
volumes of smoke which could be seen blackening the
horizon even when the ships were hull-down or them-
selves invisible. Among the many facts which illustrate
the recent progress made by Italy in preparation for
naval warfare there is none more remarkable than the
success of the school for stokers in the form of the great
steamer, formerly employed in British trade, which sets
to sea each morning from Spezia carrying between two
and three hundred apprentice stokers of the Italian
fleet engaged in learning the artifices of their trade. In
the meantime Great Britain possesses, as has been
shown by Lord George Hamilton, the best steam coal
of the land hemisphere, and New Zealand, I may add,
has the best of the water hemisphere, so that in this
respect the Empire holds a predominant situation.
If we succeed in rendering it impossible for an
enemy's cruisers to exist in large numbers on our trade
routes, our necessary supplies both for coaling stations
and for the British Islands will be secure ; and I am so
far in. accord with the party who propose to trust
entirely to the navy, that I consider the rapid attain-
ment of overwhelming superiority at sea as the most
essential point of Imperial Defence. I only begin to
differ when they use what appears to me exaggerated
language which might lead the country to believe that
the only way of protecting the home islands from
invasion is to keep always in home waters a fleet
superior to any that might be brought against it even
for a short period.
It is not at all certain that if we lost for a time
544 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
Home food the command of the sea it would be so easy to starve
us here at home that no nation would be at the
trouble to organise an invasion. The word "invest-
ment " has been freely used to describe the condition of
partial blockade in which we should have to live if our
command of the seas were gone. "Investment" is a
military term applied to the early stage of a siege, and
means the process of occupying all the approaches to a
fortified place so thoroughly as to exclude the possi-
bility of the reception of supplies ; but, for investment
to be fatal, it must be complete. The proportion
between the mouths to be fed inside and the land
defended must be such that sufficient food cannot
possibly be produced for the supply of the garrison and
the civil population after accumulations have been
exhausted; and in order to produce complete invest-
ment the besiegers must have a force proportioned to
the extent of the circumference which is to be invested,
while the military strength of the country within which
Absolute the investment takes place must have been so broken
down that there is no power to raise the siege. The
whole of these conditions are not likely to be fulfilled
in the case supposed a struggle of the British Empire
single-handed against two naval powers. No doubt we
should suffer some reverses at sea in the future as
always in the past, but it is difficult to believe that the
United Kingdom could possibly be invested in the early
stages of a war.
The first effect of a naval struggle would be to raise
the price of all commodities dependent on sea trans-
port. Our sailing ships would be laid up, and the least
fast among our merchant steamers transferred to other
flags. One result would be a considerably increased
production of food at home. There would also be an
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 545
immense sudden importation in view of rising prices.
In the eleven days between the 4th September and the
15th September 1870 Paris was supplied with five
months' food ; and although the conditions are not the
same, still, even in the case of England, the country
would to a large extent victual itself in advance by the
ordinary operations of trade. Much waste of food
would cease through enforced economy, and every inch
of soil would be occupied in the production of grain or
meat. While great accumulations of food would have
taken place at the very commencement of the war, the
quantity of food bought and consumed would some-
what diminish, and the United Kingdom would come
much nearer to providing for its own necessary supplies
than it has done for many a year. If ever complete
investment took place there would, of course, be hard-
ship ; but it is not certain that that hardship would be
unbearable, or that we could be starved out of resist-
ance. The cessation of commerce would be harder for
us to bear than the pinch of actual hunger. Moreover,
even after investment had been attempted, I doubt
whether the United Kingdom could be debarred from
receiving any supplies by sea.
Sir John Colomb, with whom I so often agree that
I always regret to differ from him, says in his De-
fence, of Great and Greater Britain * : " Consider for
one moment on what the presumption of possible "Tem
invasion rests. It rests on this the loss, temporary vestment,
or permanent, of the command of the waters sur-
rounding the British Islands. But remember that
the lines of communication all radiate from these
waters ; the loss, therefore, of our command here cuts
1 Defence of Great and Greater Britain, by Captain J. C. E. Colomb.
Edward Stanford, 1880.
VOL. II 2 N
546 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
every one of the imperial lines ; and what is this but
investment?" There is a good deal of confusion in
this sentence. The argument was useful as one among
many that are intended to break down in the minds
of a popular audience the idea which still exists only
too largely that the defence of the Empire means
nothing more than the defence of the United King-
dom from invasion. But it has been quoted and made
use of for other purposes, and it is, therefore, necessary
to suggest weak points. In the first place there is no
object in a " temporary " investment. No commander
would attempt investment if he supposed it to be only
temporary, because if once investment be broken its
whole object is defeated, and the process has to be
begun over again, unless attack that is, in this case
invasion has been carried out at the same time ; and
even then it is the attack and not the investment which
has been useful.
Lines of The second weak point is the vague use of the words
"lines of communication." For ships on the sea the
phrase is only applicable in the sense that certain points,
such as coaling stations, may be said to form a chain
of communications. A ship starting, say, from Canada
or from the United States with wheat for the United
Kingdom, is as free from lines of communication as is a
Bedouin chief. The captain may go, if he please, by
Iceland or by Antwerp, and may land his cargo at
almost any part of our enormously extended coast line.
During the whole period of our overwhelming maritime
supremacy after Trafalgar we never succeeded in stop-
ping France from receiving supplies by sea. There
never was a case of such a complete superiority at sea
in time of war as that possessed by the United States
of America over the Southern rebellious states in the
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 547
latter part of the civil war. Yet blockade-running was
a regular trade, and large fortunes were made by those
who practised it ; and only as the ports were captured
did this profitable commerce cease.
England's extremity would be America's oppor- The
tunity ; and that in a different sense from the con-
struction which has sometimes been put upon the phrase.
Holland and Belgium and the Scandinavian powers
would buy the majority of our merchant ships, unless
the United States should change her present system of
refusing to confer her privileges upon ships built abroad.
It is probable, however, that this change of law will, in
view of possible wars in which England will be 'engaged,
be effected in the United States, and in this case the
greater portion of our commerce will pass in case of war
under the American flag. High prices would attract
American enterprise : the United States would cover
with the stars and stripes an immense food traffic ;
and the fleets that were " investing " us would have
to meet the combined energies of the British Empire
and of the republic. The carrying trade of the world
would pass, doubtless, from our hands, and if we
should come out vicf ors from the struggle it would be
at the cost of heavy sacrifices. The trade of all the
belligerents would be to some extent transferred to other
flags, though that of our enemies would suffer more
greatly than our own, on account of their inability to
secure fuel, if our coaling stations were properly defended
by adequate garrisons ; but we should not be starved at
home. I am arguing on the improbable supposition,
too, of such a collapse of our naval power as would
render the interception of supplies on a large scale
possible ; and I submit that even in this case it would
be the interest of the United States to maintain a strict
548 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vm
neutrality, and the interest of our enemies to carefully
avoid steps which might lead to quarrel between them
and the Americans. As the Union is becoming
a naval power, it would even be doubtful if our enemies
would dare to declare food to be contraband. On the
whole, I am unable to accept the possibility of a com-
plete investment, excluding supplies from without,
even in the event of a disaster to our fleets. Partial
transference of trade to other nations ; high prices by
which many would suffer, might be expected ; but not
such pressure as would, without invasion, force us to
accept any terms which might be offered.
Difficulty This opinion is strengthened when we consider how
taming a enormous would have to be the disposable force of an
enemy before he could undertake the gigantic task of
blockading the coasts of the United Kingdom. Our
seas are stormy during a great portion of the year, our
ports are innumerable, and the difficulty which was
found by the United States in hermetically sealing the
few harbours of the Confederacy would be magnified a
hundredfold in the case of an attempted blockade of the
British Isles. Moreover, fleets must scatter to " invest,"
while, if our navies were not absolutely destroyed, the
approach of any British force from outside the enemy's
lines would force him to concentrate to fight it raising
the blockade and allowing of our being victualled from
the United States or from India and the colonies. No
single naval catastrophe could produce a condition in
which our naval power would be so thoroughly broken
down that no attack would be made by us upon any part
of the investing line. It is only when Sir John Colomb,
and more lately his imitators, begin to argue upon the
supposition that temporary loss of command on the
home waters would bring about starvation, and when
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 549
we are told by some naval men that for this reason we
must eschew land defences and trust entirely to a navy
the defeat or the absence for strategical reasons of
which would place us in such a position that it is time
to say that neither the premises nor the conclusion of
the argument are justified by known facts. Our manu-
factures would be seriously assailed, our food supply
would become precarious under the circumstances which
have been stated, but we should not be brought to the
point of surrender by absolute starvation, and the
possibility of invasion is not excluded, as some of the
naval school pretend, by the fact that it would be
unnecessary.
On the other hand, a defeat or a temporary absence invasion.
of the fleet might lead to bombardments, attacks upon
arsenals, and even to invasion, if our mobile land forces,
our fortifications and their garrisons, were not such as
to render attacks of any kind too dangerous to be worth
attempting. There is this difference between the United
Kingdom and the colonies and coaling stations : that,
while our general command of the sea would make the
risk of long voyages for attacking our foreign stations too
great for an enemy to face, at home we are within a few
hours' steam of military ports which may belong to that
enemy, and which are furnished with the naval means
of preventing blockade, in the shape of great fleets of
torpedo-boats. To these ports can be brought in a few
days as many troops and guns as could possibly be
required for invasion, and more than one high military
authority has lately stated that at least one foreign
power could at any moment put her hand on ships able
to carry to these shores a large army of invasion. From
such danger the colonies are protected by our own
general command of the seas, and by our possession
550 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
of the fortified coaling stations when these receive
their garrisons. So great is the difference between the
United Kingdom and South Africa or Australia in such
matters that it would be likely that a naval power with
which we were at war would give up all idea of attacks
upon the colonies, and would concentrate at home for
blows in the Mediterranean and even nearer London.
While it is difficult to disembark cavalry and artillery,
without which there can be no complete army, yet no
difficulty would be found, in the absence of our fleet, in
transporting and landing a large force of picked infantry
sufficiently strong to overcome all resistance which could
be offered on the shore, for no large defence force could
move with the same rapidity as ships carrying an equal
or greater number of men. Kesistance to invasion
ought to be calculated on the supposition that an enemy
could certainly land a large body of infantry, but that
the disembarkation of artillery and stores would be so
much slower as to give time for the assembling of a
greater defensive force of all arms if it was organised
and ready. At the present time, and even after all the
preparation of which the Government boast, I do not
hesitate to say that such a force is not prepared to take
the field at home.
If there is any use, as I think there is the greatest,
in such a home defensive force as that which might be
supplied by the volunteers, the resistance to invasion is
obviously a task for which they should be prepared, and
in fulfilling it they would render the highest service to
the Empire as a whole by releasing the fleet for its true
work. The difficulties of transporting and landing an
invading army, and above all of using it for offence after
it was landed, would be so great that the possession of our
existing bodies of troops, if they were properly equipped
PART vi ii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 551
and organised for immediate movement, would render
invasion a forlorn hope. The peculiar position of Great
Britain does not make invasion impossible, but only
enables us to resist it with a small army, if that army
be highly organised for rapid war, as effectually as we could
resist with millions of troops if we had land frontiers.
The difficulty of invasion reduces to comparatively
small dimensions the force by which we could be attacked
on shore ; but, on the other hand, such a force would be
composed of the flower of our enemies' troops.
In the absence of the fleet the landing could not be
prevented. There are many parts of our coast where it
would present no difficulties, and to try to guard them
all would be a fatal strategy, for we should be weak
everywhere, and rapid concentration would be impossible.
We do not need an immense number of ill -trained,
badly-equipped, and unorganised troops, but an army
completely ready to take the field and fight in the open
supplied with a well-trained field artillery. Possessed
of such a force we might sleep peacefully in our beds,
even though the bulk of the fleet were away settling
the question of our command at sea for the next half-
century to come. If we are not so prepared on shore,
then a large portion of our naval forces must be kept use-
lessly and ingloriously inactive, watching for an enemy
who in this case may never come to us, but who may direct
expeditions against our colonies and trade. In either
case invasion would be prevented ; but in the second
supposition at a terrible sacrifice. The concentrated
fleets of the two powers might sweep all before them in
another hemisphere, cripple our trade, capture our
coaling stations, and destroy our scattered squadrons.
The French and Germans are now. engaged on com- Defence of
pleting the defence of their coasts upon a scientific
552 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
United system ; and Colonel Lonsdale Hale has clearly shown
Kingdom. in the j ournal of the y a i United Service Institution
how perfect are the arrangements adopted for coast
defence by Continental powers. We have done much
lately in the direction of naval mobilisation, although
even in this point we are still, I think, behind the Italians
and the Germans, and only on an equality with the
French. In other countries the principal officers ap-
pointed to reserve ships are always ready, knowing even
in time of peace the positions that they have to take up
in time of war. Captain Henderson has excellently said
that the power of rapid mobilisation which has been the
chief modern development of Continental armies has
spread to their navies, and that the critical point of
modern war, not only in Continental cases, but where
we ourselves are concerned, will in the future be reached
almost at the moment of declaration of war. The
principle upon which the French and Germans are pro-
ceeding is that, in the absence of success at sea, two
classes of attempts are to be guarded against on shore
invasion, by mobile land forces (attacking the enemy
after they have landed), and bombardment, by protect-
ing with fortification and similar means the place likely
to be bombarded.
As regards invasion, I am glad to be able to quote
Sir John Colomb, as he thought in 1880, upon
my side. In a chapter upon colonial defence he
says : " I do not for a' moment underrate the . . .
absolute necessity of being prepared to render invasion
impossible by purely military forces. If we are not so
prepared, we stake the fate of the Empire on, perhaps,
a single naval engagement. A temporary reverse at sea
might ... be converted into a final defeat on land,
resulting in a total overthrow of all further power of
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 553
resistance. It is necessary . . . that invasion be
efficiently guarded against, so that, should our home fleet
be temporarily disabled, we may, under cover of our
army, prepare and strengthen it to regain lost ground,
and renew the struggle for that which is essential to our
life as a nation and our existence as an Empire." This
seems sound sense, for it puts each service in its proper
place for the defence of the country. It is very different
from the talk of the last two years, that the navy is our
only " line of defence/' and that not a sixpence should
be spent on land defences until the navy has been
brought into some ideal condition of strength, calculated
on the supposition that it is to be able, without doubt,
both to prevent all chance of invasion or of bombard-
ments, and everywhere to guard our commerce upon
the seas.
While I think the recent outlay upon the navy
necessary, yet, even with the additions to be obtained
from the extra sums voted for expenditure during
the next four years, our navy will not be such as
to give us a reasonable superiority of strength against
the combination of two considerable naval powers, either
in the class of battle-ships or in the class of swift cruisers.
The provision now being made might be sufficient if the
other powers should stand still ; but recent debates in
France and recent action on the part of Kussia negative
the supposition that they will merely complete their
ships that are on the stocks, and then rest, or build only
sufficiently to replace old ships struck off the lists. What
is wanted, as I have urged, is a well-considered combined
scheme in which the navy and the army should occupy
each its allotted place under such a scientific considera-
tion of our needs as has been recently given to these
matters by the German Empire, according to the showing
554 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
of Colonel Hale. The moneys that the British Empire
spends upon defence are immensely great, and what is
wanted is that those moneys should be spent as is deoided
by the best advisers who can be obtained, without the
present contention between the services, carried on as
though they were rival establishments in trade. Such
questions must not be left to the decision of engineers,
or artillerymen, or sailors, but discussed and settled as
parts of a joint scheme on which the best naval and
military talent in the country has been consulted.
Land French and German statement of principles for pre-
forces. . .
venting invasion declares for the use of "mobile " forces
on land. There is only one true way to checkmate an
enemy, and that is by beating him in the field ; and for
this purpose the greater portion of our force must be
capable of marching and manoeuvring, and must not be
tied down to some spot called a "position." Armies
which fight wars of positions are always beaten, and I see
with apprehension the adoption of position warfare as
the highest attainment to which the volunteers are to
aspire. If there were chains of mountains with
narrow passes to defend on the London, as on the
Indian frontier, there might be good position work
for volunteers to do; but writing, as I do, these
words at Pyrford, in a room from which I see the
low lines of the Hog's Back and of the North
Downs, cut through by the Mole and Wey, continually
crossed with ease in our own manoeuvres, I find no
positions which cannot easily be turned, nor any oppor-
tunity for a British defending force to so place itself
that it cannot be attacked in flank, as Frederick used to
attack the armies of Maria Theresa. The plight in
which the volunteers are placed is due to the fact that
there is in this country no field artillery for them, and-
PART vni IMPERIAL DEFENCE 555
indeed only just enough for our two army corps (with a
few additional troops), which themselves, I am sorry
to hear, are not yet in that "mobile" state, or even
state of readiness for immediate mobilisation which every
Continental power regards as essential in these days.
One army corps is ready in a fashion ; that is, ready to
go abroad at short notice, having a great part of its
equipment placed at ports of embarkation where it
would be out of the way in case of invasion ; but the
second army corps wants much to complete it, and the
artillery is still, except that of the first corps, armed
with guns of a variety of pattern which would create
immense confusion. Mr. Stanhope claims so much credit
for having partially supplied 12 -pounder guns that
there is some reason to fear he has not faced the question
of the 20-pounders, which are, I believe, ready for
adoption, but are not being manufactured for supply ;
and we are, though not in so absolutely destitute a
condition as we were when I wrote my work upon
The British Army, still without a mobile force capable
of standing against invasion.
We have no longer the old excuse that no one NO mobile
knows what a mobile land force should be. Whatever m England.
may be the case with fortifications, there is no party
which denies the wisdom of constituting a thoroughly
mobile force complete in all respects, out of the hetero-
geneous mass of military material which exists in
Great Britain. Yet we have not even now completed the
organisation of our regular forces. It is still true that
if the two army corps should be completed, and be sent
out of the country on an expedition, for example, to aid
in the defence of India, there would remain no mobile
force at all for home defence, and hardly any field
artillery. A small commencement has been made
556 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
towards forming ammunition columns, which, were they
fully organised, would release the condemned batteries
from their dread of absorption into ammunition columns.
The late measures have been in the right direction, but
they all halt after the' first step. Portions of the
auxiliary forces have been told off for garrisons, but it
is still the case that the main body of our armies have
no mobile organisation enabling them to take the field,
and that the fleet is hampered with the necessity of
providing against invasion. We remain, in short, in the
position, which I quoted Sir John Colomb as describing,
of staking the fate of the Empire upon " perhaps a single
naval engagement." No fault is to be found with the
Admiralty, I am convinced, as regards the provision for
home defence. The highest naval authorities have never
abandoned the view, stated by them now fifty years ago,
that were an undue proportion of our own fleet tied to
the Channel the enemy would be set free, to the great
danger of our commerce ; while, conversely, if the fleet
is to perform its proper duties and to carry out its
strategical movements unhampered, our arsenals must
be defended by fortification and our capital by a mobile
army.
We have seen how strong Melbourne has been made,
and Jt is impossible to pretend that Liverpool or Bristol,
to which in tne event of war more trade would come
ports. than would face the Channel route to London, are in
the same condition of protection. Whatever difference
there may be between the fortification of distant
stations, and of the dockyards, arsenals, and commercial
harbours of our coasts at home, is all in favour of the
heaviest guns and works being in the United Kingdom,
because they are more likely to be attacked by fleets of
battle-ships, instead of merely by squadrons of cruisers.
PART vni IMPERIAL DEFENCE 557
If the fleet would be hampered by having to guard
Sierra Leone and St. Lucia, it would be almost equally
tied if the mouth of the Thames and Medway, and the
entrances to our commercial harbours, should be unable
to hold an enemy at bay for a short time ; and such
ports would, in the absence or temporary disablement
of the fleet, be exposed to more serious attack than
would be Hong-Kong or Singapore or Melbourne. All
harbour defence of the modern type must, in order to be
complete, include a local naval force with torpedo-boats
and steam-launches, and shore batteries for the protec-
tion of the mine-fields. It is to be regretted that the
naval volunteer movement appears to have failed to
establish itself on a large scale ; and the provision of
local works from local resources seems also as yet to
have been a failure. Military science has worked out
the whole scheme of the defence of commercial har-
bours ; but little has yet been done except on paper.
Probably the most important point, as has been proved
by colonial example, is the selection for the command of
the defence at each spot of an officer possessing scientific
knowledge of the principle of the joint working of
mine -fields, shore guns, torpedo-boats, and steam-
launches to guard against boat attacks upon the torpedo
lines, rather than the qualities which shine best upon
parade.
The question of command is indeed a grave one. command.
It is necessary for a good defence that artillery, engin-
eering, and boat work should be carried on under one
impulse, and I am told that this is far from being the
case at present. We may be certain that the good
feeling of the services would be made manifest in the
case of pressing danger, but that would be a little late.
If peace manoeuvres have any meaning, they are
558 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
intended as preparations for war, and, while I see troops
of all arms practising perpetual marching drill, I fail to
notice the daily habit of setting soldiers and sailors to
work together on that all-important business the pro-
tection of the vital portions of the seaboard. It puzzles
one to see the guardianship of the Thames defences 1 and
of those of Chatham committed to generals sprung from
the infantry or cavalry, while Woolwich, which has no
works or heavy guns, and little room for the manoeuvres
of field artillery, is commanded by an artillery officer.
counter- I* 1 treating the subject of Imperial Defence I have
attack, hitherto confined myself to measures necessary for mere
protection ; but it is idle to suppose that war could be
brought to a termination unless we are prepared in some
way to obtain advantages over the enemy such as to
cause him to weary of the struggle. The riposte is as
necessary in warfare as in fencing, and defence must
include the possibility of counter-attack. In case of war
with a maritime power we ought to be able to use our
command of coaling stations to complete the advantages
which we possess at sea. We ought to deprive the enemy
of such coaling stations as he now has, and attack his
establishments in countries where the population is
hostile to his rule. In the event of a war in which we
had not to fight Russia for the possession of India, the
outlying posts and territories of our enemy across the
seas would be our natural prey; but as against Russia we
have no such means of counter-attack. It is futile, how-
ever, to discuss in detail the conditions of wars which
would depend upon the grouping of the powers.
In view of almost any conceivable hostilities we
officers, ought to be prepared to supply arms and officers to
native levies which would support our Empire in various
1 Up to 9th January 1890.
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 559
portions of the globe. Our ability to do so is an old
tradition of the British Empire, and one of the chief items
of our military strength has always been the power of
winning the confidence of native forces, inspiring trust,
and almost creating courage where it did not exist.
When we remember the condition to which the Egyptian
troops had been reduced before our organisation of that
army, and the abject terror shown by them in presence of
such Arabs as they now beat with ease upon the Nile, it
may be taken for granted that the old faculty, by the
use of which we conquered India, is still ours. But the
men chosen for such work must be trained and skilled
officers, and I do not know where they are to come
from. We have none too many for all the requisites of
the regular army in case of war. India, as I have
shown, would make a call not only for immediate needs,
but to meet the heavy drain of a campaign. Neither
the militia nor volunteers are fully officered, and the
auxiliary forces would take a large number of additional
officers in the event of mobilisation. The same principle
of full preparation should govern the supply of arms,
their manufacture and repair. The stocks should be Arms.
larger than they are, and an end should be made to
exclusiveness in production. India at least should be
able to manufacture guns, carriages, rifles, and ammuni-
tion, and should hold large reserves with a view of
giving aid to Mauritius, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements,
Hong -Kong, Labuan, and North Borneo, and for the
purpose of arming eastern races from which we might
draw levies. Gordon showed how Chinese may be led Levies,
to victory ; and the very Chins whom we are now slowly
subduing, and who are, I fear, too good for our Madras
troops, would soon enlist under our banners if we could
arm and officer them. We should have before us schemes
560 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vm
for developing our military strength in time of war,
such as are not yet prepared, and it is also not encour-
aging to those who would federate the military organisa-
tions of the Empire that we have not yet succeeded
in putting together a satisfactory organisation for the
large forces that we possess at home.
A General The main thing needed for a joint organisation of
the whole of the defensive forces of the Empire is the
creation of a body of men whose duty it would be to
consider the questions raised and to work out the
answers. The problem is more difficult for the British
Empire than for any other state, and yet we are the
only power spending vast sums upon defence who have
no General Staff. A General Staff needs a Chief of the
Staff at the head of it, who in our country would be, as
he is in France, the right-hand man of the Minister of
War, while in Germany he is the adviser of the Emperor,
who commands in chief himself, as well as of the Minister
of War. The duty of a General Staff is to teach the art
of war and advise on all matters relating to plans of
campaign, and. the organisation necessary to make them
successful. There is little hope of our ever being ready
for war, or carrying out a military federation of the
Empire, or, indeed, even organising the home forces,
until we possess a well-organised General Staff. That
office must be no slavish copy of the Prussian office,
excellent though the Prussian system is, but must give
us at the least what every other army has in the shape
of a powerful Staff Department.
The attitude of the British public to the office
created, rather than developed, by Count von Moltke,
has been one of awe and veneration ; of open-mouthed
wonder, and hopelessness of ever possessing anything
like it. Yet there is nothing to prevent us from
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 561
having an organisation of the same nature, modified
to suit our special needs. The Great General Staff
at Berlin other modern armies have copied it is
nothing more than the application to military pur-
poses of the principle upon which civil businesses
are conducted. In each case what is first needed is
the best information upon the facts. Then plans are
formed, anticipating those of others who are likely
to become opponents. The difficulty met with in dis-
covering the principles which were to guide us in the
fortification of the coaling stations shows that we have
at present no such system in force, and no similar system
possessed of adequate power. A Chief of the Staff
having to deal with such a question as coaling stations
would determine, from the information accumulated in
his department, what forces would be likely to be
brought against the posts selected, and thus would
judge what forts and guns would be required. .
The working out in advance of the problems of war,
perfectly performed in Germany, involves not half the
complication that presents itself in the case of the British
Empire. Germany has three lines to defend, and two
directions of possible initiative, while the British Empire
has enormous frontiers, world- wide interests, and numer-
ous possible enemies small or great as well. Of all the
nations ours should be that trusting the most to well-
ordered knowledge and well-elaborated plans. Yet from
time to time we are shocked by revelations of our unpre;
pared condition, and, a strong popular feeling having
been thus created, Government follows the impulse and
appoints a committee or a commission to obtain informa-
tion and make recommendations to it. Keports overlap
and sometimes contradict each other, and frequently the
result of neutralising forces is that no action at all is taken.
VOL. II 2 o
562 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
A General Staff forms an organisation which is
itself a standing committee on all subjects which
embrace preparation for war; and, although financial
limits must of course be imposed upon it, there is at all
events this reason for a change that under the present
plan no British Government succeeds in managing naval
and military matters with either economy to the tax-
payer or with efficiency as regards the services. The
present Intelligence Department of the army performs
only a small section of the duties which would devolve
upon a General Staff, and the only wonder about it
is that it is alive at all. The work that has been
given it to do has been well done ; but in the British
army the Intelligence Department is a humble servant,
if not a drudge.
Errors to In advocating the creation of a General Staff, in the
^ n e t a h v e 01 C rea- modern sense, it is necessary to guard against a mis-
Generli a understanding which might easily arise. Nothing could
staff. 1^ worse than the introduction of the old French system
(partly at one time imitated in other countries, and now
abandoned by France herself for a staff upon the German
model) of making the staff of the army a permanent
organisation separated from the regimental portion of
the services by a strict line of demarcation. To produce
a separate institution with interests opposed to those of
the fighting army, and to develop a class of sedentary
officers, unused to practical work and unfit to take the
field in full vigour of body, would be a step in the wrong
direction.
what it The modern system is one of a permanent institu-
should be. , 111 ^ c.
tion worked by shitting units, continually receiving
fresh men into the office, to whom it imparts that
knowledge and training which it alone can give, and
sends them forth again to be distributed through the
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 563
entire army. The French General Staff is a body of
this kind, although some complaint is made as to the
want of sufficient interchange between staff and regi-
mental work in France. The German Great General
Staff has some permanent officials who are chosen for
their special qualities, as collectors and co-ordinators of
information, and are not intended to take the field. But
the great majority of the officers at any moment within
the walls of the Berlin department are there only for a
time, during which they practise the more intellectual
portion of the work of staff officers, and pass out again
to their corps, where they have to deal with the practical
details of service ; never, however, ceasing to design
manoeuvres that illustrate the strategy and tactics of
belligerents. The best men, and nearly all those who
become generals, are some three times in the office in
the course of their career, leaving it for regimental
duties in the various ranks and again returning to it by
selection for merit. The system has been admirably
described by Mr. Spenser Wilkinson in The Brain
of an Army, 1 and the Manchester Guardian also
deserves credit for having kept the General Staff
system steadily before the British public as a model.
Such an organisation in England would have no its duties.
power to interfere with the duties of the Commander-
in- Chief or of the Minister of War. It would neither
inspect troops nor regulate the promotion of the army,
but it would decide the principles which would arrange
the distribution of the imperial forces, and do all the
mass of work which is included under the head of
preparations for mobilisation. It would, however, be
less of an administrative office than a school of general-
ship. If the present Adjutant-General, Lord Wolseley,
1 Macmillan and Co.
564 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
is to be the head of it when created he must be freed
from most of the administrative duties which he is at
present called on to perform.
A General The very existence of a General Staff would con-
staffand s ^^ u ^ e a form of Imperial military Federation. The
colonies. Chief of the Staff would have an intimate knowledge
of the resources of every colony. The Cabinet would
be told what was wanted for each colony, and in what
each colony was deficient. Government could then
propose to colonies definite schemes, which would carry
the weight which would deservedly attach to a highly
competent opinion, while at present we are able to do
little more than ask vague questions. How ready
our children across the seas are to take up clear and
distinct proposals is now evident in Australia, where
great attempts are being made, as has been seen above,
to meet the wishes of the General Officer commanding
at Hong -Kong. Men of business are given to fall in
with businesslike suggestions, and several of the colonies
would at once be willing to take a share in a scheme
which could be shown to be a part of an all-embracing
organisation for Imperial Defence. Each colony or
group of colonies would have its staff, lent from or
trained in the General Staff at home, and would send to
England its ablest officers for instruction. The Aus-
tralians are already despatching their best officers to
India and to England.
A General A General Staff would also calculate the necessary
the^oTifns garrisons for the coaling stations that have been chosen
stations, by tne navy, and would concert with the naval Intelli-
gence Department, itself raised into a school of naval
strategy, measures for bringing these garrisons to war
strength in the easiest manner. In some cases it would
be necessary to keep them always at war strength, while
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 565
in others this would not be required. These are points
which can only be settled by mutual agreement, and
arrangement in time of peace, between the services, with
the heads of which would rest the final decision. The
main point is to have such questions worked out with
authority by officers trained to the investigation of these
problems, and having for their business the duty of
leaving no difficulties of the kind unfaced.
One result of the existence of a General Staff The fixing
would be that responsibilities would be marked out ; and biuty.
if ever the Empire found itself ill served in war it would
know the officials upon whom reproof should fall. At The present
t T n Intelli-
tne present moment the Intelligence Department nas ge nce
not sufficient authority to secure the adoption of its
views. That department has, it is known, worked out
a complete plan of mobilisation of the home forces ;
but this is immediately handed over to another depart-
ment, and the executive branches may overrule, with
imperfect knowledge, the principles laid down upon
fuller knowledge by those who have studied the masses
of facts accumulated in the office. In our present
system there is a confusion between the reflecting and
calculating and the executive powers ; and no one could
be held responsible if our mobilisation schemes broke
down, for the original designers and the executive would
be able to throw the responsibility backwards and for-
wards upon each other. When our mobilisation arrange-
ments fail, and there seems a risk that the Empire will
go to pieces, there is too much reason to fear that the
people will not wait to argue out the interminable
question of the distribution of blame, but will turn
blindly against the highest authorities that it can reach.
Organisation rather than numbers must continue to
be the main topic for discussion when we deal with volunteers.
566 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vin
Imperial Defence, because it would be vain to call for
additional men so long as those we have, in spite of the
enormous cost of our system, are not equipped and
prepared for war. There may be ignorance, but there
is no backwardness on the part of the public as regards
the steps to be taken for defence. Everything that has
been done in this direction in the last few years has
been done in obedience to outside pressure, which has
been rather resisted than encouraged by the leading men.
There never was in history a more curious example of
topsy-turvy patriotism than the recent self-taxation of
the community to make good the default of the Govern-
ment to equip the volunteers.
The militia. Another force which is available and cheap is the
militia, a source of strength capable of large develop-
ment in time of war ; but here we are met by the
difficulty that it has not been decided where the arms
and officers which will be needed upon the mobilisation
of this force are to be found.
Cost. The British Empire bears for war expenditure an
enormous charge ; the heaviest borne by any nation in
the world. The Empire spends on its defence between
fifty and sixty millions sterling in the year, and upon
the British and Indian army alone spends more than
the German and far more than the French army costs.
The French and German Empires each spend on war,
through their military and naval departments, about the
annual sum which is provided for the year 1890-91 in
the German budgets, namely 37,250,000. Although
the comparison which I instituted in my former book
between the financial charge for the British and that
for the German army is, as I then showed, in many of
its figures vitiated by the existence in Germany of a
conscription, yet there is the fact that our army ex-
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 567
penditure in India and in England together is so
enormous that not even the figures relating to pay and
provisions, and many others which are affected by con-
scription, account for the difference, in numbers and
organisation, of the force kept up by the United King- .
dom and by Germany. When statements of this kind
are made it is common to find men saying that those
who make them do not take into account the extra-
ordinary war expenditure of France and Germany but *
look only to their ordinary budgets. As far as I am
concerned this is not the case. The German figures are
confused through the difficulty caused by the existence
of separate accounts for Bavaria and some other states,
but in the case of France the figures can easily be given.
France keeps up half a million of men in time of French
peace, and is now able to call into the field two and a
half millions in time of war and to supply them with
their equipment. That country, in the heaviest year,
after the last war, of renewal of material and of forti-
fication, when the whole of that wonderful series of
fortresses which now face Germany was under construc-
tion, reached the extreme figure of 32,000,000 army
expenditure in twelve months. In 1888 the French total
war expenditure was less considerable. In 1889 we find
the figures creeping up again, and the estimates are for
an ordinary expenditure of over twenty-two millions
and an extraordinary expenditure of seven, or twenty-
nine and a half millions in all, if we include the extra
military expenditure in Tonquin. The budget of 1890
shows figures which are very nearly the same as those
of 1889, and provides for a total expenditure, ordinary
and extraordinary, through the Ministry of War, of
28,420,000. Even if we include the cost of the
marine infantry, the French army expenditure is only
568 PROBLEMS OF GREA TER BRITAIN PART vnl
thirty millions to our thirty-eight, thirty-nine, or forty
millions of various recent years not including that on
our marines who serve on board ship as well as, like
the French marines, on shore. There is colonial
expenditure on certain colonial stations which does not
appear in our imperial accounts, but which corresponds
to some fortification expenditure, and expenditure in the
French West Indies and in Senegal which does figure
in the French accounts. The French thirty millions
includes, roughly speaking, in 1889 a million on fortifi-
cations, a million on melinite shells, and two millions
upon new rifles.
what we Kejecting as we do the modern foreign system of
the a pay f r training a huge force, organised for instant action, we
we make** mam "tain a small regular force in time of peace, with
untrained reserves, and hope to create a large army out
of material ready to our hand when war looms large.
Our very plan itself is unsatisfactory, because it stakes
too much upon the doubtful chance of a single naval
battle ; but when we adopt it there at least should
follow the full elaboration in advance of that mobilisation
which forms a portion of our principle. Great as are
our resources, their development would require an
enormous time if our precautions had not been fully
taken in time of peace. Of all possible courses open to
us that of trusting blindly to the large resources of the
Empire, without calculating beforehand how they are to
be used, is the most foolish. Our only mobilisation
scheme for the land forces at present in existence ties
the volunteers and their "marching 40 -pounder bat-
teries " to the defence of " positions " or entrenched camps
on the south-east and the north-east of London, and is
obviously insufficient as a scheme of Imperial Defence.
If a full scheme were worked out against all eventualities
PART viii IMPERIAL DEFENCE 569
by a competent Chief of the Staff in a proper Staff
Department, and set by the Cabinet upon its own re-
sponsibility before the nation and the Empire as a whole,
I am convinced that it would be accepted by the public
of Great and Greater Britain as the close of a contro-
versy which at present seems interminable.
The mother-country, with her concentrated popula- Example
tion and her possession of skilled military talent, ought colonies.
to set an example to her children, by working out
a practical system, in which many of them would
gladly take their part. At present we set a bad
example of jealousy, friction between different autho-
rities, and absence of organisation. When the ap-
proaches to the capital of the Empire are defended by
the existence of a well-prepared though small mobile
army, our seaports protected, our coaling stations
armed and garrisoned, and the schooling of generalship
organised in a real Staff Department, we shall be able,
with more advantage than we possess at present in so
doing, to call upon the colonies to follow our example in
organisation and to take their places with us in a scheme
of mutual defence. If we cannot even establish a
General Staff because of the jealousies of the depart-
ments, we have no right to wonder that some Australian
colonies recently refused to send their forces into the
territory of another colony for a general review. If we
have never faced the problem of arming and officering
and putting in the field the whole of our own militia
and volunteers, we have little right to quarrel with
Canada for a deficiency in arms and in training on the
part of her militia. We do not seem at present in a
position even to give lessons in such simple matters
as coast defence. Australia long ago supplied her-
self from England with disappearing and with quick-
570 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
firing ordnance such as our committees are only now
beginning to recommend. At present it would seem as
if our attitude towards the great colonies should be
rather one of gratitude for the good nature with which
they accept our shortcomings than of doubt whether
they will consent to bear their legitimate part in
Imperial Defence. No colony can work out a defence
scheme for the Empire as a whole. We, and we only,
can suggest it ; and we shall be unable, in my belief, to
do so until we are possessed of a first requisite in the
form of a sufficient organisation of skilled advice.
Foreign Our system is condemned by every foreign writer
who has considered it. A skilled political observer in
the person of Eduard von Hartmann has lately written
upon the subject, and has told us that we have every-
thing to fear if we delay the necessary preparations for
defence and military reorganisation. Able foreign
writers such as Major Wachs and Dr. Geffcken have
recently pointed out that, while the material resources
of Great Britain are immense, she would not in a really
dangerous struggle have time to draw upon them.
Fleets and armies, they have shown, do not start into
existence at a word ; the art of war has been revolu-
tionised by the existence of national armies capable of
taking the field in four days' time, and while the army
of the United Kingdom has slowly grown, the vulner-
ability of England has increased a hundredfold in the
last fifty years. Her navy is not equal to that which
would be formed by a combination of the next greatest
fleet with one of the second rank, and her capital is so
ill protected that she would be forced to rely upon her
marine not only to defend her trade but also to guard
her coasts. Several of her stations upon the road to
India are, as these writers have shown, insufficiently
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 571
garrisoned ; and Eussia, which it was supposed was
separated for ever from India by many hundreds of
miles of desert and by inaccessible ranges of mountains,
has, by the pertinacity and perseverance of her policy,
advanced within easy striking distance of points which
Great Britain must either defend, or weaken her Indian
Empire by giving up. The ultimate struggle between
Russia and the United Kingdom is, according to Ger-
man observers, inevitable, and the result likely to be
decisive as regards our position in the world. Dr.
Geffcken says of us : "If the condition of the fleet is at
present so far below the duties required of it, that of
the British land forces is simply pitiable ; ". and again :
" The supreme direction of the army is in even a worse
plight than that of the navy." If it be objected that
these witnesses are German, and therefore interested in
strengthening the army and navy of a power which
they fancy might possibly come into the field upon
their side, I must reply that I have already quoted
in The British Army French works in which precisely
the same doctrine is put forward, and have shown that
foreign military opinion is unanimous as to the defi-
ciencies of our organisation.
Sir John Colomb once complained that the public General
mind was too much set upon home defence and too tkm of e the
little upon that of the colonies and of the trade
routes. He was right at the time, but the tendency
has lately been the other way; and we need more
than ever to beware of such a neglect of home
defences that, while the enemies' fleets are free,
ours must be tied to our own shores. A main
necessity in Imperial Defence is well -organised land
defence at home, such as to secure the capital of the
Empire from invasion and the dockyards against bom-
572 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
bardment ; preventing the possibility of panic, and
leaving the fleet free to move. If Imperial defensive
Federation in any form is to be brought to a successful
issue the colonists will wish to know whether the fleet,
which is to be our main contribution to the safety of
their trade and of their shores, can be spared for its
world -wide work, or must be kept selfishly in the
Channel, because we have not organised for England
that land defence which we ask them on their part to
have ready for themselves. If we were so prepared on
land that we could laugh at the notion of invasion our
superiority at sea would be certain, and we should have no
reason to fear for any of our colonies or posts. Our own
communications will be safe, and we can guard our trade
by naval means, depriving the enemy of access to that fuel
without which he can no more prey upon our merchant
steamers than a sword-fish without tail or fins can chase a
whale. One main task of our navy in such a case would
be to capture and destroy the enemy's coaling stations,
and in this way to give as much protection to our trade
routes and colonies as could be afforded by the mere cruis-
ing of a dozen fleets. Great indeed would be the power
which in the event of war we should enjoy at sea, pro-
vided our navy were not forced to guard its ungarrisoned
coaling stations, or tied down by the necessity of pro-
tecting England, alone of European countries unprepared
to defend itself against invasion.
share of India, Canada, Australasia, and South Africa are
the colonies able to defend their own sea frontiers from any force
3> which could be sent against them from a naval base.
While we watch and sweep the seas upon the system
which I have described, no naval expeditions could be
despatched, without utter recklessness, by an enemy not
in possession of ports and coaling stations, situate near
PART vni IMPERIAL DEFENCE 573
the place to be attacked, and strong enough to form the
starting -places for naval operations. If our strategy
at the beginning of a war were first to beat the
main fleets of an enemy, and then to destroy his
chances of forming bases, we should do all that the
colonies could ask from us, and could fairly call upon
them to take their share in our operations. The mother-
country has at vast expense, and by dint in many
cases of hard fighting, secured the possession of most
places on the surface of the globe which could be used
as bases for attacks upon the chief colonies ; and it
would be her business in case of war to obtain the com-
mand of any others which might at that time be in the
enemy's hands. We should do the naval part of such
operations, and the colonies might be fairly asked to
contribute the troops which would be required to per-
form a work undertaken chiefly for their sake. For
example, M. de Lanessan has proposed, as has been seen,
to use Noumea as a base for attack upon the Australian
shores. If our fleet were free to roam the seas in the
event of a war with France it would be wise to
destroy the enemy's base in that chief New Caledonian
port, and this could best be done by Australian troops
convoyed by British men-of-war. The jealousies which
prevail in peace would disappear, I think, upon the first
sign of danger ; and as Prussia and Bavaria came
together in 1870, so war would produce union even
between Victoria and New South Wales. But Germany's
success was due to the fact that the dangers of the
situation had been foreseen, and the arrangements for
combined action made in advance. This is the task
which now falls to the administrators of the British
Empire. When we call the colonies into consultation
upon the subject we must be prepared with those definite
574 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN PART vm
proposals which we alone can make, drawn up, not by
a series of committees, but by a General Staff, which
should be the brain of Imperial Defence.
The result of this survey of Imperial Defence is to
bring before the mind a clearer image of the stupend-
ous potential strength of the British Empire, and of our
equally stupendous carelessness in organising its force.
The incredulity with which some statements that I made
in The British Army were received, afterwards gave
way to an admission of their truth, but although much
has been done on paper, little has been done in fact to
remedy the deficiencies of which I complained. In spite
of the abundant zeal and patriotism of the country, its
enormous wealth and vast resources, the chief success in
organisation which has been lately met with has been
achieved by the vulgar experiment of " sending round
the hat." When a popular Lord Mayor goes begging
for subscriptions to equip a portion of the forces of the
Queen the astonishment of the world is great. This
illustration of our peculiar methods of preparing for
defence is not, however, much more' startling than is
that provided by the consideration of our habit of
managing Imperial Defence by temporary committees,
while we neglect the uniform experience of other nations
in favour of the selection for the purpose of the best
men, specially trained. Those of my readers who have
followed me in a consideration of the entire subject
must, I think, be equally struck by the latent strength
of the British Empire and astounded at its latent
weakness.
Prince Bismarck has said of the British Empire
that it would be supremely powerful if it understood
and organised its means for offensive war; but our
ambition is not for offensive strength, and not only
PART vin IMPERIAL DEFENCE 575
home-staying Britons but our more energetic colonists
themselves decline to accept such organisation of our
power, with the temptations that it would bring. We
wish only to be safe from the ambition of others, and
the first step towards safety must be the arrangement
of consistent plans for supporting the whole edifice of
British rule by the assistance of all the component
portions of the Empire. As all have helped to
raise the fabric, so may all combine to secure it
by the adoption of a settled plan of Imperial
Defence. At the present moment the words made use
of by the Queen, in which the very italics are Her
Majesty's own, with regard to our home defences, have
become true of those of the Empire treated as a whole :
" That it is most detrimental and dangerous to the
interests of the country that our defences should not be
at all times in such a state as to place the Empire in
security from sudden attack ; and that delay in making
our preparations for defence till the moment when the
apprehension of danger arises exposes us to a twofold
disadvantage.
"1st, The measures will be necessarily imperfect
and expensive as taken under the pressure of the emer-
gency and under the influence of a feeling which operates
against the exercise of a cool and sound judgment.
" 2d, Our preparations will have to be made at a
time when it is most important, for the preservation of
peace, neither to produce alarm at home nor by our
armaments to provoke the power with which we
apprehend a rupture."
CONCLUSION
IN our survey of the British Empire we have seen, in
the Canadian chapters, what a miracle has been wrought
by confederation in converting a backward colony into
a flourishing power. In the Australian section we have
found reasons for believing that the adoption of complete
federal institutions for Australia, if not for Australasia,
is at hand. Under the head of South Africa we have
been able to judge that the harm done by a premature
attempt to force confederation upon countries which
were not ready for it, and by the annexation of the
Transvaal against the wish of the inhabitants, has been
remedied by time and by the wise policy of conciliating
Dutch colonists whose interests are identical with our
own. In India we have been struck with the existence
of difficulties in our way (chiefly military and financial)
greater than those which attend the continuance of
the rule of the Queen in the self-governing colonies, and
have seen cause to think that, of all false policies offered
for our acceptance, the most dangerous would be that of
inviting Russia to draw southward into Afghanistan.
In the general chapters of the second volume we have
noted the result of social and political experiments
which are being tried for us by men of our own race,
under conditions which make it likely that many
novelties of colonial invention may one day be imitated
CONCLUSION 577
by ourselves. In the parts of this work which are
concerned with the future relations to one another of
the various portions of the Empire and with Imperial
Defence, we have found that it lies rather with ourselves
than upon the colonists of Canada, and Australasia, and
South Africa, to meet the greatest of the dangers to
which the Empire is exposed.
Turning to matters less important, indeed, than those
which have been named, but full of interest to the
United Kingdom, we have found that the time seems
to have come for the adoption in the peninsula of
Hindostan of a gradual modification of our system of
government in the direction of a development, from
among the present elective municipalities, of Provincial
councils dealing with most matters except finance and
war ; while the as yet unachieved union of India for
military purposes should be completed by the abolition
of the Presidency system. In those of the Crown
Colonies which are mainly inhabited by the negro race
we have discovered reasons for thinking that elective
institutions might also wisely be extended, as has
been done by France in the more prosperous French
Antilles. In the chapters on the colonial democracy of
the self-governing daughter- countries we have noted,
as regards Religion, the wonderful development of
creeds that flourish in the absence of the establishment
of any church ; while as regards liquor laws we have
seen the rapid spread of the principle of Local
Option, which may before long be adopted here. The
success of federalism in Canada ; the likelihood of a
speedy expansion of that system among our colonies of
the South Seas as the result of conference between New
South Wales and the Federal Council of Australasia;
the facts which recommend it in the West Indies ; the
VOL. II 2 P
5 ;8 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN
growth of the principle of customs union in South
Africa, as well as the spread of the Provincial system
in India itself, have received attention. The danger of
the isolated secession of single colonies will be arrested
by the federal principle ; and, while at first the direct
tie to the mother- country will become weaker by its
adoption (inasmuch as only a small number of viceroys
will be named by us instead of a large number of
colonial governors, and the practice of reserving Bills
with a view to veto will become extinct), yet the raising
of at least Australia to the footing of a power con-
nected with us by a personal union, will undoubtedly
diminish many risks and smooth down many petty
jealousies. If the future of the Empire lies only in
the close alliance of three or four Federations hav-
ing no cause of quarrel that can be as yet discerned,
that alliance may long endure. But it is at least
possible that the association of the various British
federations for common defence, and the interest
which they will possess in the peaceful government
of all portions of the Empire, and especially of India
and of the Cape, may lead to closer ties being
voluntarily undertaken by the powerful federal groups.
If we pursue a prudent policy in Hindostan, and unmis-
takably evince our power to defend it against attack, no
war dangers seem to threaten the peaceful progress of
the outlying portions of the Queen's dominions; and if
we not only guard our Indian frontiers but our stations
on the seas, as well as the shores of England and the
capital of the Empire, the power of Great Britain may
prove as indestructible as already is the world-wide
position of our race.
It is not unusual for men to argue as though we
were on the way to lose an Empire which had de-
CONCLUSION 579
scended to us from our forefathers ; but it is worthy
of remark that our real colonial Empire, as Professor
Seeley and other historians have well shown, is the
creation of a century, and almost of our own time.
The full development of the British power in India itself
belongs to the present reign, and the rise of Australia
and Canada and New Zealand is entirely of our day.
The West Indies which were much thought of by
our forefathers are still ours to the same extent to
which they owned them, but are unimportant as com-
pared with the vast bulk of our modern dominions
and the magnitude of their trade. Our forefathers lost
and embittered against us the American states, and
it is in the present century that the British Empire
has been both rapidly developed to its full extent, con-
solidated, and made prosperous and happy. Other
countries have owned at various times colonies such
as were the colonies of the Kegency and of George IV
and William IV, but no country has ever owned, and
it may be safely said no other country will ever own,
such magnificent daughter-states as those of Australasia,
South Africa, and the Canadian Dominion full of
wealth, and force, and pleasant life.
I have spoken in my work, and especially in the
Australasian chapters and the portions of the general
chapters which bear upon Australia, of that wellbeing of
our colonial people to which I have here again referred.
The type of the Anglo-Saxon of the future, growing up
in Canada, and in South Africa, and in Australia, may
not everywhere be the same ; the South African English
are browner than the Canadians ; the Australians taller
and more given to outdoor sport; but essentially the
race continues everywhere to be ours ; differentiated
from the people of the old country and from the
5 8o PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN
Americans of the United States by a healthier cheerful-
ness of life. To the generosity, breadth, self-reliance,
readiness of resource, and proneness to wander which, as
has been remarked by many observers, our colonists
share with our American descendants, they add a
happiness in the act of living which is their own. If
the colonies lack something of the depth of earnest-
ness of the New Englanders, they are beginning to share
their temperance and sobriety. If, too, a certain boast-
fulness and habit of self-assertion are common to the
colonists and to the majority of the Americans, these
defects are inevitable in the early life of peoples which
have rapidly pushed themselves into a foremost position
in the world.
Statisticians, and statesmen who base their arguments
upon the writings of statisticians, are too much inclined,
I think, to argue the question of the wisdom of making
sacrifices to keep the colonies in the Empire upon
grounds which have to do with what is called " trade " in
a somewhat limited sense, and are too little given to look
outside the figures which concern mere commerce. It
is doubtful whether the political relation, for example,
between Australia and Great Britain, has much to do
-with the large export and import of commodities which
takes place between them ; but, on the other hand, it
most certainly has an essential bearing upon the
enormous investment of English capital in the South-
Sea colonies of the United Kingdom. It has been com-
puted that 800,000,000 of British money are invested
in Australasia, Canada, India, and the other colonies and
dependencies of the Empire ; and this vast sum is lent
at a comparatively low rate of interest largely on account
of the political connection that exists, inasmuch as it is
lent more freely and in an increasing rate to portions of
CONCLUSION 581
the Empire as compared with the amounts lent to
countries under a different flag.
Not only is it the case that the feeling of security pro-
duced by the peaceful relations which are involved in the
present tie leads the British investor to his favourite field,
but the connection is also to be powerfully supported by
other less material arguments. The widening of the moral
and intellectual horizon by the world- wide character of the
British Empire is of equal advantage to the colonist and
to the home-staying Briton ; and there is some reason
to fear that, if the Australian continent should separate
its destinies from our own, a certain consequent narrow-
ing of the interests of life would be a result perceptible
on both sides. The connection, even though it be
little more than nominal, which exists between the
United Kingdom and countries like Canada, Aus-
tralia, New Zealand, and South Africa stimulates
the energy of the English people ; but it also prevents
the growth of a hopeless provincialism in the colonies
themselves.
If we fail to discern these facts, foreign observers see
them, and nothing can be more eloquent and at the
same time more bitterly prophetic than the passage
upon " the future " with which Prevost-Paradol ended
his last book, La France Nouvelle. Prevost-Paradol
preached to the French that, if they would not see their
country pine away by comparison with the new Anglo-
Saxon lands, they must find their field in Africa and
spread themselves at least through the whole north of that
continent, in order that, if the Pacific was to be an English
lake, the Mediterranean might at least become a French
one. Since Prevost-Paradol wrote, and died, his pro-
phecies have been in part accomplished, and the progress
in numbers and in power of the English-speaking rivals
582 PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN
of the French has proportionately been even more rapid
than he foresaw.
The world's future, more clearly than it did twenty
years ago when Prevost - Paradol's book appeared,
belongs to the Anglo - Saxon, to the Kussian and
the Chinese races ; of whom the Chinese in their ex-
pansion across the seas tend to fall under the influence
of India and of the Crown Colonies of Great Britain.
France may grow in military and naval power ; and
Germany in this respect, as well as in population, trade,
and wealth ; yet so far more rapid is the increase in the
strength and the riches of the British Empire and of the
United States that, before the next century is ended,
the French and the Germans seem likely to be pigmies
when standing by the side of the British, the Americans,
or the Kussians of the future. In spite of German efforts
at colonisation the vast majority of the German colonists
are being swallowed up in the Anglo-Saxon race, to
which they contribute an element of strength. Seven
millions of Germans are amalgamating with the Irish
and the British and the old Americans of the United
States, and will lose all trace of separate life and
^ separate tongue; and the Germans of Canada, of
i Australasia, and of British South Africa are adding
' to British power. Not only the offshoots of Ger-
many but also the numerous descendants of the
Scandinavian races who flock to the United States
and to western Canada are becoming English in
habits and in speech. The expansive force of the
British people, originally shown mainly in the colonisa-
tion of the United States, is now as much exemplified
by its power to fuse the descendants of the other colon-
ising nations, as by the growth of Canada, the civilisation
of Australia, ^>r the consolidation of the Indian Empire.
CONCLUSION 583
In the days when Campanella wrote men looked
for a universal dominion in the world to fall to
Spain. Spain has lost her colonies, although through-
out the American continent south of the border line
of the United States the Spanish has till lately been
the predominant civilisation. The Spaniards across the
seas have failed to show their power to fuse the Italian
and other immigrants who are now beginning to flock in
to the South American republics ; and Spanish America
seems likely to fall gradually under the political and
commercial leadership of the United States.
The wealth and the ubiquity, and even the race force
of the Anglo-Saxons, will not, however, of themselves pre-
serve the British Empire from meeting the fate of that of
Spain. We have frontiers which place us in contact with
the only powers of the future that will count greatly in
the world with Eussia, with China, and with the United
States. While it may be hoped that the people of the
American Union may never again wage war upon
ourselves, and while the skilful foreign policy of the
Indian Government may retain China as a friend, it is
difficult to view without anxiety the military situation
of an Empire so little compact, and so difficult in con-
sequence to defend. No country can be less homoge-
neous than a nation which includes within its territories
the Oriental despotism of British India and States
as democratic as Queensland ; but that which is our
weakness is also in a sense our strength, as making
Greater Britain, if she learns her task, the most intelli-
gent as well as the most cosmopolitan of States.
INDEX TO VOLUME II
ABDURRAHMAN KHAN, see Afghanistan,
Ameer of
Aborigines' Protection Society, 455
Abyssinia, 173
Acts
Act of Congress, 310
Acts concerning Representation (New
Zealand) 258
Arms Act in India, 143
Berlin Act, 1885, the, 169 ; and pro-
tectionist legislation in the Congo
State, 181
British North America Act, 359
Burghers' Force and Levies Act (Cape
Colony), 523, 524
Colonial Acts against the Chinese, 305
Convicts' Prevention Act (Victoria),
306
Defence Bill (Queensland) 476
Divorce Bill (New South Wales), 282
Dominion Franchise Act (Canada), 257
Education Act (Victoria), 379
English Factory Acts, 287
Truck Acts, 298
Hospitals and Charitable Institutions
Act, 1885 (New Zealand), 325
"Imbecile Passengers Act" of New
Zealand, 314
Jesuits' Estates Bill (Quebec), 395
Labourers' Wages Act (Cape Colony),
299
Liquor License Act (Canada), 1883,
438
Local Option Acts, Australasia, 458
Neglected Children's Acts (Victoria),
329
Provincial Liquor Acts, 1887 and 1888
(Ontario), 433, 439
Public Health Act (New Zealand),
305
Scott Act (Canada), 431-433, 435,
438, 439
Torrens Act, 275
VOL. II
Trades Arbitration Act (Ontario), 288,
289
Voluntary Act (Cape of Good Hope),
419
Adams, Sir F. 0., K.C.M.G., C.B., 263
Adelaide, university, 375 ; Sabbath ob-
servance, 413 ; the Corporation of, and
local option, 445 ; referred to, 247,
401
Aden, defence and garrison, 529 ; re-
ferred to, 157, 169, 170
Gulf of, 163
Admiralty Islands, curiosity in division
of, 184
Admiralty, the, and home defence, 556 ;
referred to, 506, 513, 521, 523, 525
Advance Australia / 451
Advice, Boards of, 366; and see Educa-
tion
Afghanistan, as it is, 15 ; Russian action
in, in the event of the present Ameer's
death, ib. ; advance through, possi-
bilities of, 17 ; its results, 20 ; im-
possibility of safely using Southern
troops in, 43 ; inviolability of, as
opposed to partition, 56 ; policy of
partition, 65 ; referred to, 9, 11, 14-
16, 20, 21, 24, 39, 43, 57-60, 65,
70, 73-75, 116, 576
Ameer of, his understanding of our
promises, 16 ; referred to, 9, 10, 14-
16, 20, 33, 57-59, 65
Northern, the occupation of, by
Russia, and our pledges, 9 ; our course
in case of a Russian occupation, 10
Afghan army, 57
policy, our past, and English public
opinion, 11 ; Mr. Gladstone's, 14
succession, 11
Wars, 28, 51
Afghans, their preference for Russia, 64 ;,
feeling towards our Indian subjects.
ib. ; referred to, 8, 9, 60, 76
2Q
586
INDEX
Africa, development of, 161 ; its present
position, size, and how occupied,
168 ; proportion of external trade of,
with United Kingdom, British India,
and France, 179 ; value of what we
have obtained in, 193, 194 ; referred
to, 4, 5, 85, 159, 163, 166, 167, 173,
177-179, 184, 190, 193, 195, 211,
530, 581
British East, 173, 174
British South, the Germans in,
582 ; and see Africa, South
Central, trade of, its outlet, 173 ;
the British and introduction of arms
into, 176 ; referred to, 164, 167, 168,
172, 184, 212
Crown Colonies in, 162
East, 164, 166, 171, 194
German East, its trade and cur-
rency, 174 ; 178
South, wages in, 290 ; truck in,
299 ; anti-Indian agitation in, 313 ;
Indian coolies of, 313 ; religious life
in, 415 ; Dutch Keformed Church,
415, 417 ; religious life of the Boers,
417 ; influential individuals, ib. ;
the Doppers, ib. ; Scotch ministers,
418 ; disestablishment, ib. ; Church
of England, 419 ; Wesleyans, 421 ;
Koman Catholics, 422 ; Jesuits, ib. ;
Salvation Army, ib. ; Sunday ob-
servance, ib. ; local option, 452 ; Sun-
day closing, 453 ; licensing, ib. ;
habits of the population, 454 ; memo-
rials from temperance bodies as to the
Transkei, 455 ; vineyards, ib. ; trepi-
dation as to condition of, 539 ; defence,
572 ; confederation, 576 ; imperial de-
fence, 577 ; customs union, 578; Anglo-
Saxon type, 579 ; referred to, 3, 158,
161, 162, 164-166, 175, 178, 191, 201,
202, 231, 233, 249, 250, 256, 264,
275, 280, 285, 291, 312, 356, 383,
472, 492, 522, 523, 540, 581
West, 166, 194
West Coast of, British share in the
recent "scramble," 179 ; reasons for
absence of cattle stations on the, 180 ;
our position satisfactory, 182 : referred
to, 456
West Coast Settlements of, 162, 519
African College, the South, 384
Company, the National, 180
Conference at Berlin, 158, 166, 456
Lakes, German, Portuguese, and
English action as to the territory ad-
joining, 175, 176
Company, their reputation,
and connection with Church of Scot-
land and Free Church Missions, 175,
178 ; and Arab slave hunters, 176
Afridis, the, 30, 38, 40, 42, 43, 69, 72
Afrikander party, 473, 475
Age, see Melbourne Age
Agents-General, the, 492, 493 ; a Council
of, 493
Agra, 151
Agriculture, State, 267
Akbar, government of, 116
Alaska, 495
Alexander II of Russia, 105
Ill of Russia, his treatment of
local elective freedom in Russia as
applied to our attempts in India, 105
Alexandria, 529
Algeria, Arabs of, 112 ; natives of, and
the suffrage, 208 ; 113, 178
Ali, Jam of Lus Beyla, 31
Alikhanoff, Colonel, 117
Allahabad, 136
Congress, 112, 136, 137, 140
Alliances Russian, 7, 9 ; Turkish, 61 ;
Chinese, 310 ; arguments of adherents
of the school of, 512; 511
Amalgamated Engineers, The Society of,
289
America, Indians and Spanish in, 312 ;
referred to, 534, 539 ; and see United
States
British North, education, 358 ;
United Methodist Church, 391 ;
United Presbyterian Church, 392 ;
Baptist Church, 395 ; Maritime Pro-
vinces of, and Confederation, 495 ;
referred to, 232, 312, 366, 383, 419 ;
and see Canada
Australasia, and South
Africa, force of, 503
Central, Spanish race in, 208 :
219
Crown Colonies in, 162
North, 161
South, 318, 479, 583
American Commonwealth, The, 228
American Protestant missionaries in
India, 423
Amritsar, temple at, 150
Andamans, the, 157
Anglican Church, 380 ; see Religion
United Synod of Montreal, 391
Anglo-Indian satire, 93
Indians, 91
-Russian alliance, 7, 9
Saxon race, 191, 582, 583
Angra Pequena, 191
Anguilla, 214
Annam, French inhabitants of, and
votes, 208
Antigua, 214 ; educational system, 387
Antilles, French, negroes of, 207; repre-
sentative government in, 208 ; 577
Antonines, the, 123
INDEX
587
Antwerp, 546
Arabs, the, and Madras and Bombay
troops, 43 ; rifles of the, on the Lakes,
172; so-called, in Transvaal and Free
State, 313 ; 174
Arbitration, compulsory, French system
of, in Lower Canada, 288
trade, in Melbourne, 288 ; Canada,
ib, ; Ontario, ib.
Archipelago, the, effects of a check in
the Malay, 526
Architecture, colonial, 249
Argentine Republic, 71, 83
Argus, see Cape Argus
see Melbourne Argus
Argyll, Duke of, and an Indian tobacco
regie, 89
Armenian frontier, 74
Armies of native states, 66
Arms, 70, 559
Army, the, and colonists, 493
Commission of 1879 and abolition
of Presidency system, 50
cost of, 566
general, 554
Indian, 54, 56
native Indian, 38, 42
organisation, 565, 566
staif, French, 563
German, 563
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 92
Art, colonial, 248
Artisan, colonial, and his privileges,
300 ; his feeling towards the dark-
skinned labourer and the Chinaman,
ib., and see Labour
Ascension, 158 ; fixed storeship of the
navy, 520
Asia, 76, 94, 110, 527
Central, position of the Russians
in, 73 ; referred to, 21, 55, 71, 73,
74, 75, 119
Crown Colonies in, 162
Eastern, status quo in, 310
Russian Central, 18 ; and see Asia,
Central
Southern, 62
Western, 62
Asiatic Quarterly Review, 16, 67
Asiatics, 116, 117, 174
Assam, 19 ; English and Scotch planters
in, 160
Atheism, 414
Atkinson, Sir Harry, 256, 270 ; and Pro-
tection in New Zealand, 350 ; and
Imperial Federation, 488
Atlantic, 202, 522
islands, British, local government
in, 213
At Last, Kingsley's, 386
Attock, 22-24, 32, 35, 45
Auckland, 157, 259
Australasia, graduation of death duties in,
231 ; no large white foreign element
in, with a lower standard of comfort,
238 ; savings bank depositors, 321 ;
life insurance, ib. ; education, 365 ;
systems of education, resemblances
and differences of, 368 ; compulsory
education, 370 ; religious teaching, ib. ;
Roman Catholics and schools, 371 ;
universities, 375 ; technical education,
376 ; Wesleyans in, 392 ; Church of
England organisation, 402 ; Roman
Catholic population, 404 ; Presby-
terians and Methodists, 406, 408 ;
Wesleyanism, 407 ; Baptists and Con-
gregationalists, 408 ; smaller religious
bodies, 408 ; Salvation Army, 409 ;
Protestantism, 410 ; Roman Catholic
Church, ib. ; Presbyterians and Wes-
leyans in, 424 ; habits of the people,
450 ; temperance, 451 ; relation to
United States, 484 ; and our naval
burdens, 539 ; defence, 572 ; imperial
defence, 577 ; British money invested
in, 580 ; Germans, 582 ; referred to,
3, 82, 83, 86, 161, 227, 228, 239, 309,
312, 356, 378, 383, 492
Crown Colonies in, 162
Federal Council of, 184
United Steam Navigation Com-
pany, 308
Australasian, the, 491
Australasian Progress, Half a Century
of, Mr. Westgarth's, 309
Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Church,
407
Australia, aborigines, 98, 194 ; Northern
Territory of, 159 ; no dark-skinned
element in, excluded from political
power, 238 ; hours of labour in,
285 ; artisans and house rent in,
292 ; Chinese labour, 295 ; occupations
of Chinamen in, 301 ; feeling against
Chinese immigration unconnected with
protection, 309 ; and New Zealand,
312 ; emigration schemes, 318 ; Roman
Catholics and education, 373 ; primary
education, 387 ; educational statistics,
ib. ; Church of England, 396 ; State
aid, ib. ; effects of its abolition, 397 ;
subscriptions for Church purposes, ib. ;
unwisdom of Church establishments,
398 ; ecclesiastical organisations and
politics, ib. ; High Church movement,
400 ; Queensland clergy, 401 ; Roman
Catholic Church in, 404 ; money spent
on churches, 405 ; national tempera-
ment, 414 ; Irish and the liquor trade,
457 ; marriage with deceased wife's
sister, 469, 470 ; grain, 474 ; federa-
5 88
INDEX
tion, 476, 480 ; power of the Crown,
480; Imperial Federation, 481-483,
485, 486 ; nationality, 483 ; union
with Great Britain, 485; Agents-
General, 492-494 ; the Irish difficulty
in, 495 ; local federation, 496 ; troops,
501 ; defence, 501, 502 ; commercial
harbours, 539 ; attack upon, 573 ;
federal institutions, 576 ; Anglo-Saxon
type, 579 ; political relation between,
and Great Britain, and exports and
imports, 580 ; referred to, 86, 93, 150,
159, 163, 166, 187, 188, 201, 202, 211,
224, 230, 231, 233, 236-238, 246, 247,
249, 250, 252, 255, 277, 284, 294, 311,
313, 318, 319, 321, 327, 328, 330, 336,
351, 354, 356, 366, 422, 479, 488, 492,
498, 503, 521, 527, 533, 535, 536, 540,
564, 569, 578, 581
Australia, Impressions of, Dr. Dale's, 273
Australian cities, great size of the, 246
colonies, political activity of the
wage-earning class in the, 232
Liberal party, legislation of, and
sale of land, 235
newspapers and religious matters,
415
opinion as to management of public
enterprises, 266
party, the native, 3
railways, 266
railways, State control of, and the
supremacy of railway kings, 237
Australian Star and Mr. Parkin, 489
Australian Steam Navigation Company
and Chinese labour, 308
workmen, questions to which they
attach most importance, 269
Australians, the, and government of
New Guinea, 186 ; their qualities,
235 ; and the crowding of capitals,
246 ; and the creation of centres in
each state, 247 ; referred to, 83, 185,
191, 238, 239, 243
Austria, 334
Austrians, 191
Austro-Hungarian Constitution, 480
Ayoub Khan, 15
BABOOS, Bengali, 99, 114
Baden-Powell, Sir G., and yield of land
in Jamaica, 200 ; 338
Bahamas, 161 ; legislature of, 156 ; its
legislative assembly and franchise,
204 ; descendants of American Loy-
alists in, 208 ; school system, 387 ;
local option, 456 ; sale of intoxicants
to minors, ib.
Baird, Admiral, 506
Baleli, 23
Balfour, Mr. A., 190
Balkh, 8, 11, 16, 19, 20, 21, 33, 34, 55-
57, 59, 63, 72
Ballance, Mr., 256, 281 ; and Imperial
Federation, 488 ; and nationalisation
of land, 269, 270
Ballarat, Bishop of, and the relation of
the Colonial Church to the Church of
England, 403
population of, 248 ; 376
Ballot, the, 256
Baluchistan, 30, 31, 51, 157, 213
Bamangwato, 178
Bannu, 22, 23, 27
Banyans, 174
Baptists, 394, 395, 408, 424, 426, 428 ;
in British North America, 395, 396 ;
in Crown Colonies, 424, 426 ; Cape
Colony, 416 ; South Africa, 415
Barbados, legislature of, 156 ; Chief
Justice of, 204 ; representative in-
stitutions, ib. ; success of its mixed
constitution, 206 ; white settlers in,
in time of Charles I. and Charles and
James II, 222 ; education, 385 ;
school attendance and scholarships,
386 ; concurrent endowment, 425 ;
Church of England, 425, 426 ; Sunday
closing, 455; referred to, 199, 215,
533
Barbuda, 214
Barry, Dr., late Bishop of Sydney, in
New South Wales, and Church federa-
tion, 403 ; and the erection of a
marble of the Crucifixion in St.
Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, 412 ;
and federation of Protestant Churches,
ib.
Basutoland, prohibition, 456
Basuto war, 524
Batavia, resemblance of Indian canton-
ments to, 151
Bathurst (New South Wales), 401
Batoum, story of, and Kussian pro-
mises, 10
Bavaria, 567 ; and Prussia, 573
Bazar valley, 30
Beaconsfield, the Earl of, and our policy
in Herat, 11, 57 ; and oifers of territory,
190 ; and the Congo and Cameroons,
164
Bechuanaland, 159, 317 ; sale of liquor,
456 ; referred to, 162, 171, 178
Belgians, King of the, and development
of the Congo region, 182
Belgium, 86, 284, 295, 336, 337, 355,
547
Benares, river front of, 150
Bengal, 39, 46, 47, 51, 91, 97, 107-109,
126, 137, 139, 144, 150
army, good troops in the, 40 ;
referred to, 41, 44, 46, 48, 59
INDEX
589
"Bengali Baboos," 99, 114
Bengalis, 42
Benguela, 175
Bent, Mr., 491
Bequest, freedom of, 278
Berber, 173
Beresford, Lord C., and the Suez Canal
route in time of war, 169
Berlin, 10
African Conference at, 158, 166,
178, 194, 456
Bermuda, legislative assembly of, 156,
204 ; powers of parochial boards in,
213 ; school system, 387 ; military
engineers and over-fortification, 533 ;
referred to, 161, 513
Berry, Sir Graham, his paper on union
for defence, 496; referred to, 262,
494
Bevan, Dr., 408
Bhinga, Rajah of, his anti - Congress
pamphlet, 137
" Bible and State Schools League," 372
Christians, 391, 407, 408
Birdwood, Sir G., 87
Bishops, Australasian, 401, 403
Bishoprics, 394
Bismarck, Prince, 244 ; and our navy,
512 ; and British organisation for
offensive war, 574
Archipelago, 184
Black Mountain expedition, 31
Sea, 56, 61, 62
Blake, Sir H., 215
Mr. Edward, and the power of
veto, 283 ; and Imperial Federation,
487
Blockade, 504, 505, 510
running, 547
commercial, 548
Blyth, Sir Arthur, 494
Boarding- out of poor children, 329
Boer National Church, 416
Boers, religious life of the, 417
Bokhara, Ameer of, 74
Bolan pass, the, 12, 30, 37
railway, 34
Bombay, 29, 30, 48, 49, 50, 85, 86,
97, 108, 109, 118, 127, 174, 528,
529
army, 38, 39, 44, 46, 49, 59, 68
Government, 32, 51, 79, 96, 108
Bonghi, Signor, 256
Bonvalot, M., 124
Borneo, British position in, 188 ; 189,
309, 559
North, 158, 159, 162 ; charter of
Company, 165, 166, 170
Bori valley, the, 14, 15
Borrowite, a, 409
Bosphorus, the, 7 ; seizure of, 61
Boulger, Mr., 67
Bourinot, Dr., 261 ; and the power of
veto, 282
Boycotting, 284
Bradlaugh, Mr., and the opinion of
Indian Council, 102
Bradshaw, Mr. J., 325
Brahouis, the, 55
Brain of an Army, The, 563
Brand, President Sir J., 313
Brassey, Lord, 523
Brisbane, 401, 526
Bristol, defence, 556
British architecture, 249
British Army, The, and difficulties of
blockade, 505 ; 555, 571, 574
British Association, 33
Baluchistan, 71 ; and see Baluchistan
Columbia, provincial taxation in,
277 ; white miners of, and the China-
men, 301 ; education, 365 ; schools,
371 ; and the Scott Act, 431 ; High
License system, 435, 436 ; referred to,
287, 305, 353, 366, 533
East Africa Company, 160 ; and
see Africa, East
Empire, one of the oddities of the,
219 ; existing ties between various
parts of the, 496 ; and Prince Bis-
marck, 574 ; referred to, 5, 114, 115,
159, 165, 238
Government, the, and economy in
naval and military matters, 562 ; re-
ferred to, 26, 51, 61, 94, 100, 108,
118, 121, 125, 133-135
Guiana, prosperity of sugar planters
of, 197 ; curious survival of Dutch rule
in, 205 ; powers of parochial boards
in, 213 ; system of education, 385 ;
referred to, 159, 162, 212, 221
Honduras, 199 ; system of educa-
tion, 385
India Finance, its special im-
portance, 77 ; land-tax, possibility of
imposing a higher, 79 ; or of reducing
civil expenditure, ib, ; revenue, nature
of, 80 ; income-tax, ib. ; debt, its
nature, 81 ; railways, 82 ; trade, 83 ;
as a manufacturing country, 84 ; trade
and manufactures, future of, 86 ; draw-
backs, 87 ; increased military expendi-
ture, need for, may be avoided, 88 ;
the native states, increased revenue
from, 89 ; tobacco-tax or regie, ib. ;
revenue, other possible sources of, 91 ;
moral progress, as contrasted with
material, ib. ; literature which illus-
trates, 92 ; problems, difficulty in
stating opinion upon, 93 ; common-
places, the two great, 94 ; country,
India not one, ib. ; unity, want of,
590
INDEX
illustrated by proceedings of National
Congress, 97 ; British government in,
Professor Seeley on, 98 ; India not yet
fused, 99 ; Conservatism and change,
100 ; House of Commons, interference
by, ib. ; not prevented by the Council
of India, 102 ; its result and partial
nature, 102, 103 ; municipal institu-
tions, 104 ; local elective system,
wisdom and difficulty of its extension,
106 ; provinces, extension of the
system to, 107 ; their federation, 108 ;
Sir George Chesney's views on, and
expediency of acting on them, 108 ;
federation, provincial, upon an aristo-
cratic base, possible, but its expediency
doubtful, 110 ; its consistency with
British interests, ib. ; representative
institutions, political, 111 ; French
example, 112 ; representative govern-
ment, inevitable extension of, 114 ;
native states and rulers, 116, 117 ;
Kashmir, 118 ; British rule, officials of
native states on, 119 ; foreign ob-
servers, opinion of, 120 ; Darmesteter,
M., 123 ; Saint- Hilaire, M. B., 124 ;
goodness of our government, draw-
backs to the, ib. ; the police, 125 ;
retrenchment, unpopularity of, 126 ;
other grievances, 127 ; inquiry, ib. ;
Hu'bner, Baron von, 128 ; Townsend,
Mr. Meredith, 129 ; the future, 131 ;
educated natives, position of, 132 ;
Strachey, Sir J., 134 ; National Con-
gress, 135 ; the other view, 136 ; anti-
Congress pamphlet, the Rajah of
Bhinga's, 137 ; Hunter, Sir W., and
others, their attitude towards the
Congress, 139 ; its policy and demands,
140 ; the great transition, 142 ;
British press in India, views of, 143 ;
Congress movement natural, 144 ;
smallness of the difference upon the
question, 146 ; spirit in which the
movement should be met, ib. ; our
duty, 147 ; great change at hand, ib. ;
persons less important than system,
148 ; Sir Frederick Roberts, ib. ;
Indian scenes, 149 ; the Indian
problem, impossibility of grasping its
difficulties in the cold weather, 151 ;
Hindoos, Parsees, and Mohammedans
of, and votes in England, 496 ; referred
to, 68, 179, 529, 583
British India Steam Navigation Company,
170
Isles, 503, 508, 540, 548
money invested in Australasia,
Canada, and India, 580
Parliament and protection of Pacific
islanders, 185
British planters and cessation of slave
labour in the Crown Colonies, 162
- Sound, 210 ; and see Diego Suarez
states of Australia, 467, 485
war expenditure, 566, 567 ; what
we obtain for the payments, 568
Britons, 173
Broome, Sir Napier, and colonisation
schemes, 317
Brotherhood of the New Life, a member
of the, 409
Brunei, 163 ; purpose of protectorate
over, 188
Bryce, Mr. J., M.P., democracy in the
United States, 228, 229 ; on the wage-
earning class in the United States,
231 ; and legal restriction of fortunes
in the United States, 276 ; and the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the
United States, 394 ; State organisation
of religions in the United States, 398 :
230
Building societies, 320
Bulletin, The, 349
Burmah, its political relation to India
157
military police, 528 ; referred to
6, 19, 25, 43, 51
Upper, 51 ; the Chinese in, 190
Lower, 51
Burns, Robert, 380
Bushmen, 312
CACAO, competes with sugar in Trinidad
and Grenada, 199
Cadet system, 376
Caine, Mr., and the opinion of Indian
Council, 102 ; his views upon liquor
excise, ib.
Cairo, British garrison, 530 ; referred
to, 129, 168, 529
Calcutta, 85, 95, 99, 104, 125, 137,
144
Congress, 99, 140
California, workmen in, their alliance
with the landed democracy, 228 ;
356
Cambridge, 375, 387, 498
Cameron treaty, 164
Cameroons, 164, 166, 178, 182, 183,
194
Camoens, 170
Campanella and Spain, 583
Campbell, Sir G. , and the military posi-
tion in India, 6 ; and popularity of
our Government in rural districts of
India, 97
Canada, no dark-skinned element in,
excluded from political power, 238 ;
259 ; Dominion Franchise Act, 257 ;
weakness of its senate, 260 ; wages
INDEX
591
in, 290 ; the poor in, 330, 332,
334 ; view of protection, 352, 353 ;
education, 358 et seq.; religious organi-
sations, 389 ; Church hostility, 390 ;
educational statistics, 387 ; member-
ship of Church of England, Horn an
Catholics, and Methodists, 392 ;
Church of England in, 393; peculiarity
of signatures of bishops, 394 ; Reformed
Episcopal Church, 395 ; Congregation -
alists,396 ; Protestantism, 410 ; Roman
Catholic Church, ib. ; Protestant ortho-
doxy, 414 ; liquor laws, 430 ; Scott
Act, 431 ; Temperance Act (Scott
Act), votes since its passing, 432 ; in-
toxicating liquors, 433 ; North-West
Territories, liquor laws, 436, 437 ;
prohibition, 437, 438 ; peculiarities of
liquor legislation, 437 ; Licensing Act,
438 ; Provincial Liquor Acts, 439 ;
local option law, 440 ; local option,
458 ; marriage with deceased wife's
sister, 469, 470 ; customs union, 471-
473 ; reciprocity treaty, 474, 475 ;
Imperial Federation, 475, 486, 487 ;
federation, 476, 479, 480, 482, 483 ;
Roman Catholic Church, 487 ; imperial
unity, 494 ; troops, 501 ; defence, 503,
572 ; confederation, 576 ; federalism,
577 ; imperial defence, ih. ; Anglo-Saxon
type, 579 ; British money invested in,
580 ; Germans, 582 ; referred to, 3,
5, 86, 159, 166, 201, 202, 222, 223,
227-229, 232, 237-240, 246, 247,
249, 250, 252, 253, 256, 257, 264,
280, 283, 285, 287, 305, 313, 314,
317-319, 321, 330, 343, 348, 353-
355, 357, 370, 378, 390, 402, 407,
415, 422, 444, 448, 452, 461, 466,
467, 479, 485, 495, 534, 546, 581
Canadian Church Union, 390, 391
Pacific Railroad, 237, 317 ; political
influence of, 534
Royal Commission, and a nine-
hour day, 287
Canadians, the, 6 ; good qualities of,
235
French, see French Canadians
Canterbury, Archbishop of, and the
vacancy in the see of Natal, 419,
420
Cape Colony and its Upper House, 260 ;
curious land system in, 270 ; truck
legislation of, 299 ; poor, 331 ; system
of education, 383 ; Roman Catholics
and Sir J. Herschel's system, 383 ;
scholarships, 384 ; higher education,
ib. ; religious denominations in, 416 ;
concurrent endowment, 418 ; dis-
establishment, 419 ; local option, 452 ;
Sunday closing, 453 ; licensing, ib. ;
temperance party, their accusation
against Dutch farmers regarding the
Kafirs, 454 ; wine - growing, 458 ;
grain, 474 ; its paramount importance
to us, 521 ; French substitutes for,
522 ; causes for delay as to defence,
522, 523 ; forces, 523, 524 ; frontier
questions, 539 ; referred to, 9, 158,
159, 210, 211, 215, 249, 253, 256,
259, 317, 332, 389, 456, 467, 479,
516, 517, 519, 524, 578
Cape Argus, The, 250
" Cape Cockneys," 256
Government, return by, of com-
municants, 416 ; and sale of liquor in
the Transkei, 455
Comorin, 120
Guardafui, 163
Horn, 533
Mounted Rifles, 523
Cape Times, The, 250
Cape Town, 168, 250, 259, 320 ; Wes-
leyans, 422
Cardinals, rank of, at Dublin, 404
Caribs, 160
Carlyle, Mr., 244
Carnarvon, The Earl of, and the defence
and occupation of Sierra Leone, 519,
520 ; and calibre of guns at Hong-
Kong, 527 ; referred to, 465 - 467,
476
Carrington, Lord, 307, 404 ; and federa-
tion, 482
Caspian, the, 60
Castlemaine, population of, 248
Caucasus, the, 71, 74
Southern, 74
Cavalry, Indian, 46
Centennial Magazine, 267, 348, 483
Central India Horse, 45, 48
Centralisation, military, 528, 532
Ceuta, 517
Ceylon, authority of the Council in, 155 ;
tea and coffee in, 199 ; councils of
native village communities in, 213 ;
an instance of British pluck, 217 ;
planters and the tea trade, 218 ; ex-
port of tea to United Kingdom, ib. ;
exportation of coffee, ib. ; Ceylon and
China and Indian tea in the United
Kingdom, 219 ; likely to command
the Australian market, ib. ; general
fruitfulness of the island, ib. ; Bud-
dhist system, 220 ; Indian coolies, ib. ;
Government monopolies, ib. ; draw-
backs, ib. ; its present position and the
autocratic Crown Colony system, ib. ;
landscapes of, 223 ; school system,
386 ; liquor question, 459 ; naval
stations, 525; referred to, 83, 112,
157-159, 162, 163, 212, 456, 559
592
INDEX
Challemel-Lacour, M., 334
Chalmers, Rev. Mr., and New Guinea,
186, 428
Chaman, 58
Channel, the English, 506
Islands, 158 ; and war with France,
509 ; militia, ib.
Charles I., 205
II, 209
Chartered Companies are absorbed,
182
British East Africa Company, 160, 166 ;
slave trade, 171 ; and the value of
the country handed over to the,
172; referred to, 170
British North Borneo Company, 188 ;
and Mr. Gladstone, 190 ; their re-
port as to the Chinese, 309
Imperial British East Africa Company,
see British East Africa Company
Eoyal Niger Company, 180-183
Chatham, defences, 558
Island, 157
Chesney, Sir G., 37 ; his proposals on
the Presidency system, 50 ; and the
federation of Indian provinces, 108
Chicago, 238, 356
"Children, Destitute," replacing of the
term, 330
Chili, 173
Chilian wala, 48
China, military strength of, 75 ; in
relation to Indian defence, ib. ; ex-
port of tea from, to United Kingdom,
218; referred to, 75, 83, 85, 212,
310, 492, 521, 525, 527, 533, 559,
583
seas, effect of a check in the,
526
Chinamen, occupation of, in Western
America, 301 ; in Australia, ib.
Chinese alliance, 60, 61 ; and the Indian
problem, 75, 76 ; and French colonies
in Further India, 189 ; magistrates at
Penang, ib. ; in Upper Burmah, 190 ;
immigrants in Mauritius, 209 ; com-
petition, and Australian and Canadian
workmen, 299 ; immigration and the
colonial working class, 299, 300 ; their
characteristics and occupations, 301 ;
in Australia, British Columbia, and
South Africa, ib. ; nature of Canadian
and Australian feeling against them,
302-304 ; merchants in Sydney, 302 ;
defended by Sir H. Parkes, ib. ;
treaties, 304 ; declaration of an Aus-
tralian intercolonial conference as to,
ib. ; high-handed action of New Zealand
Government against, ib. ; language of
the colonies with regard to Chinamen,
305 ; in tropical colonies, 309 ; popula-
tion in the United States and colonies,
311 ; labour in British Columbia, 353 ;
agitation, the anti-, in Australasia, 492 ;
referred to, 78, 86, 160, 284
Chinese Empire, 192
Government, 76 ; effect upon the,
of Australian action as to Chinese
immigrants, 310
race, 582
Chins, the, 43, 559
Chisholm, Mr., 290
Chitral, 19, 32
Christchurch (New Zealand). 259
Christianity and schoolbooks, 379 ; in-
fluence of, in the colonies, 398
Christian missions in India, 423, 424
Church attendance, 402
Churches, 389-429
Churchill, Lord R, and the Presidency
system, 51 ; our Government in India,
79 ; inquiry into Indian grievances,
127
Church Missionary Society, 173
of England, and legislation on
Church matters, 53 ; religious teaching,
371, 372 ; Canada, 389, 390 ; mem-
bership in Canada, 392 ; position of,
in Canada, 393 ; reports of Bishops
of the, ib. ; dominant tone, 395 ;
Ontario, ib. ; Australia, 396 ; New
South Wales, ib. ; Crown Colonies,
396, 424 ; State aid, and effects of its
abolition, 396-398 ; organisation in
Australasia, 400, 402 ; Orange element
in, 401 ; question of precedence, 403 ;
in Australia, clergy and Wesleyan and
Presbyterian ministers, 411 ; in the
self-governing colonies, ib. ; New South
Wales, 411, 412 ; South Africa, 415,
419-421{; Cape Colony, 416 ; Church
Council of, in Natal, and the vacant
see, 419, 420 ;|in the colonies and Home
Rule, 421 ; and Colensoites, 421 ; India
and State aid, 423 ; Barbados, 425, 426 ;
West-India Islands, 426 ; disestablish-
ment in the colonies, 427 ; referred to,
384, 386, 390, 391, 404, 405, 418, 419,
428, 455
of Rome, 391 ; and see Roman
Catholic Church
of Russia, 417
of Scotland (Canada), 392
of Sweden, a member of the,
409
precedence, 403
Cinghalese population, their effeminacy
accounted for, 220
Cities, great size of, in Australia, 246
Civil Damage Clause, 433
Service (the Indian), 137, 145 ;
and colonists, 493
INDEX
593
Clarke, Marcus, 253
Clergy, colonial, and party strife, 399
Clerical conservatives, 415
Closure, 256
Clubs, 443
Clyde, the, 173, 505
Coal, 502, 521, 541, 543
Coaling stations, 512, 517 ; their import-
ance, 534
Coasts of the United Kingdom, defence
of the, 551
Cobden Club, the, and Indian defence,
6
Cochin-China, 114, 159 ; representative
government in, 208
Cocoa, see Cacao
Cocos, The, 158
Code Napoleon in Mauritius, 212
Colenso, Bishop, and the vacancy in
Natal, 419, 421
controversy, Natal, 416
College of the Immaculate Conception,
386
Colleges, 384, 386 ; technical, 376 ; and
see Universities
Colomb, Admiral, at the Royal United
Service Institution, on blockade, 504 ;
Sir C. Nugent' s reply, ib.
Sir J., his Defence of Great and
Greater Britain quoted, 545 ; on inva-
sion, 552 ; and home defence, 571 ;
referred to, 548, 553, 554
Colombo, 521 ; defence, 525
Colonial Conference, 466, 467, 526 ; and
see Conference
defence, how provided, 539
democracy, see Democracy, colonial
education, peculiarities, 377 ; its
future, ib.
Governments, and the Chinese, 307
Institute, the Royal, 199, 280,
496
life, high standard of, 244
liquor legislation, 457
Office and annexation of -New
Guinea, 191 ; veto, 282 ; and dis-
establishment, 427 ; referred to, 155,
156, 216, 318, 455
Colonies, the, and army service, 56 ;
English tropical, organisation of, 207 ;
electoral and parliamentary peculiari-
ties of, 256 ; religious organisation, 389 ;
withdrawal of State aid to Churches,
428 ; Sunday observance, Sunday
Schools, religious edifices, clergy, and
church attendance, 429 ; self-govern-
ing, 501 ; and the fleet, 539 ; and a
General Staff, 564 ; example to the,
by the mother-country as to a practical
system of defence, 569 ; and the work
of the British fleet, 572 ; share of
the, in defence, 572, 574 ; temperance
and sobriety, 580 ; and see Crown
Colonies
Colonies, The, 164
Colonisation schemes in Newfoundland,
Natal, and Western Australia, 316,
317
Command, question of, 557
Commercial Geography, Handbook of,
290
Commercial union, see Customs unions
Commission, the Joint, 16
Commissionaires, 315
Communication, lines of, 546
Communism, 357
Companies, see Chartered Companies
Compensation, 431, 445, 449
Competition, negro, 311 ; Chinese, 312
Compulsion, 370
Concentration in capitals, its effect on
national character, 248 ; naval, 538
Conclusion, 576
Confederation, local colonial, 213 ; no
prospect of full, 494 ; naval, 498
Conference, colonial, 467 ; future con-
ferences, 468 ; subjects to be treated,
468, 469 ; decisions of, 476, 526
Congo, its free navigation a gain to us,
181 ; referred to, 166, 167, 173,
191
State, the, 178 ; and Tippoo Tib,
172 ; and France and Germany, 181 ;
and absorption by sale to France, 183 ;
freedom from import duties, ib. ; and
British traders, ib.
Treaty and Portugal, 183
Upper, 175
Congregationalists, 408 ; in Canada, 396 ;
Cape Colony, 416, 424
Congress, Indian National, 141
Conseil sup&rieur des Colonies, 257
Conservatives, military, and Indian
defence, 6
the, and refusal by Liberals of
Zanzibar protectorate, 191
Constantinople, 62
Convicts, British, and Melbourne inhabi-
tants, 305
Coolie immigration, its effect on negro
proprietors, 202 ; in the West Indies,
196, 202
Coolies, Indian, 313
Co-operation in the colonies, 296 ;
American opinion, ib. ; reports from
Philadelphia and Australia, 296, 297 ;
and the inter -colonial trade union
congress, 297
Cossacks, the, 47
Cotton, Mr., his New India, 93 ; 146
Counter-attack, 558
Covenanted Civil Service, 145
594
INDEX
Covenanters, Scotch, 417
Cricket in the colonies, 233
Crimea, the, 61
Crispi, Signer, 256
Cross, Lord, and the Indian military
system, 53, 54
Grossman, Sir W., M.P., and the pro-
tection works of Hong-Kong, 527 ;
and yield of land in Jamaica, 200
Crown, the, 480 '
Colonies, the, 104 ; present and
future, popular and scientific mean-
ings of the term, 155 ; varieties, 156 ;
dependencies of dependencies, 157 ;
British territory separate from United
Kingdom, Colonies, and India, 158 ;
tropical settlements, ib. ; English
governed countries across the sea, two
classes of, 159 ; some Crown Colonies
uusuited for European labour and
residence, 161 ; slavery, 162 ; sugar,
ib. ; of what the colonies consist, ib. ;
protectorates and spheres of influence,
163 ; change of policy by Great Britain
in 1884, 164 ; results, 166 ; Berlin
Conference, ib. ; present position of
Africa, 168 ; Egypt, ib. ; East Africa,
169; Somali coast, ib. ; Imperial
British East Africa Company, 170 ;
chartered companies, 171 ; value of
the country dealt with by East African
charter, 172; German East : Africa,
174 ; the Lakes, 175 ; Portuguese
claims, 176 ; German claims, 177 ;
the West Coast, 179 ; the Gambia,
Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and Lagos,
179 ; the Niger, 180 ; the Congo, 181 ;
the Oil rivers, 182 ; spheres of influ-
ence, protectorates, and colonies, ib. ;
the Pacific, 184 ; its future, 187 ; New
Guinea, 185 ; Fiji, 186 ; protectorates
in Malay Archipelago, 188 ; policy of
extension of territory or responsibility,
190 ; value of what we have obtained,
193 ; old Crown Colonies, 195 ; mili-
tary stations, ib. ; naval and trade
posts, ib. ; the West Indies, ib. ; re-
sults of emancipation, 196 ; coolie
immigration, ib. ; beetroot sugar, 197 ;
the Sugar Convention, ib. ; process of
manufacture, ib. ; British Guiana, ib. ;
the St. Lucia experiment, ib. ; Mau-
ritius, 198 ; other tropical colonial
products, 199 ; cacao, ib. ; fruit, ib. ;
negro peasant proprietors, ib. ; crop-
time, 200 ; taxation upon necessaries,
201 ; export duties, ib. ; taxes on land,
trade, ib. ; effect of coolie immigration
on negro proprietors, 202 ; negro view
of these questions, 203 ; negro demo-
cracy, ib. ; representative institutions,
204 ; representative institutions in
French colonies, 207 ; white popula-
tion, 208 ; Crown Colonies with a
white foreign element Trinidad,
Dominica, and Mauritius, 209, 212 ;
France and Madagascar, 210 ; local
government in the West Indies, Ceylon,
and Fiji, 212 ; local confederation,
213 ; Leeward Islands Confederacy,
214 ; Windward Islands, ib. ; West
Indian federation of the future, 215 ;
Cyprus, 216 ; Ceylon, 217 ; tea, 218 ;
general fruitfulness of the island, 219 ;
drawbacks, 220 ; Hong -Kong and
Shanghai, 221 ; peculiarities of Crown
Colony legislation, ib. ; conclusions,
222 ; the chief need of the Crown
Colonies, 223 ; tropical scenes, ib. ;
the poor in, 331 ; education in, 385 ;
disestablishment, 424 ; Christian
churches, position of, ib. ; Roman
Catholics and Protestants, 425 ; liquor
laws, 455 ; tariffs, 475 ; elective in-
stitutions, 577
Colony system of nominated legis-
latures, the ground of its defence,
206
Cruisers, fast, 540, 541
Cuba, 86, 91
Culture, colonial, 248
Cumulative vote, 259
Cunningham, Mr. C. D., 263
Curzon, Mr. G., 16 ; and Afghanistan,
9 ; on railways in Seistan, 33 ; the
Russian bridge across the Oxus, 34 ;
treatment of Asiatics by Russians,
117
Gust, Dr., and the superiority of our
Indian rule over French government
of Algeria 113 ; quoted, on the
increase of the Indian excise, 460
Customs unions, 471, 578 ; Mr. Hof-
meyr's scheme, 472-475 ; 487, et
seq.
Cycling in the colonies, 233
Cypriote-Greeks and their remedies for
the poverty of Cyprus, 217
Cyprus, electoral districts and con-
stitution of, 216 ; Mohammedan and
Greek-Cypriote voters, ib. ; our ad-
ministration too costly, 217 ; remedies
for its poverty, ib. ; its defence and
garrison, 530 ; referred to, 63, 161,
162, 190, 456, 514
Daily Telegraph (Melbourne), 415
(Sydney), 349
Dakar, the French at, 518 ; 519, 522,
535, 536
Dakota, North and South, Prohibition,
437
INDEX
595
Dale, Dr., and State ownership of land,
273 ; and the sinking of Australian
wages, 295 ; and excisions in the
Nelson Series, 379
Damaraland, German, 178
Dardanelles, the, 7, 9, 62
Darmesteter, M., and our rule in India,
122, 123
Deakiu, Mr., 229, 256, 298, 338, 400
Death duties, 276
Debts, colonial, 470
Debt, Indian, 81
Defence, 468, 473
Bill ; see Naval Defence Bill
Imperial Self - governing col-
onies, 496, 501 ; Australia, ib. ; Tas-
mania and New Zealand, 502 ; Canada,
503 ; India, ib. ; naval defence, ib. ;
blockade of the enemy's ports, 504 ;
navy and fortification, 505 ; blockade
in manoeuvres, 506 ; foreign stations,
defence of, by the navy, 507 ; home
defence, proposed, by navy, 508 ;
Channel Islands, 509 ; the navy, in-
crease of, 510 ; alliances, 511 ; work
of the navy, 512 ; coaling stations,
ib. ; their garrisons, 513, 514 ;
Suez or Cape ? 514, 515 ; Suez
Canal, 515-517 ; Gibraltar, 517, 518 ;
Sierra Leone, 518, 519 ; Report of
the Royal Commission, 519, 520 ;
Ascension, 520 ; St. Helena, ib. ; the
Cape of Good Hope, 521, 522 ; French
substitutes for the Cape, 522 ; causes
for the delay, 522, 523 ; Cape forces,
523, 524 ; Mauritius, 524, 525 ;
Ceylon, 525 ; Singapore, 525, 526 ;
Australia, 526, 527 ; Labuan and
Hong - Kong, 527, 528 ; recruiting
from India, 528 ; Indian stations
Bombay and Karachi, ib. ; Aden and
Perim, 529 ; Egyptian stations Suez
and Port Said, ib. ; Mediterranean
Cyprus, 530 ; Malta, 530 - 532 ;
Western Seas Halifax, 532 ; Bermuda,
532, 533; the West Indies, 533,;
Falkland Islands and Fiji, 533, 534 ;
Vancouver Island, 534 ; coaling
stations generally, ib. ; French opin-
ion, 535-537 ; false security, 537 ;
readiness in Great Britain, 537-539 ;
the colonies and the fleet, 539 ; land
defence of Greater Britain, ib. ; food
supply and trade in time of war, 540,
541 ; Great Britain, advantages pos-
sessed by, 541, 542 ; fuel, 542, 543;
home food supply, 544; "invest-
ment," absolute, 544, 545 ; " tem-
porary " investment, 545 ; lines of
communication, 546 ; the United
States, 547 ; United Kingdom, diffi-
culty of maintaining a commercial
blockade of the, 548 ; invasion, 549-
551 ; defence of the coasts of the, 551-
554 ; land forces, 554 ; no mobile
land force in England, 555 ; fortifica-
tion of dockyards and commercial
ports, 556 ; command, 557 ; counter-
attack, 558 ; officers, ib. ; arms, 559 ;
levies, ib. ; General Staff, a, 560 ;
errors to be avoided in its creation,
562 ; what it should be, ib. ; its
duties, 563 ; and the colonies, 564 ;
and coaling stations, ib. ; responsi-
bility, the fixing of, 565 ; the present
Intelligence Department, ib. ; army
organisation and the volunteers, ib. ;
the militia, 566 ; cost, ib. ; French
army expenditure smaller than ours,
567 ; what we obtain for the pay-
ments that we make, 568 ; example
to the colonies, 569 ; foreign opinion,
570 ; defence problem, general con-
sideration of the, 571 ; India and the
colonies, share of, in defence, 572 ;
conclusion, 574
Defence, Indian, pre-eminent importance
of, 3 ; reasons for its separate
treatment, 5 ; consensus of opinion
on its importance, 6 ; India, effects
of loss of, 3-5 ; Russian alliance,
idea of a, 7 ; what we should lose by
it, 9 ; the Tsar, 8 ; our pledges, 9 ;
views expressed on, in Greater Britain
and in 1887, 12 ; troops, insufficiency
of their number and organisation, 13 ;
Mr. Gladstone's Afghan policy, 14 ;
Afghanistan as it is, 15 ; Russian in-
vasion, possibilities of, 17 ; Russian
advance, difficulties of, 19; its results,
20 ; Afghan co-operation, importance
to Russia of, 21 ; defence, the problem
of, ib. ; schemes for what has actually
been done, 22 ; lines of, ib. ; the
Quetta line, 23 ; fortifications, 24 ;
the Khyber line, ib. ; transport, 25 ;
steps to be taken, 26 ; rifles and
ammunition, ib. ; the frontier, 27 ;
Sandeman, Sir R., and the frontier,
29 ; uniform policy, need for, 30 ;
frontier policy, object of, ib. ; Sande-
man system, 31 ; other steps to be
taken, 32 ; Kafristan and Kashmir,
32, 70 ; further Russian advance,
action in the event of, 33 ; force,
increase of, in that event, 35 ; the
Reserve, ib. ; present force, insuf-
ficiency of, for the eventuality, 36 ;
and of transport, 37 ; tribes, ib. ;
native army, 38 ; good troops, number
of, 40 ; army, whence it should be
recruited, 42 ; Southern troops, im-
59 6
INDEX
possibility of safely using them in
Afghanistan and for chief garrisons,
43, 44 ; the force in India, 45 ;
mobilisation, 46 ; cavalry, ib. ; com-
manding officers, 48 ; the Presidency
system, ib. ; reforms, 50 ; Simla Com-
mission, ib. ; representation by Indian
Government in 1888, 51 ; the Sec-
retary of State and the Indian military
system, 53 ; Indian army and present
and future difficulties, 54 ; separate
army, need for, 56 ; Afghanistan, in-
violability of, as opposed to partition,
ib. ; Kandahar, occupation of, 58 ;
Eussia in the Pacific, present vulner-
ability of, 60 ; her invulnerability
elsewhere, and in the future every-
where, 61 ; Turkish alliance, ib. ;
Persia, 63 ; Herat, ib. ; partition,
virtual, 64 ; India Office and Indian
Government, difference of opinion
between the, 65 ; armies of native
states, 66 ; native states and defences
68 ; Sikh states, 70 ; arms, ib. ;
Kussia, comparison between ourselves
and the Russians, 71 ; her advantages,
72 ; Indian opinion, ib. ; Russians,
their position in Central Asia, 73 ;
notions, mistaken, 74 ; China, 75
Delagoa Bay, 174, 521
Delhi, 151
riots, 106
Democracy, Part vi, chap. i. p. 227
artisan, how regarded, 231
Colonial Australian as com-
pared with American democracy, 228 ;
absence in, of faults attributed to
democracies, ib. ; its merits, 230 ;
no class tyranny, 231 ; classes, 232 ;
colonial workmen, social condition of,
233 ; their opinions, 234 ; general
characteristics, 235 ; difference between
Our chief colonies and United States,
238 ; Anglo-Saxon as contrasted with
Latin democracy, 239 ; political ob-
servers and, 240 ; popular government,
weak points of, 241 ; improvement,
242 ; public men, 243 ; colonial life,
high standard of, 244 ; Australian
cities, great size of the, 246 ; town
life, change in conditions of, 247 ;
effect on the democracy, 248 ; culture,
ib. ; architecture, 249 ; journalism,
250 ; the colonies, resemblance of, to
United States of Tocqueville's time,
ib. ; literature, 252 ; politics, 253 ;
members of Parliament, position of,
255 ; electoral and parliamentary
peculiarities, 256 ; suffrage, 257 ;
colonial representatives in France,
payment of, 257 ; minority repre-
sentation, 259 ; Upper Houses, 259-
262 ; the Referendum, 262 ; " Social-
ism" or " State - socialism," 264;
laisser faire, 265-267 ; Socialism, drift
of colonial opinion with regard to,
267 - 269 ; land, nationalisation of,
269 ; land systems, existing, 270 ;
future, opinions regarding the, 271-
273 ; State ownership of colonial lands,
contradictory opinion on financial ad-
vantages of, 273-275 ; taxation, 275 ;
progressive taxation, 276 ; bequest,
freedom of, 278 ; progressive taxation
in France, ib. ; experiments, colonial,
279; women, position of, 281 ; marriage
and divorce, 282 ; veto, the Colonial
Office, ib. ; independent Australian
statesmen, Sir Alfred Stephen and
other, 283
Democracy, future of, and Switzerland,
262, 263
negro, 203
tendency of, in taxation, 276
Democratic assemblies, weakest point of,
242
communities, literary life of, 251
Democrats, young, of Switzerland, pro-
gramme of, as contrasted with Aus-
tralia, 265
Demonstration Day, 285
Depretis, Signor, 256
Deputies, Chamber of, Paris, 112
Dera Ghazi Khan, 22, 23, 29, 45
Ismail Khan, 19, 22, 23, 30, 35, 45,
99
Diamond mines of South Africa, 299
Dibbs, Mr., and Imperial Federation, 482,
490; 349
Dickens (Charles), 512
Diego Suarez, effect of French possession
of, on Mauritius, 210 ; 522, 524, 535,
536
Direct taxation and Protection, 355
Disembarkation of cavalry, etc., 550
Disendowment, 397 ; effect of, 398
Disestablishment, 397, 404, 418,424, 425,
428 ; in South Africa, 419
Dislere, M., 257, 535
Disraeli, Mr. ; see Beaconsfield, The Earl
of,
Divorce, 282
Bills, 469
" Dockers," London, and Melbourne
trades, 285
Dockyards, fortification of, 556
Dominica, white foreign element in, 209 ;
199, 214
Dominion Franchise Act, 257
Doppers of South Africa, 415, 417
Double votes, and Liberal Party of
Victoria, 257
INDEX
597
Downer, Sir J., 467
Downing Street and the government of
the Crown Colonies, 223 ; 230
Downs, the North, 554
Drill, 376
Druids, the, in Canada and South Africa,
320, 321
Dublin, 478
Archbishopric of, 405
Dufferin, The Marchioness of, and Indian
reviews, 149
The Marquis of, and the Army
Commission, 50 ; quoted, 82 ; referred
to, 14, 54, 72, 482
Dunedin, 259
Durban, 321
Dustypore, 93
Dutch architecture, 249 ; homesteads,
ib.
at the Cape, 384, 576
colonists and teaching, 384
Indies, 309
Reformed Church, 389, 415, 416,
417-419
Dwellings, workmen's, condition of in
Montreal and Toronto, 294
ECCLESIASTICAL organisations and politics,
398
Economist, the, 322
Economists, Radical, and Indian defence,
6
Edinburgh, 375, 478
Edinburgh Review and Central Africa,
172 '
Education British North America, 358 ;
the Dominion, ib. ; Ontario, 359 ; ex-
traordinary liberality of the Ontario
system, 360 ; Quebec (province), 361 ;
Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island,
363; New Bruns wick,t&. ; Manitoba, 364 ;
British Columbia, 365; North- West
Territories, ib. ; Canadian Universities,
ib. ; Australasia, ib. ; New South Wales,
Victoria, and South Australia, 366-
368 ; Australian systems, resemblances
and differences of, 368 ; schools, free,
ib. ; education in the colonies, sacrifices
made for, 369 ; Tasmania, ib. ;
compulsion, 370 ; the religious diffi-
culty, ib. in Victoria, 371 ; Roman
Catholics in Australia, 373; higher
instruction, ib.', Universities, Austral-
asian, 375; newspaper education, 376;
technical education, 376 ; educational
peculiarities, 377 ; colonial education,
future of, ib.; public school system,
permanence of the, 378; secular
system, proposals of opponents of the,
380 ; the reply, 381 ; the Cape, 383 ;
Natal, 384 ; Crown Colonies, 385 ;
Trinidad, 386 ; other West-India is-
lands, ib. ; conclusions, general, 387
Education Act, Victoria, 372, 379
Boards, New Zealand, 259, 377
Edwardes, Mr. , his report to Foreign Office
on American State liquor systems,
435
Edwards, Major-General, his report to
the War Office on the colonial forces
and defence, 501, 502 ; defence of
Tasmania, 502, 503 ; 564
Egypt, tobacco revenue of, 90 ; our
special interest in, 168 ; the result
of our occupation, ib.; pledges as to
nature of occupation, 169 ; present
military position, 529, 530 ; referred
to, 87, 90, 173, 178, 505, 517
Egyptian army, our oiganisation of the,
559
Eight-hour day, 285 ; in Australia, 268 ;
Australasia and Victoria, 286 ; Canada,
287 ; results of, in Australia, 288
Bills, 285
Elections, colonial, 257
Elective system, Indian local, 106, 107
Elizabeth, Queen, 117
Emancipation, 196
Emigrants' Information Office, London,
circulars of, on cost of living, 290
Emigration and English workmen, 3J6 ;
grant for, from Church surplus by
Irish Government, 318
Emperors' League, the Three, 10
Encumbered Estates Court and the West
Indies, 196
Endowment, concurrent, 418, 425, 426,
427
England and Russia in Central Asia,
67
England, Church of, and legislation in
the House of Commons, 53
English Channel, 504, 508, 511, 521,
556
Factory Acts, 287
Truck Acts, 298
Episcopal Methodists (Canada), 391
Episcopalian Synods and the Jesuits'
Estates Bill, 395
Esquimalt, naval operations in the North
Pacific, 534 ; armament, ib.
Established Church, absence of, and mul-
tiplication of sects, 408
Estates, large, effect of breaking up, 278
Euphrates, the, 9, 62
Europe, 33, 62, 80, 85, 86, 91, 94, 104,
121, 159, 197, 237, 244, 250, 252,
264, 293, 295, 336, 337, 345, 346,
364, 388, 479, 530, 535
Central, 191, 512
Crown Colonies in, 162
Xorth-West, 165
59 8
INDEX
Eves, Mr. Washington, on the West
Indies, 195; and Dominica, 207
Expenditure, Indian civil, 79
war, 566-568
Expropriation of owners in New South
Wales, 272
FACTORY Acts and inspection, 287, 297
legislation, superiority of the col-
onies as to, 297
Falkland Islands, 195, 533
Famagusta, harbour of, 530
Farrah, 33
Fawcett, Professor, and Indian competi-
tion in the Civil Service, 142 ; and old
Kadicalism, 268 ; 296
Federal Council of Australasia, 214, 261,
280, 476, 491, 577
Federalism, 577
Federation, Australasian and Imperial,
338
Church, 403
financial, 470
Imperial, 472 ; and the tariff ques-
tion, 475 ; essays on, 479 ; colonial
opinion, 480 ; recent change, 481 ;
Australia, 481-483, 485; Lord Car-
rington, 482 ; Queensland and New
South Wales, 484 ; conference, 485 ;
Sir Julius Vogel, 486 ; Canadian view,
486 - 488 ; French Canadians, 487 ;
New Zealand, 488 ; Western Australia
debate, 489, 490 ; Victoria, 491 ; the
Cape, 492 ; Mr. Hofmeyr, ib.
military, 564
Indian provincial, 108, 110
local, 476, 496
of Protestant Churches, 412
permissive, 479
trade, 285
West Indian, difficulties of, not in-
superable, 215 ; and Canada, 216
Federations and unions, West Indian,
nature of their government, 213
Field artillery, 551, 554
Fiji, our system of government of, 186 ;
treatment of the natives contrasted
with that by the French in New
Caledonia, ib. ; results of annexation,
187 ; a favoured land, ib. ; once the
Alsatia of the Pacific, ib.; local dis-
trict institutions of, 213 ; sale of
liquor, 456 ; harbours, 534 ; referred
to, 31, 162-164, 188, 190
Finance, colonial, experiments in, their
special interest for ourselves, 279, 280
Indian, 77
Finch-Hatton, Mr. 451
Finland, 97
Fleet and the colonies, 539
Food supply in time of war, 540
Football in the colonies, 233
Foreign Office, 170, 436
Foreigners, indigent, 313
Foresters, the Ancient Order of, 319-
321, 405
Forster, Mr. W. E., 172, 465, 466 ; and
colonial representation, 478 ; 482
Fortification, 505, 506
of dockyards and commercial ports,
556
Fortifications, Indian, 24
Forts, 513
France and India, 4 ; and the Congo
State, 183 ; colonial representatives,
223 ; in the West Indian Islands, 533 ;
in 1870, and her military superiority,
537 ; referred to, 24, 82, 86, 87, 90,
96, 112, 159, 161, 167-169, 177-179,
181, 184, 185, 191-194, 197, 210, 211,
240, 250, 262, 278, 310, 335, 336, 354,
480, 504, 509, 517, 520, 522, 546, 552,
553, 563, 582
Army Corps of, and equipment,
531
" , Isle of," British, planters in,
and payment of their labourers, 198 ;
210 ; and see Mauritius
France, L'Expansion coloniale de la,
535, 536
France Nouvelle, La, 581
Franchise, woman, 281 ; municipal and
school board, women ratepayers in
the colonies and the, 282
Frederick the Great, 554
Free Church of Scotland, 418
Gardeners, 320
Libraries, English, 252
Freemasonry, 321
Free State ; see Orange river Free State
Free thought, 414
trade, 332-335, 337-341, 347-349,
351, 352, 354, 355, 474
French, the, native population of their
"Indian" and West Indian colonies,
and political power, 114 ; settlements
in neighbourhood of Calcutta and
Madras, 188 ; democratic institutions
in Martinique and Guadeloupe, effect
of, 204 ; colonies, representative in-
stitutions in, 206 ; do. and privileges
to French trade, 474 ; success of,
in Martinique and Guadeloupe, 207 ;
population and self-government in
Mauritius, 210 ; at Diego Suarez,
211 ; architecture, 249, 250 ; on
the Mediterranean, 515 ; opinion
on our position in different parts of
the world, 535, 536 ; and coast de-
fence, 551 ; system as to army staff,
562 ; war expenditure, 566 - 568 ;
referred to, 76, 164, 165, 169, 180
INDEX
599
French-Canadian labour, 334
-Canadian Roman Catholics, 415
Canadians and Imperial Federa-
tion, 487
" concession " at Shanghai, 221
Evangelicals, 428
Guiana, blacks of, 114, 207
India, Hindoos and Mohammedans
of, and votes in France, 496 ; reserv-
ists of the army of, and the mobilisa-
tion scheme, 534, 535
Roman Catholics, 428
West Indies, prosperity, and our
action as to the political future of
West Indian negroes and coloured
people, 208
Friendly societies in the colonies, 319 ;
in South Africa and Cape Town,
320
Frontier, Indian, 23, 25, 27
Froude, Mr., on the West Indies, 195,
478
Fruit, growth of, and negro peasant
proprietors, 199
Fuel, smokeless, 542, 543
Future relations, part vii. passim
GAFFAREL, M., quoted, on Madagascar,
212
Gama, Vasco da, 175
Gambia, development of the, 179 ;
school system, 385 ; 518
Ganges, the, 150
Geelong, 248, 376
Geifcken, Dr., and Great Britain in time
of war, 570, 571
General Staff, a, and its duties, 560,
563 ; position of the Chief, 560 ; not to
imitate slavishly the Prussian system,
560 ; errors to be avoided, 562 ;
what it should be, ib. ; the colonies
and a, 564 ; coaling stations and a,
ib. ; responsibility, the fixing of,
565 ; referred to, 569, 574
the Great, at Berlin, 561 ;
special qualities of its officials, 563
French, 563
Geok-Tepe, 71
George, Mr. H., and land-tax, 273;
nationalisation of land, 275, 297
IV, 579
German islands, right to trade in, 184 ;
population in the colonies and United
States, 238 ; war expenditure, 566,
567 ; colonists and the Anglo-Saxon
race, 582
Empire, 10, 161, 165, 244
Government and troops for Africa,
174 ; their quarter of New Guinea,
183 ; East African sphere of t influ-
ence, ib. ; and Damaraland, ib.
Germans, the, and the Niger Company,
183 ; beer-drinking, 457 ; prohibitory
law in Iowa, ib. ; and the works of
Metz and Strasburg, 505; coast de-
fence, 551 ; referred to, 165, 174,
191
Germany, and India, 4 ; territory lost by
British to, on east coast of Africa,
178 ; and Manchester dislike of Por-
tugal, 181 ; working out problems of
war in, 561 ; referred to, 5, 10, 86,
87, 141, 159, 168, 177-179, 184, 185,
191-194, 268, 279, 284, 324, 456, 480,
512, 552, 553, 573, 582
Army Corps of, and equipment,
531
Emperor of, 62
Ghazni, 16, 19, 25, 27
Ghose, Mr., 496
Gibbons, Cardinal, 405
Gibraltar and modern artillery, 517 ;
bombardment of, from sea and land,
517, 518 ; referred to, 162, 195, 514,
519, 532, 536, 537
Gilgit, 19, 28, 33, 70
Gillies, Mr., Prime Minister of Victoria,
256 ; and the Chinese, 307 ; 338
Giriskh, 23
Gisborne, Mr., and Protection, 350
Gladstone, Mr., his second administra-
tion, and Northern Afghanistan, 9 ;
Afghan policy, 14 ; and the Cameroons,
Zanzibar, and New Guinea, 164 ; the
occupation of Egypt, 169 ; offers of
territory, 190 ; charter to North
Borneo Company and annexation of
Fiji, ib. ; the divisions of the electorate,
258 ; Government life insurance, 323 ;
referred to, 9, 54, 165, 188, 495
Glasgow, 247, 337, 375
Gold Coast, development of, 179 ; system
of education, 385
Goltz Pasha, von der, 62
Gomul pass, 19, 25, 27, 30, 31, 35, 38
Goorkha regiments, dash of, 42
Goorkhas, 40, 52, 69, 72
Gordon, A. Lindsay, 253
- General, and Zebehr Pasha, 172 ;
and the Chinese, 559
Sir A., 304
Gorst, Sir J., 190 ; and the Indian
liquor excise, 102 ; the concert of
executives, 493, 494
Goschen, Mr., succession duty in England,
277 ; and laisser faire in Australia,
265
Graduated taxation, 276, 277, 279 ; and
see Succession
Grafton, 401
Grahamstown, Church disputes at, 421 ;
boys' school, 422
6oo
INDEX
Granville, The Earl, 334
Great Britain, land defence, 539 ; ad-
vantages possessed by, 541 ; et passim
Great and Greater Britain, Defence of,
545
Great Powers, the, and Greece, 510
Greater Britain, colonial, democracy of,
229 ; absence in, of jealousy, or re-
luctance to pay for good service, 230 ;
English character of its colonial de-
mocracy, 239 ; what its abandonment
involves, 508 ; referred to, 422, 448,
461, 536, 539, etc.
Greater Britain, political change in
India since publication of, in 1868,
96; and the value of the Indian
Council, 102; parliamentary institu-
tions in India, 112 ; and American and
Australian relations, 187 ; and the
swelling of Australian cities, 246 ;
and colonial protection, 332 ; referred
to, 125, 150, 188, 281
Greater Britain, The Schools of, 360
Greece, 192 ; and the Great Powers, 510
Grenada, Assembly of, passes a Bill for
its own extinction, 205
214 ; export duties of, 201 ; powers
of parochial boards, 213 ; school
system, 387
Gresham, Mr., and land nationalisation,
272, 273
Gresswell, Mr., and financial union, 471
Grey, Sir G., 269, 383
The Earl, 259, 465, 492
Griesbach, Captain, and the Ameer of
Afghanistan, 57
Griffin, Sir L., and the Ameer of Afghan-
istan, 16, 17 ; rulers of Indian native
states, 118 ; European settlers in
Kashmir, 118 ; 146
Griffith, Sir S. (Queensland), and distri-
bution of wealth, 267 ; referred to,
256, 286, 467, 476, 497
Guadeloupe, 159 ; blacks of, 114 ; man-
hood suffrage in, 207
Guardafui, 174
Guinea, 175
Gulf of, 164, 173
New, 164 ; quarrel between Colonial
Office and Australians as to annexation,
191
Guns, 513, 523, 525, 527, 528
Gunton, Mr. G., and legal regulation of
adult labour, 286, 287
Gwadur, 34
HALE, Colonel Lonsdale, and coast de-
fence by Continental powers, 552 ;
554
Halifax, 294 ; asylum, 331 ; winter port
of Canada, 532
Hamburg, 188
Hamilton, the corporation and the poor,
331 ; 395
Lord G., and the steam coal of
the Empire, 543
Harbour defence, 557
Harrismith, 313
Harrison, Sir H. Leland, and support of
Congress ideas, 146
Hartington, The Marquis of, and the
Simla Army Commission, 50
Hartmann, Eduard von, on our defence
and military reorganisation, 570
Havana cigars, 91
Hawaii, Americanisation of, and the
future of the Pacific, 187
Hayter, Mr., and development of land
system in Australian colonies, 272
Hazaras, the, 65
Heligoland, 162, 195 ; children of,
taught English and German, 221
system of education, 385
Helmund, the, 9, 24, 58, 65, 70
Henderson, Captain, and rapid mobilisa-
tion of Continental armies, 504, 552
Herat, the possibility of attacking the
Kussians at, 63 ; referred to, 8, 11,
12, 16, 18-21, 33, 34, 36, 55-60, 63,
65, 72, 89
Heresy hunting, 406
Heretic, a, 409
Herschel, Sir J., Astronomer- Eoyal, and
education in the Cape, 383
Hicks disaster, 169
High Church movement, 400
Higinbotham, Mr., Chief Justice of
Victoria, 229, 230, 272, 273
Himalaya, the, 86, 120, 149
Hindoo education, 385
Hindoos, the, and an ti- Christian agita-
tion, 424 ; of British India and votes
in England, 496 ; of French India
and votes in France, ib. ; referred to,
114, 129, 160, 174, 194
Hindostan, its nobles and princes in
relation to good government, 80 ; an
Oriental scholar on our position in,
119 ; democratic experiments, 138 ;
native landlords in, 160 ; modifica-
tion of system of government, 577 ;
referred to, 80, 95, 97, 98, 103, 117,
119, 138, 141, 142, 159, 313, 529,
578 ; and see India
Hindu Kush, 8, 35, 65, 89
Hobart, Sunday observance, 413 ; 447
Hofmeyr, Mr., his scheme for a customs
union, 472-475 ; and Imperial Federa-
tion, 492 ; referred to, 256, 419, 479
Hogg, General, 170
Hog's Back, the, 554
Holland, 159, 161, 418, 547
INDEX
6or
Home defence, proposed, by the navy,
508, 509
food supply, 544, 545
Kule for Ireland, 478, 479, 495
Honduras, British, 159, 162 ; logwood
and mahogany in, 199 ; Crown lands,
201
Hong-Kong, education, 385 ; political,
commercial, and strategical import-
ance, 527 ; guns, ib. ; harbour and
defences, ib. ; the Spithead of the
East, ib. ; recruiting, ib. ; safety, 528 ;
referred to, 162, 195, 212, 221, 339,
384, 526, 557, 559, 564
" Hoodlums " of United States, 232
Home, Mr. Van, 238
Hospital, Roman Catholic denomina-
tional, in Sydney, 327
Hospitals, 327
and Charitable Institutions Act
(New Zealand) 1885, 325
Hotharn, Sir C., second Governor of Vic-
toria and the Chinese in Australia, 299
Hottentots, 312
Hours of labour, 285
House of Commons, interference by, in
Indian government, 100 ; and char-
tered companies, 172 ; Portuguese
claims on the Congo, 181 ; debate in,
on charter to North Borneo Company,
190 ; the liquor policy of the Indian
Government, 459, 460 ; colonial re-
presentatives, 465 ; alliance with the
Central Powers, 512 ; referred to,
53, 54, 94, 100-104, 115
of Lords, and colonial representa-
tives, 465
rent, 292
-tax of United States, 278 ; in
Paris, 279
Houssas, the, 43
Hova Government and the Patrimonio
Treaty, 210
Hiibner, Baron von, quoted, 67 ; on our
rule in India, 120, 122 ; and our
education system in India, 128
Hudson Bay Company, 171, 183
Huguenot, a, 409
Humanitarian, a, 409
Hunter, Sir W., and textile manufacture
in India, 85 ; on the position of
women in India, 137 ; his attitude
towards the Congress, 139, 140 ; on
the great transition, 142, 143 ; re-
ferred to, 93, 144, 146
Hyderabad memorandum of 1886,
quoted, 67
contingent cavalry and artil-
lery; 40 ; 45, 48
ICELAND, 546
VOL. II
Iconoclast, an, 409
"I. D. Bs.,"299
Ilbert Bill, the, and concessions to natives
in India, 132
Hi province, 76
Immigrants, 271, 318 ; undesirable, 307
Immigration, coolie, 196, 202 ; pauper,
305 ; convict, ib. ; Chinese, 299, 300,
304, 308, 309, 313, 346 ; assisted,
314, 315 ; State, 316 ; coloured, 312 ;
white, 314; referred to, 202-204, 311,
319
Imperial defence, see Defence, Imperial
Imperial Federation, 477
Imperial Federation League and colonial
legislation, 280 ; the moderate pro-
gramme, 466 ; caution, general recog-
nition of the need for, 477 ; varieties
of opinion, ib. ; Home Rule, 478 ; in
Victoria, New South Wales, and
Queensland, ib. ; referred to, 245, 465,
467, 471, 482, 484, 488
" Imperialists," 478
Impdt progressif in France, 278, 279
Income-tax, progressive, 276
Indian, 80
Independents, South Africa, 415 ; and
see Congregationalists
India, effects of loss of, 3-5 ; defence,
see Defence, Indian ; result of our regi-
men in, 78 ; Free Trade and the factory
system in, 81 ; railroads, 82 ; cultivable
waste, 86 ; irrigation works in, pre-
judice against, ib. ; fresh taxation in,
English opinion on, 88 ; tendency of
our Government in, 96 ; abolition of
cotton duties in, native opinion on,
101 ; under the Marquis of Dufferin,
article on, 120 ; its prosperity under
our rule, 121 ; British-born subjects
in, 130 ; the National Congress and
the declarations of 1833, 1835, and
1858, 135 ; the other view, 136 ;
anti-Congress pamphlet, 137; attitude
of Anglo-Indians, 139; future of
Burmese provinces of, 190 ; export
of tea from, to United Kingdom,
218 ; education in, 385 ; progress of
Christianity in, 423 ; Churches and
missionary societies, work of, ib. ; State
aid to Church of England, ib. ; Christian
missions, ib. ; Salvation Army, 424 ;
liquor question, 459 ; Protection
against, 475 ; federation and, 483 ;.
defence, 503 ; troops, 528 ; recruiting,
ib. ', nature of the recruits from the
North- West frontier,^. ; breechloaders,
ib. ; repairs to heavy guns, 531 ;
manufacture of munitions of war, 559 ;
share in defence, 572 ; military and
financial difficulties, 576 ; development
2 R
602
INDEX
of British power, 579 ; British money
invested in, 580 ; referred to, Part IV
passim; 155, 157-160, 164, 168, 174,
188, 189, 201, 211, 212, 220, 346,
387, 456, 469, 484, 495, 511, 517,
521, 525, 527, 529, 538, 539, 559,
564, 582 ; and see Hindostan and
British India
India, Central, 117
Company, the East, 79, 183, 459
Council of, 79, 93
" Democracy not suited to," 138
French, Hindoos of, 114
language of natives of, 208
Further, 5
Governor-General's Council in, 93
Horse, the Central, 45
India, in 1887, 151
India, North-West, 42, 47, 52, 99, 107,
109, 126
Office and Indian Government, dif-
ference of opinion between the, 65 ;
opposed to a tobacco regie, 89, 90 ;
referred to, 47, 53, 87, 89, 90, 108,
125, 169
Provincial Governments of, 96
Southern Presidencies of, 109
Southern, 42
India, the Voice of, and Indian problems,
144
India, Times of, on the native army, 39,
40
Indian fortifications, 24 ; transport, 25,
37 ; frontier policy, 27, 30 ; railway
bridges, 27 ; mobilisation proposals,
46 ; cavalry, ib. ; feudatory chiefs,
rights . and privileges of, 69 ; trade,
83 ; art work, 84 ; tobacco and the
revenue, 89 ; cigars, 91 ; problems,
difficulty in stating opinion upon, 94 ;
silver-plate tax, 103 ; cotton duties,
repeal of, ib. ; native opinion, diffi-
culty of trusting, 104 ; import duties,
abolition of, 127 ; gold and silver
plate duties, ib. ; parade, description
of, 149 ; of service at a Christian
mission church, 150 ; scenery and
climate, diversity of, ib. ; coolies in
Ceylon, 220 in Natal, 301
Army, and the latest weapons, 26 ;
whence it should be recruited, 42 ;
commanding officers, 48 ; present and
future difficulties, 56 ; referred to,
47 - 49, 54, 56 ; and see Defence,
Indian, passim
corps, first and second, 36, 37
Civil Service and the Congress,
142 ; referred to, 79, 80, 122, 130,
131, 137, 145
Commander-in-chief, and the Presi-
dency system, 48 ; referred to, 37, 48,
50, 51, 68, 69, 72, 108, 109, 119,
149
Indian Council and the Presidency system,
52 ; and the House of Commons, 102
Covenanted Civil Service, 143, 145
Defence, see Defence, Indian
Committee, 66
Government and the Presidency
system, 51 ; the liquor laws, 460 ;
referred to, 24, 27, 29, 46, 49-51, 53,
55, 64, 65, 75, 79, 80, 82, 83, 85, 89,
90, 94, 95, 100-102, 105, 117, 121,
122, 124, 125
Mobilisation Committee, their
general conclusions, 57 ; and the in-
violability of Afghanistan, 58
Mohammedans, 97, 140
Mutiny, 135
National Congress and want of
unity in India, 97 ; and its critics,
136 ; anti - Congress pamphlet, 137 ;
attitude towards the, of Sir W.
Hunter and others, 139 ; Mussulman
opposition, 140 ; its policy and de-
mands, ib. ; language used at, 141;
Congress movement natural,144; small-
ness of the difference upon the question,
146; spirit in which the movement
should be met, ib. ; the liquor system,
460 ; referred to, 79, 80, 93, 94, 97,
99, 100, 105-107, 134-136, 139, 140
native army, its value as against
the Kussians, 38, 39, 41
Congress and parliamentary
institutions, 112
police, their occasional cor-
ruption a financial question, 77
States, armies of, 66 ; defence,
68 ; arms, 70 ; increased revenue from
the, 89
Ocean, 173, 210, 522, 524
officers, and our action if Russia is
permitted to advance to Herat, 59, 60
Indian Polity, 108
Indian Provincial Governments, 96
Viceroy, 29, 49, 65, 68, 102, 104,
109, 119, 128
Indians of North America, 194
Indies, Dutch, 91
Indo-China, 5
Indore, 67
Indus, the, 22-24, 27, 32, 35, 82, 151
Industries, native, protection of, see
Protection of native industries
Initiative, the, 264
Instruction, higher, 373
Insurance, life, 321 ; general State, 324
Intelligence Department, army and the
duties of a General Staff, 562 ; its
position in the British Army, ib. ; and
mobilisation, 565
INDEX
603
Intelligence Department, naval, 564
Intemperate persons and liquor-sellers,
433-435, 438, 442, 446
Invasion, 549, 551 ; Sir J. Colomb on,
552
"Investment," absolute, 544; "tem-
porary," 545, 546
Iowa, prohibition, 457
Ireland, and federation, 479, 480 ; re-
ferred to, 29, 121, 178
Irish, and the liquor trade, 457
Ismail Pasha, 173
Italy, education of apprentice stokers,
543; referred to, 83, 99, 168, 239,
256, 480, 507, 512, 516, 532, 552
JACOB, General, quoted, 74
Jamaica, exports from, 199 ; fruit trade,
ib. ; holdings, 200 ; crop-time, ib. ;
export duties, 201 ; taxation, ib. ;
wealthiest inhabitant of, 204 ; powers
of parochial boards in, 213 ; and
local confederation, ib. ; education,
386 ; State aid to Churches, 425 ;
defences, harbour, and dockyard, 533 ;
referred to, 86, 215
Japan, 83
Japanese, the, 76
Java and the Dutch, 31 ; referred to,
91, 159, 224
Jelalabad, 19, 32, 59
Jenkins, Mr. E., 478
Jesuits' Estates Bill, 390, 395
Jesuits, the, and education in South
Africa, 422
Johannesburg, 250 ; abnormal condition
of, 291
Johore, 182, 189
Journalism, colonial, 250
Jumna Musjid, the, 106
KABUL, 12, 15, 16, 19-21, 24, 57, 63,
65, 66, 74
Kafir education, 385
Kafirs, the, and truck, 299 ; 312, 313,
453
Kafristan, 32
Kaiser Wilhelm Land, 184
Kalabagh, 27
Kandahar, occupation of, dangerous to
our policy, 58 ; referred to, 14, 16,
19, 23-26, 33, 36, 37, 55, 58, 59, 65
Kansas, prohibition, 436, 437
Karachi, 25, 32, 528
Karen, the, 39
Kashmir, 19, 22, 33, 63, 68, 70, 118,
119, 150, 151
Maharajah of, 70, 118
Kearney constitution in California, 228
Kei river, 524
Kendall, Henry, 253
Kenia, Mount, 170
Kermadec Islands, 157
Khamaland, 178
Khan Mahomet Kot, 38
Khartoum, 173
Khojak, the, 23, 149
Khyber line of defence, 24 ; referred to,
22-26, 30-32, 34, 45, 58, 63, 120
Rifles, 41
"Kiezers, The College of " 205
Kilimandjaro, 170
Kimberley, 259 ; abnormal condition of,
291 ; mining population of, and can-
teens, 454
The Earl of, the Army Com-
mission, 50 ; his proposed committee
on Indian grievances, 127 ; and the
Simla inquiry, 128 ; 54
King George's Sound, 502, 526, 535
Kingsley, Canon, 386 ; on the religious
condition of Trinidad, 425
Kingston, Mr., late Attorney-General of
South Australia, on the second branch
of the legislature, 261
Kipling, Mr., 93
Kirk, Sir J., 173
Knutsford, Lord, 307 ; and colonial
union, 485
Kohat, 22, 23, 31, 32, 44
Konigsberg, 10
Koran, the, 129
Kruger, President, and the Transvaal
Volksraad, 417
Kuram, 27 ; civil and military officers at,
28
river, 19
LABOUR, cheap, legislation against, 311
colonial Unions in the colonies,
power of, 284 ; hours of labour in
Australia, 285 ; eight-hour day, effect
of, in Australia, 286, 288 in Canada,
287 ; arbitration, 288 ; labour in
Australia, American opinion on posi-
tion of, 289 ; wages, ib. ; house rent,
292 ; board, 293 ; rents in Canada,
294 ; high wages, permanence of, in
the colonies, 295 ; co-operation, 296 ;
factory inspection and sweating, 297 ;
truck, 298 ; Chinese, 299-301 their
occupations, ib. nature of Australian
and Canadian feeling against them,
302-304 treaties, 304 ; immigration,
convict, 305 ; immigrants, undesirable,
colonial action against, 307 ; immi-
gration, Chinese, examples of strength
of colonial feeling on, 308 Australian
opinion on, not connected with Pro-
6o 4
INDEX
tection, 309 ; effect upon the Chinese
Government, 310 ; legislation, anti-
foreign, ib. ; races, English and native,
311 ; agitation, anti-Indian, in South
Africa, 313 ; foreigners, indigent, ib. ;
immigration, assisted, 315 ; the un-
employed, ib. ; immigration, State
colonisation schemes, 316-319
Labour, pauper, 354
Labuan, 159, 162, 188, 526, 527, 559
Laccadives, 157
Lagos, development of, 179; 182 ; school
system, 385
Lahore, 19, 35
Laisser faire in Australia, 265
Lalla Musa, 35
Lambert, Sir John, 258
Lambeth proposals for Christian unity,
390
Lancashire, 84, 85, 86, 127, 336
Land forces, 554 ; no mobile land force
in England, 555
nationalisation, 267-269
reformers of Europe, and transfer
of land in the colonies, 235
tax of Victoria, 275, 276
and Mr. H. George, 273
Indian, 79
Lands, colonial, State ownership of, con-
tradictory opinions as to its financial
advantages, 273
Lanessan, M. de, and Indian immigra-
tion, 203 ;. French encouragement of
coloured people in the West Indies,
207 ; quoted, on French possessions
in Madagascar, 210, 211 ; the position
of France in " Indo-China," 212 ; con-
quest of Mauritius for France, 524 ; on
the movements of war fleets, 535, 536 ;
the French in New Caledonia, 536 ;
Rapa, ib. ; attack upon Australia, 573
Langevin, Sir H., and Imperial Federa-
tion, 487
"Larrikins," Australian, 232
Lascars, 284, 308
Launceston (Tasmania), 447
Laurier, Mr., and Imperial Federation,
487
Laval University, 365
Lawrence, Lord, 14 ; and the loyalty
of the Indian native army, 131
Laws, liquor, see Liquor Laws
prohibitory, weak point in, 436
" League of Peace," 512
Leeward Islands, their federal constitu-
tion in the time of William and Mary,
214 ; and Mr. Gladstone's first admin-
istration, ib. ; places included in the
Confederacy, ib.; constitutional powers,
214 ; educational system, 387 ; educa-
tion in, ib. ; Sunday closing, 455
Leh, 33
Leroy-Beaulieu, M. A., and our rule in
India, 122
M. Paul, and the extension of
representative political institutions,
112 ; follows Macaulay as to the
language of a conquered country, ib. ;
on our rule in India, 122 ; quoted,
on modern colonisation, 191 ; the
English in India, 192 ; on Mada-
gascar, 193 ; taxation in Ceylon, 220
Lethbridge, Sir Roper, and committee
on Indian grievances, 127
Levies, 559
Liberation Society, 397
Libraries, free, 376
License system, the High, 435, 436, 450
Lincoln (Ontario), 288
President, 243
Lines of Communication, 546
Liquor Act of Ontario, 439
Laws Canada, 430 ; local option
under the Scott Act, 431 ; intoxicat-
ing liquors, other Canadian laws upon,
433; Quebec, Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, Prince Edward Island,
434 ; Manitoba, 435 ; High License
system, British Columbia and the,
ib. ; the Territories, 436 ; peculiari-
ties, minor, 438 ; the Liquor License
Act, 1883, ib. ; Prohibition, 440 ;
New Zealand, 441 ; Queensland, 443 ;
licensing laws, other Australian, 444 ;
Victoria, ib. ; compensation, 445 ;
South Australia, ib. ; Tasmania, 446 ;
New South Wales, 448, 449 ; Western
Australia, 450 ; habits of the people,
ib. ; temperance, 451 ; South Africa,
452-454 ; Natal, 454 ; habits of the
population, ib. ; Crown Colonies, 455 ;
colonial liquor legislation, 457 ; wine-
growing and Prohibition, ib. ; local
option, supposed failure of, 458 ;
India and Ceylon, 459 ; restriction,
461 ; 577
License Act (Canada), 1883, 438
sellers in Australian colonies and
intemperate persons, 435
Liquors, intoxicating, Canadian laws
upon, 433
Literature, American, 252
colonial, 252
Indian, 92
Liverpool, defence, 247 ; 556
Living, cost of, 290
Loans, 470
Local Government Board, 258
Option, supposed failure of, 458,
459 ; referred to, 431, 443-449, 451,
452, 457, 577
London, 247, 296, 303, 309, 318, 375,
INDEX
6o S
467-469, 478, 485, 496, 506, 508, 550,
556, 568 ; dock labourers' strike, and
absence of middle-class hostility against
workmen in the colonies, 236 ; Bishop
of, 455 ; defence, 554
London (Canada), the poor at, 331
- Chamber of Commerce and Im-
perial Federation, 479
Missionary Society, in India, 423 ;
in Crown Colonies, 424 ; 428
- University, 375, 386, 387
Longfellow, 380
Loodiana, 42
Loralai, 35, 44
Lord Howe Island, 157
Mayor, a popular, and equipment
of the forces of the Queen, 574
Lome, The Marquis of, 482
Louisiade Archipelago, division of, 184
Low Church, 395, 401, 412
Lowe, Mr., Chancellor of the Exchequer
(Viscount Sherbrooke), 318
Loyalists, American, in Bahamas, 208
" Lumpers' " strike, 285
Lundi Kotal, 23
Lunis, the, 38
Lusiad, 170, 175
Lyall, Sir A., 93 ; quoted, 148
Lytton, Lord, 14 ; and the Army Com-
mission, 50
MACAULAY, Lord, and education of Indian
people, 100 ; minute of, 128 ; fore-
sight of his minutes and speeches,
135
-Macdonald, Sir J., and woman franchise,
281 ; Imperial Federation, 487, 488 ;
referred to, 230, 256, 352
M c Gill University, 365 ,
MacGregor, Sir C., andaEussian advance
on India, 8, 17,- 18, 19 ; his sugges-
tion as to an attack on Kussian trade,
62 ; estimate of the armies of native
states, 66
M c llwraith, Sir T., 256
M c Millan, Mr., declaration to East Syd-
ney electors on immigration, 310 ;
349, 488
Madagascar, and France, 210, 212 ; re-
ferred to, 4, 165, 191, 424, 522, 535
Madras, English and Scotch^ planters in,
160 ; referred to, 29, 30, 42, 43, 46-
49, 51, 68, 97,108, 109, 127, 559
army, 38, 39, 43, 44, 46
cavalry and infantry, 40
Congress, 140
Government, 51, 79, 96, 108
Maimena, 63
Maine, Sir H., and the nature of demo-
cracy, 240, 241
Maiwand, 15, 37, 59
Majorities, colonial, and "one man one
vote," 257
Majority rule, 244
Malay Archipelago, protectorates in the,
188 ; 220
peninsula, our success in, and the
Chinese, 189 ; results of good govern-
ment, 189 ; 163, 309
Malaya, future of, 190
British, 160
Malays, the, 43, 160 ; Javanese, 31
Maldives, 158
Malta, composition of Council of Govern-
ment of, 221 ; system of education,
385 ; Roman Catholics and Protestants
in, 425 ; sale of intoxicants to minors,
456 ; its first-class importance, 530 ;
magnificent harbours, ib. ; defence,
531 ; manufacturing establishment,
ib.; referred to, 162, 259, 426, 505.
508, 514
Manchester, 247, 279
Manchester Guardian and the General
Staff system, 563
Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, 319, 406
Mangrotha, 30
Man, Isle of, 158
Manitoba and its Upper House, 261 ;
education, 359, 364, 365 ; Protestants
and Catholics, 390 ; Scott Act, 431 ;
licenses and sale of liquor to intemper-
ate persons, 435 ; referred to, 371,
415, 419
Manning, Cardinal, 405
Manoeuvres, naval, 505
Manufactures, Indian, 86
Maories, the, and temperance, 441 ; 216,
312
Maria Theresa, 554
Maritime Provinces, 390, 419, 495
Maritzburg, 321 ; cathedral services, 421
Marmora, Sea of, 9
Marriage with a deceased wife's sister,
282, 469, 470
Martin, Mr. Patchett, and union with
Australia, 484 ; the colonial selection
of governors, 493 ; colonial legists
and the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council, 493
Sir J., 351
Martin's history of the colonies, 495
Martini-Henry rifles, 26
Martinique, manhood suffrage in, 207 ;
French garrison, 532 ; referred to,
114, 159, 536
Massowa, 173
Matabeleland, 178
Maurice, Colonel, and alliance with the
Central Powers, 61
Mauritius, the, authority of the Council
in, 155 ; demand in, for imperial
6o6
INDEX
aid in diffusing information regarding
sugar manufacture, -1 98 ; planters of,
and a silver standard, ib. : white
foreign element, in, 209 ; Hindoos, ib. ;
the French and self-government, 210 ;
its importance and the difficulty of
holding it increased, 212 ; laws, ib. ;
school system, 386 ; Christian Churches
and concurrent endowment, 426, 427 ;
sale of intoxicants to minors, 456 ;
harbour and defences, 524, 525 ; M.
de Lanessan and conquest of, for
France, 524 ; referred to, 157-159,
163, 187, 202, 217, 534, 559
Mayo, The Earl of, 146
Mediterranean, the, route to India, 530 ;
referred to, 62, 173, 505, 514-516,
550, 581
Melbourne Age, 491 ; and land national-
isation, 274
Argus, do., 274 ; 491
Australasian, 491
Daily Telegraph, 415
Leader, 491
Review, and land nationalisation,
274
suburbs, working men proprietors
in, 292; University, 375; Working
Men's College, 376 ; the Bishops, 401 ;
Salvation Army, 410 ; publication of
the " Sunday Times," 413 ; Sunday
observance, ib. ; defence, 501, 556 ;
referred to, 246-248, 296, 305, 306.
343, 422, 452, 557, 569
Members, colonial, their position, 255 ;
payment of, 256, 257
Mennonites of Manitoba, 415
Mercier, Mr., and Imperial Federation,
Merriman, Mr., 419 ; and the Agents-
General, 492
Merv, 71, 73
Methodist Church (Canada), 390, 391,
Conference, 391 ; and national
prohibition, 432
Methodists, 421, 426, Canada, 389,
390 ; British North America, 390
Metz, 505
Militia, the, 559 ; and mobilisation, 566
Mill, Mr. J. S., and Indian government,
120 ; 296
Millerite, a, 409
Mina Bazar, 38
Mine-fields, 557
Miner representatives, 287, 288
Minghetti, Signer, 256
Ministers of religion, how regarded in
the colonies, 399
of religion and parliamentary mem-
bership, 399
Minority representation, 259 ; work on,
published in France, incomplete, &.
Missions, 398, 423, 427, 428
Mobile land force, 555, 556
Mobilisation, 538, 565, 566
Indian, 46
naval, 552
Moghul emperors, 78
Moghuls, 122
Mohammedan negroes as military police,
180
Mohammedans, Indian, 42, 43 ; Northern
Indian, 48 ; Punjab, 40, 48, 52 ;
North -West, 52; and the National
Congress movement, 136 ; of British
India and votes in England, 496 ; of
French India and votes in France, ib. ;
referred to, 12, 107, 174
Molteno, Mr., 260
Moltke, Count von, 560
Mombassa, 170, 173, 174
Mongolians, 150
Montana, Prohibition, 437
Montreal, out-door relief, 330 ; Uni-
versity, 365 ; referred to, 95, 246,
247, 294, 296, 362, 390, 395
Montserrat, 214
Moorhouse, Dr. (Bishop of Man-
chester), 372 ; and educational
grants to Roman Catholics, 380 ; his
influence in Victoria, 400 ; his con-
nection with irrigation schemes, ib. ;
and exchange of pulpits, 403 ; prayer
for rain in Victoria, 411, 412
Moran, Cardinal, and Church preced-
ence, 403, 404 ; and Eoman Catholics
in Australasia, 404 ; his election as
cardinal, 405 ; prohibition as to
societies, ib.
Morgha, 38
Moriori tribe, 158
Morocco, 178, 517
Morris, Mr., 199
Mortality, infantile, 294
Moscow, 141
Moslem troops, 42
Mother-country, the, not yet an example
to the colonies as to a practical system
of defence, 569
Mozambique, 170, 173, 175, 178
Multan, thejfortification of, 65, 66
Municipal institutions, Indian, 104
Murray, Rev. A., 418.
river, 348, 349
Musgrave, the late Sir A., and Jamaica
fruit trade, 199 ; and coolie immigra-
tion, 203
Mussulmans, Indian, opposition of, to
National Congress, 136, 139, 140
NAPOLEON III, 279
INDEX
607
Napoleonic code, 278
Natal, legislature of, 156 ; land system,
271 ; immigrants and homestead sys-
tem, ib, ; demand for skilled artisans,
291 ; the poor, 331 ; system of edu-
cation, 384, 385 ; vacancy in the see
of, and the Church Council, 419, 420 ;
liquor laws, 454 ; drunkenness, ib. ;
sale of liquor, 456 ; referred to, 158,
162, 174, 206, 215, 301, 317, 320, 321
National Anthem, 379
Nationalisation of commerce and in-
dustry, 265
of land, 235, 274
Nationality, Australian, 483, 484
Native industries, protection of, see
Protection of native industries
Natives, educated Indian, 132
Naval defence, 503, 504
Bill, 476, 497
Intelligence Department, 538, 564
struggle, first effect of a, 544
Volunteer movement, 557
Navy, the, and colonists, 493 ; fortifica-
tion, 505, 506 ; defence of foreign
stations, 507, 508 ; proposed home
defence by the, 508 ; increase of the,
510, 511 ; work of the, 512 ; and our
superiority of strength, 553
Neglected Children's Acts, 329
Negro democracy and Hayti, 203 ; con-
trast in Liberia, and in Martinique
and Guadeloupe, ib.
education, 387
labour, 311
peasant proprietors, and fruit grow-
ing, 199 ; a factor in the West Indian
problem, 200 ; and coolie immigration,
202
poor, medical care of the, 206
Negroes, in French Antilles and Reunion,
207' ; and Baptists, 424
Nelson, Admiral, 511
Bishop of, and the Wesleyans, 403
Readers Series, 371 ; expurgation
in, 379
Nepal, 116
Nevis, 214 ; educational system, 387
New Britain, 184, 185
Brunswick, education, 358, 359 ;
primary education, 387 ; Baptists,
Church of England and Presbyterians
in, 395 ; Scott Act, 431 ; liquor laws,
434 ; 369
Caledonia, French treatment of
natives of, 186, 187 ; the French in,
and the Australians, 535, 536 ; re-
ferred to, 164, 573
England, 254
Newfoundland, education, see vol. i. p.
13 ; local federation, 476 ; referred
to, 259, 298, 317, 358, 390, 392
467
New Guinea, protectorate of, reason for
its annexation, 182, 185 ; jurisdiction
over foreigners,. 185 ; High Commis-
sioner of, and his jurisdiction, ib. ; pre-
sent government an experiment, 186 ;
referred to, 5, 163-166, 183, 188,
489, 526
German, 184
Hanover, 184
Ireland, 184, 185
Mecklenburg, 184
Pomerania, 184
South Wales, factories of, musicians
and debating societies in the, 233 ;
Upper House, 260 ; the poor, 327 ;
Government management, ib. ; private
trusts, subsidy of, ib. ; boarding-out
system, ib. ; hospitals of, and the
" mixed system," ib. ; public money
spent on charity, 328 ; and Victoria,
fallacy of comparing them, 339,
340 ; population figures, ib. ; re-
venue, 341 ; general view of the
comparison by free traders and pro-
tectionists, 342 ; value of its export
and import for five years, 343 ;
small value of the figures, 344 ; the
position in, 345 ; arguments for Pro-
tection, 346, 347 ; free traders and
Roman Catholics, 348 ; protectionists
and the daily press, 349 ; educa-
tion, 366, 367 ; schools, 368 ; Roman
Catholics, Episcopalians, and religious
teaching, 371 ; higher instruction,
373 ; university, 375 ; technical edu-
cation, ib. ; State aid to Church
of England, 396 ; disendowment, 397 ;
Presbyterian minister inUpper House of,
399 ; Protestantism, 401 ; Low Church,
ib. ; Church of England and the Orange
Lodges, ib. ; Presbyterians, 406 ; Ro-
man Catholics and secret societies, ib. ;
Independents, 408; Church of England,
411 ; concurrent endowment, 418 ;
liquor laws, 448, 449 ; local option,
448 ; Good Templars, 449 ; wine-
growing, 458 ; federation, 476 ; power
of the Crown, 480 ; Imperial Federa-
tion, 484, 488-491 ; war and union,
573 ; referred to, 157, 184, 186, 197,
227, 230-233, 240, 243, 247, 248,
254, 256, 282, 283, 285, 307, 308,
314, 315, 329, 332, 333, 350, 351,
356, 357, 370, 380, 402, 404, 407,
419, 444, 466-468, 483, 485, 495,
497, 502, 577
Westminster, 534
York, 247
Zealand, Acts concerning repre-
6o8
INDEX
sentation, 258 ; freeholders, 269 ; pro-
gressive taxation, 276 ; the poor in,
325; poor law, ib. ; Boards, ib. ; funds,
ib. ; powers of Boards, 325, 326 ;
system, resemblance .of, to our own, 326;
view of protection, 349, 350 ; expendi-
ture upon education, 370 ; religious
teaching, 371 ; secondary education,
374 ; universities, 375 ; technical edu-
cation, 376 ; cumulative vote, 377 ;
Presbyterians, 380, 400, 405, 406;
educational statistics, 387 ; primary
education, ib. ; Salvation Army, 410 ;
Sunday observance, 413 ; liquor laws,
441, 442 ; excessive drinkers, 442 ;
clubs, 443, 452; licensing bodies,
444 ; local option, 458 ; federation,
476, 480 ; Imperial Federation, 488 ;
troops, 501 ; defence, 502 ; steam coal,
543; referred to,. 157-159, 184, 187,
188, 216, 218, 224, 231, 240, 246,
247, 256, 257, 259, 270, 271, 275,
278, 281, 314, 324, 327, 339, 343,
365, 366, 368, 407, 422, 446-448,
467, 498, 526, 540, 579, 581
New Zealand of To-day, 325
The Colony of, 350
Newspaper education, 376
Niagara, African, 178
Falls, 288
Niger, the, 162, 163, 166, 173, 182
Company, the Royal, 160 ; and
German traders, 180, 181 ; recognition
of* the, by Berlin Conference, 181 ;
the Germans and non - observance of
stipulations by the, 183
Lower, 158, 166 ; our sphere of
influence on the, 179 ; its free naviga-
tion a gain to us, 181
Upper, 165
Nile, the, 173, 175,* 559
Nine-hour day, 285, 287 ; effect of, in
Cape Colony, 288
Nizam, 67
Nore, the, 508
Norfolk Island, 157 ; its Assembly, 204 ;
peculiarity as regards immigrants, ib.
Noumea (New Caledonia), 535, 536 ; and
attack upon Australia, 573
Nova Scotia, 287 ; charitable asylums,
331 ; education, 363 ; schools, 371
Presbyterian Church in, 392 ; Scott
Act, 431, 433 ; liquor laws, 434
Nowshera, 22
Nugent, Sir C., on blockade, 504
Nushki, 32-34
Nyassa, Lake, 175 ; and Portuguese
claims, 176, 177
region, trade of, 175
OBOCK, 536
Oddfellows in the colonies, 319 ; Man-
chester Unity of, in Victoria, New
South Wales, South Australia, and
South Africa, 319, 320, 405
Officers, 558 ; Indian commanding, 48 ;
naval, and the "line of defence," 503 ;
militia, 559 ; volunteers, ib.
Oil rivers, why so called, 181 ; their
position and administration, 182
Ontario, the indigent poor, 330 ; educa-
tion, 360 ; liberality of the system,
ib. ; secondary education, 374 ; pri-
mary education, 387 ; Protestants
and Eoman Catholics in, 390 ; re-
port by Church of England Bishop
of, 393, 394 ; Presbyterians in, 400 ;
Church of England and Orange Lodges,
401 ; Sunday excursions, 413 ; Scott
Act, 431-433 ; licenses, 433 ; sellers
of liquor, and death during intoxica-
tion, 433, 434 ; relations of intem-
perate persons, 433 ; Liquor Act, 439 ;
Prohibition, 440 ; wine-growing, 457 ;
referred to, 260, 288, 318, 361-364,
369, 371, 376, 419
Operatives, Canadian, parliamentary in-
fluence of, 287 ; and see Labour
Opinion, foreign, on our defence, and
naval and military organisation, 570
Orange River Free State, the Dutch and
sale of drink to natives, 313, 454;
grain, 474
Organisation and strategy for [land and
sea service, general principles of, 537
, army, and the Volunteers, 565,
566
Ottawa, 395
Ownership, State, of colonial lands, 273
Oxford, 375, 387, 498
Oxus, 34
PACIFIC, partition of the islands of, 184 ;
future of, 187 ; effect of a check in
the, 526 ; referred to, 5, 7, 60, 61, 83,
159, 163, 164, 166, 167, 191, 193, 195,
210, 489, 533, 535, 536, 581
Island missions, 427, 428
Slope, 311
South -West, 164
Western, 184, 188, 526
Pahang, 189
Palmerston, Lord, offers of territory
declined by, 190
Pambete, 175
Pamir, 33
Panama, Isthmus of, 533, 536
Papua, see New Guinea
Paradol, Prevost-, on "the future," 581,
582
Paris, American studios of, 251 ; forts
INDEX
609
of, 505 ; and food supply in 1870,
545
Parkes, Sir H., quoted, on the Chinese,
302 ; and the Chinese, 305, 307, 309 ;
assisted passages, 315 ; and Imperial
Federation, 482, 485 ; referred to, 230,
256, 260, 262, 282, 467, 490, 494
Parkin, Mr., and Imperial Federation,
484 ; at Sydney, 488, 489 ; in Victoria,
491 ; referred to, 280, 465, 466
Parliamentary peculiarities, 256
Parliaments, colonial, composition of,
254
Parnell-Rhodes correspondence, 479
Parsees of British India and votes in
England, 496
Pathans, 40, 52, 69, 72
Patrimonio Treaty, French and Malagasy
text of, 210
''Pauper," "pauperism," "poorhouse,"
how regarded in the colonies, 328
Paupers, white, 313
Payment of members, 231, 255-257, 280
Payne, Mr. E. J., 164
Pearson, Dr., Education Minister of
Victoria, 229 ; his report on educa-
tion, 367 ; and Bible teaching in
schools, 379, 380 ; Roman Catholic
opposition to school systems in Vic-
toria and New South Wales, 380,
381
Peiwar Kotal, 27
Pekin, 75, 76
Penang, Chinese magistrates at, and
Great Britain, 189
Peninsular and Oriental Company, the,
and Lascars, 308
Penjdeh, 18, 19
Perak, 189
Perim, 157, 169 ; the harbour of, its capa-
city and safety, 529
Persia, division of, with Russia, 63 ;
referred to, 11, 29, 33, 57, 60, 63, 74-
76
Northern, 63, 74
Shah of, 74
Persian Gulf, 28, 34
Peru, 173
Peshawur, 15, 22, 25, 32, 35, 44, 45, 65,
66
Pietermaritzburg ; see Maritzburg
Pindi, the, 45
Pishin, 23, 35
Pitcairn, 157, 195
Plantations, the Council of Foreign, 209
Playfair, Sir Lyon, on protection and
wages, 356, 357
Playford, Mr., 256 ; and local option,
446
Plural vote, 234
Police, Indian, 125 ; military, 527, 528
Policy, Court of, 205
uniform Indian, 30 ; frontier, ib.
Polish Quadrilateral, 10
Political peculiarities, colonial, 256
Politics, colonial, 253
Poll-tax, 277, 302
Polynesia, 5, 187 ; and see Pacific
Polynesians, the, and French and Ger-
mans, 186
Pondicherry, 112, 113
Poor, the In New Zealand, 325 ; New
South Wales, 327 ; Victoria, 329 ;
other Australian colonies, 330 ;
Dominion of Canada, ib. ; South
Africa and Crown colonies, 331
Popular Government, 240
Popular Government, 244
Port Castries, harbour, 533, 534
Darwin, military purposes, 526 ;
referred to, 502, 526, 535
Elizabeth, 422
Hamilton, 29
Louis, 210 ; fortifications, 524
- Phillip, 273
of Spain, Roman Catholic Arch
bishop and English Bishop of, 425 ;
and see Trinidad
Royal, 533
Said, coaling station, 529
Ports, commercial, fortification .of, 556
Portsdown, 527
Portsmouth, 527
Portugal, 161, 168, 176-178, 181
Portuguese, the, 113 ; claims in the
Lakes territory, 175 ; and railroads in
their West African possessions, 179
Posen, 10
" Position " warfare, 554
Positivist, a, 409
Postage, 469
Posts, naval and trade, 195 ; and see
Coaling Stations
Powers, the Central, 61
Prague, 141
Predikants, 418
Prendergast, General, 27
Presbyterianism, 406
Presbyterians, Scotch, and the African
Lakes Company, 176 ; and Roman Cath-
olic schools, 380, 381 ; in Canada, 389,
390 ; membership in Canada, 392 ;
Cape Colony, 416 ; in Crown colonies
and Australasia, 424 ; referred to, 390,
396, 400, 402, 405, 411, 455
Presidency Governments, 50
system, the, 48 ; fatal to vigour of
action, 49 ; reforms, 50 ; Army Com-
mission of 1879 and abolition of, ib.',
representation by Indian Government
in 1888, 51 ; its consequences in civil
and military affairs, 52
6io
INDEX
Press, colonial, 253
Pretoria, 250
Prevost-Paradol, 581, 582
Primitive Methodists (Canada), 391 ; 407,
408
Prince Edward Island, 260 ; education,
363 ; schools, 371 ; Scott Act, 431,
433 ; sale of liquor to Indians and
minors, 434
Progressive taxation, 276-7, 279
Prohibition, 430-433, 436, 438, 440,
443, 444, 446, 451, 456-458
party and high license system, 436
Property, growth of, 278
Proportional representation, 259
Proprietors, negro -peasant, 199, 202
Protection, 231, 255, 268, 269, 272, 273,
279, 283, 309, 331 et seq., 472, 475
arguments for, 346
Australasian, 338
colonial, in 1868, 332 ; subsequent
experience, effect of, 333 ; bearing of,
on imperial and Australasian federa-
tion, 338
compensates Australian and Cana-
dian manufacturer, 295
of native industries Protection,
colonial, in 1868, 332 ; subsequent
experience, effect of, 333 ; Victoria
under . protection, 334 ; local manu-
factures, growth of, 335 goods
manufactured, kinds of, 336 ; federa-
tion, Australasian and imperial, bear-
ing on, of colonial protection, 338 ;
comparison between Victoria and New
South Wales, fallacies of, 339 ; popu-
lation figures, 340 ; revenue, 341 ; other
figures, ib. ; comparison between the
colonies, general view of, 342 ; the
figures, small value of the, 344 ; the
position in New South Wales, 345 ;
arguments for protection, 346 ; Roman
Catholics, 348 ; party funds, subsidies
to, ib. ; smuggling, ib. ; New Zealand
view, 349; Queensland view, .350;
Canadian view, 352 ; union, com-
mercial, 353 ; direct taxation, support
gained for protection by the unpopu-
larity of, 355 ; wages, effect of protec-
tion upon, 356
Protectionists and votes in Sydney, 257
Protective system and national finance
and prosperity, 342 ; and trade, 343
Protectorates and spheres of influence,
163 ; grow into colonies, 182 ; sale of
liquor, 456
Protestant Episcopal Church (United
States), growth of, 394 ; Mr. Bryce
and membership of the, ib.
Union, 390, 411
Protestantism, 401, 410
Provident Societies, 319 et seq.
Prussia and Bavaria, 573
Public duty, standard of, in the colonies,
254
houses and Sunday closing, 413
school system, 378
the, and defence, 566
works, 286
Pulpits, exchange of, 402
Pulsford, Mr. (Sydney Chamber of Com-
merce), and Victorian gold, 340
Punjab, recruits from, nature of, 528 ;
referred to, 15, 23, 25, 29, 42, 52, 68,
95, 107, 109, 118, 139
Frontier Force, 40, 50
Government, 27, 30, 37, 38
Puritans, English, 417
Pyrford, 554
Quarterly Review, editor of, and natural
rights, 239
Quebec (city), 250, 294
Quebec (province) maintenance of poor
persons, 330 ; education, 358, 359,
361, 362 ; Protestants and Roman
Catholics in, 390 ; Roman Catholic
Church, 410 ; liquor sellers and re-
lations of intemperate persons, 433 ;
local liquor laws, 434 ; referred to,
162, 259, 288
Scott Act, 431-433
University (Roman Catholic), 365
Queen, H.M. the, and home defences,
575 ; referred to, 92, 132, 134, 495
Queensland, view of protection, 350,
351 ; compulsory education, 370 ;
religious teaching, 371; "mixed
schools," 377 ; disendowment, 397 ;
High Church element, 401, 402 ; local
option, 443 ; defence, 473 ; power of
the Crown, 480 ; Imperial Federation,
484, 490, 491 ; taxation, 497 ; organ-
isation of forces, 502 ; referred to,
160, 186, 198, 231, 240, 254, 256,
259, 280, 282, 286, 296, 329, 365,
366, 368, 407, 452, 467, 468, 495,
526, 539, 583
Northern, 180
Quetta line of defence, 23 ; referred to,
12, 14, 19, 20, 22-26, 32, 34-36, 44,
50, 51, 55, 58, 63, 65
Quick, Dr., and land tenure in Victoria,
272
Quilimane, 175
RACES, native, destruction of, by Eng-
lish, in Pennsylvania, United States,
and Canada, 311, 312
Radicalism, dominant, of the colonies,
its position, 268
Railway material, colonial, 253
INDEX
611
Railways, Indian, 82
State, 265
Rajputana, 117
Rajputs, 43, 113
Rapa, the island of, and the French, 536
Rawson, Sir Rawsou, and exports from
the Gambia and Lagos, 179 ; and
growth of property in Australian
colonies, 278 ; 478
Rawul Piudi, 22, 23, 35, 36, 44, 45, 48
Rechabites, the, ' in Australia, Canada,
and South Africa, 321, 405
Recruiting, 528
Redistribution Bill, 258
Red Sea, 163, 529, 536 ; route, 522
Referendum, the, 262-264
Reformed Episcopal Church in Canada,
395
Reforms, Indian, 50
Regency, colonies of the, 579
Relations; future, between the mother-
country and the remainder of the Em-
pire, 465 ; financial federation, .470 ;
a customs union, 471 ; common tariff,
difficulties of a, 475 ; the Rose-
bery- Salisbury correspondence, 477 ;
Rhodes - Parnell correspondence, 479 ;
the Crown, power of, 480 ; colo-
nial opinion, 480 ; recent change,
481 ; secession, the right of, 486 ;
the Western Australia debate, 489,
490 ; the A gents -General, 492, 493 ;
a Council of them, 493 ; confederation,
full, no prospect of, 494, 495 ; exist-
ing ties between various parts of the
British Empire, 496 ; defence, practi-
cal suggestions bearing on, ib.
Religion Religious organisation of the
colonies, variety of the, 389 ; Domin-
ion of Canada, ib. ; Protestant Union,
390; United Methodist Church of
British North America, 391; United
Presbyterian Church of do., 392;
Church of England in Canada, 393;
Reformed Episcopal Church, 395 ;
Baptists, ib. ; Australia, 396 ; abolition
of State aid, effects of the, 397 ;
Church of England in Australia, 400 ;
High Church movement, ib. ; organis-
t ation of the Church of England in
' Australia, 402; question of preced-
ence, 403 ; Roman Catholic Church,
404 ; Presbyterianism, 406 ; Method-
ism, Wesleyan, 407 ; other Method-
ists, ib. ; Congregationalists and
Baptists, 408 ; smaller bodies, ib.;
Salvation Army, 409 ; Protestantism,
Australian, 410 ; Sunday observance
,in the colonies, 412 ; tendencies,
colonial, in religious thought, 414 ;
South Africa Religious life in, 415 ;
the Boers, religious life of, 417 ; the
Doppers, ib. ; Scotch ministers, 418 ;
Disestablishment, ib. ; Church of Eng-
land, 419 - 421 ; Wesleyans, 421 ;
Roman Catholics, 422 ; Salvation
Army, ib. ; Sunday observance, ib. ;
India, 423 ; Crown colonies, 424
Trinidad, 425 ; other West India
Islands, 426 ; Mauritius, ib. ; dis-
establishment, 427 ; Pacific Islands
and other missions, ib. ; conclusion,
428, 577
Rents, at, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec,
St. John's (New Brunswick), Halifax,
and Ontario, 292, 294, 295 ; in mining
districts of Canada, ib.
Representation, attempt to deal with, in
New Zealand, 258
colonial, 478
Representative institutions in French
colonies, 206
Responsibility, fixing of, 565
Retrenchment, Indian, 126
Reunion, blacks of, 114 ; manhood suf-
frage in, 207 ; negroes of, ib. ; referred
to, 159, 210, 524, 534
Revenue, Indian, 80, 89, 91
Revolutionary Socialism, how regarded
by workmen in the colonies and
United States, 265, and see Socialism
Revue Militaire de Vfitranger and the
Channel Islands, 509
Rhodes, Mr., 237 ; and Parnellite funds,
479; in Africa, 539
-Parnell correspondence, 479
Rio de Janeiro, 211 .
Ripon, The Marquis of, 54 ; and the
Army Commission, 50 ; and the powers
of Indian municipalities, 146
Ritualism, Australian, 400
Riverina, 343, 347
Roberts, Sir F., his position at Kuram,
28 ; and the defence of Chitral, 32 ;
Indian transport, 37 ; his popularity,
influence, and characteristics, 148,
149 ; 13, 29
Robinson, Sir W., Governor of Trinidad,
and coolie immigration in the West
Indies, 202
Sir W., Governor of Western
Australia, on the government of an
ordinary Crown colony, 206
Rochdale, 296
Rockhampton, 401
Roman Catholic Church in Australia,
404 ; money spent on churches, 405 ;
and secret societies, 405, 406 ; Aus-
tralasia and Canada, 410 ; India, 423 ;
Canada, 389, 487
membership in Canada, 392 ;
population in Australasia, 404, 405
612
INDEX
Roman Catholics and protection,' 348 ;
schools, 371-373 ; in Australia, 373 ;
and religious teaching, 378 ; educa-
tion, 359, 360, 362, 363, 364, 365,
368 ; secular and religious teaching,
380 ; educational grants, ib. ; teachers
in public schools, 382 ; and education
in the Cape, 383 ; Trinidad, 386 ;
South Africa, 415, 422 ; Cape Colony,
416 ; Mauritius, 426, 427 ; 419
Romans, government of the, 116
Rome, 122, 169
Rosebery, the Earl of, and Imperial
Federation, 465, 466, 476 ; and a
customs union, 471, 475 ; colonial
representation, 478 ; Home Rule, ib. ;
referred to, 487, 491
Salisbury correspondence, 477
Roumania, 192
Royal Colonial Institute, 496
Commission and " indentured "
labour in Trinidad and Demerara, 202
Russell, Mr. J., 360
Russia, importance of Afghan co-opera-
tion to, 21 ; her vulnerability and in-
vulnerability, 60, 61 ; comparison of,
with ourselves, 71 ; her advantages,
72 ; and our means of counter-attack,
558 ; and India, 571 ; referred to,
4-13, 17-21, 33-35, 56-63, 65, 70, 72-
77, 82, 88, 89, 91, 105-107, 111, 122,
124, 147, 191, 244, 310, 417, 495, 503,
516, 525, 553, 576, 583
- Emperor of, 8, 10, 14, 36, 122
Russia in Central Asia, 9
Russian alliance, a, and Indian defence,
6 ; invasion, 17 ; advance, 19 ; further
advance, 35
Government, 122
race, 582
Russians and tea- drinking, 219 ; cost
of railways and bridges, 34 ; referred
to, 9-11, 13-21, 33, 34, 36-39, 41, 42,
47, 54-56, 58, 63-65, 69-71, 73, 74,
101, 117, 119, 146
"Russia's Hope," The, 541
SAIGON, 536
"St. Christopher (St. Kitts) Nevis," 214
St. Helena system of education, 385
its garrison, population, and local
militia organisation, 520, 521; re-
ferred to, 158, 535
Saint-Hilaire, M. B., quoted on the Presi-
dency system, 52
on our rule in India, 122, 124
St. Kitts, 214 ; educational system, 387
St. Lucia, experiment of Government
interest in a central sugar factory
a success, 198 ; landscapes of, 223 ;
coaling station, 533 ; referred to, 214,
557
St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, 405
St. Vincent, 214 ; Sunday closing, 455 ;
sale of intoxicants to minors, 456
Saldanha Bay, 521
Salisbury-Rosebery correspondence, 477
Salisbury, The Marquis of, and the Sultan
of Zanzibar, 193 ; Imperial Federation,
486 ; alliance with the Central Powers,
512 ; referred to, 281', 305, 404
Salmon, Mr., on the West Indies, 195,
196 ; existing Crown Colony institu-
tions, 206 ; confederation, 215 ; taxa-
tion in Ceylon, 220
Salt Range, the, 48
Salvation Army, 409; 410 ; in South
Africa, and the Hottentots, 422 ; and
Dutch ministers, ib. ; in India, 424
Samarcand, 17, 73
Samoa and United States, 187
Sandeman, Sir R., 14, 19; his chief
assistant and Russian occupation of
Afghanistan, 20 ; the Indian frontier,
29 ; his local levy system, 31, 32 ;
and the tribes, 37 ; survey, of the
Gomul, 38 ; referred to, 27-30, 213
Sandford, Sir F., 258
Sandhurst, 376
San Francisco, 211
Sankeyite, a, 409
Sarakhs, 18, 73
Sarawak, 163, 182 ; purpose of protec-
torate over, 188
Sargeant, Rev. G., President of West
Indian Wesleyan Conference, and the
revenue of slave colonies since emanci-
pation, 200
Savings banks, 321,342
Scandinavians, 582
Scanlen, Sir T., 260
Scenes, Indian, 149 ; tropical, 223
Scholarship system, 374
Scholarships, 386 ; State, 377
School attendance, 387
Boards, 366
books and Christianity, 379
fees, 368, 369, 374
tax, city, of Montreal, 362
Schools, Roman Catholic, 359, 360, 362,
371, 373, 378, 380, 381 ; free, 368 ; of
Mines, 376; "mixed," 377; private,
ib. ; " dissentient," ib.
boarding, grants to, 388 ; farm,
ib. ; State-aided, 386
Schreiner, Miss 0., 253
Scotch ministers and the Dutch Reformed
Church, 418
Scotland, 290, 392, 412, 413, 418, 479 ,
Scott Act (Canada), 431, 432, 435, 438-
440, 458
INDEX
613
Seaboard, protection of the, and soldiers
and sailors, 558
Secession, the right of, 486, 578
Secondary education, 374 ; and the work-
ing classes, ib.
instruction, colonial, 253
Secular school system, proposals of op-
ponents of, 380 ; the reply, 381
Security, false, 537
Seeley, Professor, on British government
in India, 98 ; and federal union,
495 ; referred to, 478, 579
Seine, the, 535
Seistan, 19, 33, 34
Sella, Signer, 256
Sendall, Sir Walter, 215
Senegal, French force in, 519 ; referred
to, 114, 181, 568
Senegambia, the French and national
money spent on, 180
Service, Mr., and improved legisla-
tion, 283 ; referred to, 229, 256, 334,
496
Settlements, tropical, 158
Seychelles, 158
Shanghai, 221
Shea, Sir Ambrose, and fibre in Bahamas,
199 ; 493
Shearers in Australia, 316
Shepstone, Sir Theophilus, 420
Ships, fast - steaming merchant, 540,
541
Shire, the, 175
" Shouting," 450
Siberia, 76, 87
Sibi, 26, 35
-Pishin Railway, 2
Sicily, 97
Sidney, Sir P., 244
Sierra Leone, development of, 179 ; na-
tional expenditure on, by Imperial
Parliament, 180 ; school system, 385 ;
question as to sufficiency of its de-
fence, 518, 519 ; black troops, 519 ;
harbour, ib. ; Report of Royal Com-
mission as to its strategical value, 519,
520 ; Lord Carnarvon on its occupa-
tion in the event of war, ib. ; referred
to, 531, 534, 557
Sikh police, 527
regiments, steadiness of, 42, 43
- States, army of, inspection and
efficiency, 70
Sikhs, the, 39, 40, 52, 69, 72, 97, 113
Simla, 104
Commission of 1879 and the Presi-
dency system, 50, 128
Simon's Bay, 521-523
Sindh, 23, 55
Singapore, 188 ; development of trade,
189 ; the Chinese, 309 ; as a coaling
station in time of war, 527 ; referred
to, 195, 221
Singh, Rajah Rampal, his confusion of
metaphors, 95
Single tax and Mr. H. George, 297
"Sixpenny Restaurants" in Melbourne,
291, 293
Skobeleif, 8 ; his officers, and their treat-
ment of native chiefs, contrasted with
that of the British, 71
Slavery, 162
Slavonic delegates at Prague and Moscow,
141
Smith, Adam, and imperial unity, 495
Mr. Goldwin, 354
Mr. Murray, and Protection in
Victoria, 335
Mr. W. H., and Imperial Federa-
tion, 477
Smuggling, 348
Snider ammunition, 26
Socialism, colonial opinion regarding,
267 ; referred to, 264, 279, 280, 296,
324, 357 ; and see State-socialism
Social Welfare, Subjects of, 356
Societies, Government friendly, in New
Zealand, 322; a failure in the
mother-country, ib. ; high percentage
of population insured in New Zealand,
323 ; temperance section, ib.
provident friendly, 319 in
South Africa, 320 ; savings banks,
321 ; racial difficulties, 322 ; Govern-
ment friendly societies, ib. ; State
insurance, general, 324
secret, 405
Socotra, Sultan of, 170 .
Soldiers and political offices, 28
Solomon Islands, division of, 184
Somali protectorate, its annexation, 169
Territory, 163
Soudan, 29, 42, 164, 168, 169, 173, 178
South African Republic, 178 ; and see
Transvaal
Australia, and the Chinese, 302 ;
the poor in, 330 ; education, 366, 368 ;
free schools, 368 ; compulsory educa-
tion, 370 ; religious teaching, 371 ;
universities, 375 ; technical education,
376 ; educational peculiarities, 377 ;
High Church clergy, 402; Bible
Christians, 408 ; local option, 444,
445 ; Prohibition, 446 ; publicans
and loitering, ib. ; wine-growing, 458 ;
organisation of forces, 502 ; referred
to, 230, 240, 248, 256, 259, 282, 285,
286, 314, 329, 336, 343, 350, 383,
384, 407, 452, 467, 526
Spain, her colonies, 583 ; failure to fuse
Italian immigrants, ib. ; referred to,
161, 354, 517, 518
614
INDEX
Spaniards, the, 113, 168, 386
Spanish America, 583
artillery officer and the closing of
the Bay of Gibraltar, 517
Spezia and the French, 518 ; 532, 543
"Spheres of influence," 163, 182; and
sale of liquor, 456
Spithead, the, of the East, 527
Sprigg, Sir Gordon, 419, 453, 455
Staff, a General, 560
Stanhope, Mr., and the Imperial Federa-
tion League, 467, 468 ; Imperial
Federation, 477
Stansfeld, Mr., 318
State Aid and State Interference, 338
State aid to Churches, 396-398, 423
schools in the colonies, and immi-
grants, 238
State-socialism, 227, 264, 267, 280, 357
States, native Indian, 116, 117, 119
Statesmen, colonial, 243, 244, 255 ; and
parties, and the rights of Upper
Houses, 262 ; Australian, their know-
ledge about Canada or South Africa,
280 ; Canadian, and Australia, ib. ;
independent Australian, 283
Stations, coaling, 513 ; their garrison,
ib., 514 ; coaling stations and a General
Staff, 564
foreign, defence of, by the navy,
507, 508
Indian naval, 528
Statistics, and rural districts and towns,
247
educational, 387
Steam-launches, 557
Steamship lines, subsidies of, 469
Stegmann, Mr., 418
Stellenbosch, 384, 418
Stephen, Sir A., 229, 282 ; his legisla-
tive services, 283
Sir J., 283
Stephens, Mr. Brunton, 253
Stevenson Road, 178
Stewart, Sir Donald, 66
Stokers, skilled, lack of, 543
Stonyhurst, 422
Story of an African farm, The, 253
Stout, Sir R., 256, 267, 269, 270, 281,
371 ; and Imperial Federation, 488
Strachey, Sir J., his estimate of a
monopoly of tobacco sale in India,
90 ; and taxation of land in Bengal,
91 ; his India, 93 ; and educated
natives in India, 133 ; judicial ap-
pointments, 134 ; 146
Straits Settlements, authority of the
Council in the, 155, 157 ; native edu-
cation in the, free to natives, but not
English, 221 ; school system, 386 ;
inhabitants of the, and defence of
Singapore, 526 ; referred to, 158,
162, 217, 304, 309, 386, 515, 559 ; and
see Singapore
Strasburg, 505
Suakim, 173
Succession - duty, 275 ; graduated, in
Victoria, 277
Suez Canal, delicacy of the, as a means
of communication during war, 515 ;
difficulty of keeping open and of
watching, 516 ; an alternative route,
517 ; referred to, 9, 132, 168, 521
coaling station, 529
Gulf of, 516
or Cape route, which ? 514, 515
Suffrage in the Colonies, 257, 281
Sugar, 162, 473, 479
Convention, 1888-89, probable
effect of a Bill founded on the, 197 ;
and owners of sugar estates in the
West Indies, ib.
trade, West Indian, depression in,
how accounted for, 197 ; prosperity of
sugar planters of British Guiana, ib. ;
experiment of Government interest in
a sugar factory in St. Lucia, ib. ;
Mauritius, a sugar - growing colony,
198 ; demand for imperial aid regard-
ing sugar manufacture, ib. ; its effect
on fruit production, 199
Sukkur, 23, 27
Sulieman range, 37
Sunday closing, 434, 435, 442, 444,
449, 452, 453, 455
observance, 412, 429 ; in South
Africa, 422
railway traffic, 414
School system, colonial, 373, 398,
429
Sutherland, Mr. Alexander, and land
nationalisation in Victoria, 274
Swat, 33
Swaziland, 174
Sweating, 297 ; Victorian sweating
clause, 298 ; report by Victorian
chief-inspector, ib.
Swiss Confederation, The, 263
Switzerland, 279, 477; The Referendum
and the future of democracy, 262,
263
Sydney ; merchants and free trade, 347;
University, 375 ; Presbyterian minister
in Lower House, 399 ; the Bishops,
401 ; Centennial Banquet, Church pre-
cedence at, 403 ; Salvation Army,
410; Sabbath observance, 413 ; Good
Templars, and compensation, 449 ;
Imperial Federation, 488, 490 ; re-
ferred to, 157, 211, 247, 272, 308,
345, 346, 348, 404, 422, 482, 484,
526
INDEX
615
Sydney Bulletin, 349
Daily Telegraph, 349
: Morning Herald, and religious
matters, 415 ; imperial federation,
489 ; referred to, 349, 413
Syme, Mr., and Australian protection,
272, 273 ; 274, 275
TABLE Bay, 521-523
Tahiti, 536
Taj, the, 150
Tanganyika, Lake, 175, 177, 178
Tariff, common, difficulties of a, 475
Tashkend, 73, 119
Tasmania, free schools, 368 ; religious
teaching, 371 ; universities, 375 ; local
option, 446, 447 ; drunkards, 448 ; de-
fence, 502, 503 ; referred to, 230,
259, 314, 350, 384, 401, 407, 452
Taxation, colonial, 275, 278, 474 ; pro-
gressive, 276 ; provincial, 277 ; pro-
gressive, in France, 278 ; graduated,
278, 279
Tea-drinking, and the Canadians, Aus-
tralians, Americans, and British, 219
Technical education, 375
Teheran, 74
Tel-el-Kebir, 530
Temperance, 323, 451
Temple, Sir K., and Kabul, 20 ; the
relative positions of the Madras, Bom-
bay, and Bengal armies, 44 ; cultivable
waste in India, 86 ; the local elective
system in India, 106 ; Indian inquiry,
128; 134
Tennyson, 380
Thames, the, 557 ; defences, 558
Theatres, proprietors of, and Sunday en-
tertainments, in Australia, 413
Theosophist, 409
Thomas, Mr. Julian, and the French in
New Caledonia, 187
the late Mr. , on the West Indies,
195
Thorn, 10
Thursday Island, 502 ; fortification, 526 ;
535
Tippoo Tib, 172
Tobacco-tax, Indian, 89
Tobago and local confederation, 213
Tochi, 19, 25, 27, 30
Tocqueville, accuracy of his observations
and views on democracy, 239; and
the Second Empire in France, ib. ;
and the effect of democracy on art,
literature, and science in the United
States, 231, 250, 251 ; 399
Tonquin, natives of, and the suffrage,
208 ; referred to, 4, 114, 165, 191, 567
Toronto, 294, 296, 390 ; grants to charit-
able organisations, 330 ; University of,
how maintained, 361, 365 ; liquor
matters, 433, 434
Torpedo-boats, 557
"Torrens Act," 275
Torres Straits, 189, 526
Townsend, Mr. Meredith, and the loss of
India, 129-131 ; his article on the re-
tention of India, comments on, by
Indian British press, 143, 144
Toynbee Hall, speech, at, its effect in
Australia, 245
Trade and revenue in the Crown colonies,
222
Indian, 83, 86
in time of war, 540
unions, 284 ; and see Labour
Trades Arbitration Act of Ontario, 288,
289
Trafalgar, 511, 546
Traitl de Legislation coloniale, 257,
535
Transfer of land, 275
Transkei, memorials regarding sale of
liquor by Cape Government in the,
455 ; influence of the Churches, 455
Transport, Indian, 25, 37
Transvaal, cost of living in the, 290,
291 ; annexation, 576 ; referred to,
71, 178, 250, 257, 290, 318
Volksraad, and Sunday observance,
422
Treaties, Chinese, 304
Trincomalee, defence, 525
Trinidad, white foreign element in, 209 ;
and local confederation, 213 ; its edu-
cational history, school system and
population, 386 ; State college, ib. ;
Roman Catholics and Protestants, 425;
384, 426
Tripoli, 173
Tristan d'Acunha, 195
Troops, Indian, 13, 40 ; southern, 43, 44
Truck, 298
Tsar, the, 36 ; and Indian defence, 8
Tunis, 165, 191 ; French inhabitants of,
and votes, 208
protectorate, 193
Tupper, Sir C., and Imperial Federation,
484, 487
Turcoman tribes, 21, 43, 47
Turkestan, 12, 30, 57, 75
Turkey, 7, 61, 62, 90, 334
Turkish authorities, their opinion of a
tobacco tax, 90
Alliance, 61, 62
Turks Islands and local confederation,
213
the, 62, 173
UNEMPLOYED, the, 315 ; in Sydney and
Melbourne, 316
6i6
INDEX
Union, commercial, 352, 353 ; Canadian
Government against, ib. ; colonial,
485
Unitarianism, 414
United Kingdom, 480, 508; Govern-
ment of the, and French domination
in Madagascar, 212 ; difficulty of main-
taining a commercial blockade of the,
548, 549 ; invasion, 549 ; where a naval
power would concentrate to attack us,
550 ; resistance to invasion, ib. ; diffi-
culty of, 551 ; landing, ib.', what we
need, ib. ; defence of the coasts, ib.
Alliance, 445
Methodist Church of British North
America, 391
Free Churches, 407, 408
Presbyterian Church of British
North America, 392
States and political privileges to
the blacks of the Southern States,
115 ; and Samoa, 187 ; chief market
for West Indian sugar, 197; Senate
of, its conduct of foreign affairs, 242 ;
progressive income-tax in, 277 ; cost
of living. 290 ; " mixed schools," 377 ;
negro education, 387 ; Baptists, 395,
424 ; absence of State organisation
of religion, 398 ; the clergy and
party strife, 399 ; Koman Catholic
population, 404 ; money spent on
churches, 405 ; Southern States of
the, 426 ; negroes, the, and church
giving, ib. ; local option, 458 ; re-
ciprocity treaty, 474 ; naval power,
532 ; food traffic in time of war
by Britain, 547 ; neutrality, 548 ;
blockade of Confederate harbours,
ib.; referred to, 5, 71, 82, 83, 86,
87, 92, 113, 158, 183, 185, 199, 201,
202, 219, 227, 228, 231, 232, 235-238,
240, 241, 243, 244, 246, 247, 249,
251, 252, 255, 263, 277, 278, 281,
282, 285, 296, 297, 310, 317, 318, 322,
328, 348, 352, 354-356, 370, 373, 377,
388, 406, 415, 417, 430, 435, 457, 473,
479, 493, 495, 503, 534, 546, 580, 582,
583
Universities, 375, 483 ; colonial, 253,
493, 498 ; Canadian, 361, 365
Mission of the Church of Eng-
land and African Lakes Company,
176
Upington, Sir T., 419, 455
Upper and Lower Houses, colonial,
disputes between, how they end, 2G2 ;
referred to, 255, 259-263, 399
VANCOUVER City, 534 ; licenses, 435
Island, 503, 534
Van Home, see Home, Van
Vauban and fortresses, 505
Vaud (Switzerland), progressive income-
tax in, 276
Veto, the Colonial Office, 282, 578
Victoria, enforcement of laws, 229 ;
factories of, bands and debating
societies in the, 233 ; trades unions of,
and London dock labourers' strike,
236 ; Upper House, 261 ; Chinese,
301 ; savings bank depositors, 321 ;
the poor, 329 ; State support, ib. ;
neglected children, generous treatment
of, ib. ; boarding- out, 330 ; under
protection, 334 ; local manufactures,
growth of, 335 ; goods manufactured,
kinds of, 336 ; comparison between,
and New South Wales, fallacies of,
339 ; population figures, 340 ; revenue,
341 ; general view of the comparison
by free traders and protectionists,
342 ; value of export and import for
five years, 343 ; small value of the
figures, 344 ; education, 366, 368 ;
system of elementary schools, 369 ;
endowment of school system, 370 ;
absence of religious teaching, 371 ;
Eoman Catholics and school system,
373 ; higher instruction, ib. ; Univer-
sities, 375 ; technical education, 376 ;
cadet system, ib. ; educational peculiar-
ity, 377 ; schoolbooks, 379 ; Presby-
terians of, and Eoman Catholic schools,
380, 381 ; politicians and the secular
school system, 381 ; Koman Catholic
teachers, 382 ; public school system,
ib. ; disendowment, 397 ; Presby-
terians and Wesleyans, 400 ; Low
Church, 401 ; High Church movement,
402 ; Presbyterianism, 406 ; heresy,
ib. ; Bible Christians, United Method-
ist Free Church, 408 ; Independents,
ib. ; curious feature of the religions
census, 409 ; Koman Catholic Church,
410 ; Anglicans and - Presbyterians,
411 ; absence of Sunday news-
papers, 413 ; local option, 444, 445 ;
compensation, 445 ; Sunday closing,
452 ; wine - growing, 458 ; Imperial
Federation League, 478 ; Imperial
Federation, 491 ; federation* for
Imperial defence, 497 ; transport,
520 ; example as to burdens, 539 ;
war and union, 573 ; referred to,
186, 221, 227, 230-232, 234, 240,
243, 247, 254, 256, 259, 268, 282,
285, 297, 307, 308, 312, 314, 315,
332, 334-337, 339, 347-350, 357, 365,
366, 368, 407, 452, 466, 492, 494,
495, 502 '
Victoria Age, 274, 491
Argus, 274, 491
INDEX
617
Victoria Australasian, 491
Daily Telegraph, 415
Leader, 491
- Heview, 274
Falls, 178
Nyanza, 173, 176, 177
Vineyards, 455
Virgin Islands, 214
Vladivostock, 61
Vogel, Sir J., 269, 281 ; and secession,
486
Volga, the, 60
Volksraad (of Transvaal), 257, 417, 422
(Orange Free State), 313
Voluntary Act (Cape of Good Hope),
419
Volunteers, the, 550 ; and position
warfare, 554 ; field artillery, ib. ; and
army organisation, 565, 566 ; referred
to, 559, 569
Vote, cumulative, 377
plural, in local' elections, how
regarded by colonial workmen, 234
Vuelta Abajo cigars, 91
WACHS, Major, and the immediate use
by Great Britain of her material
resources in time of war, 570
Wages, 289, 290 ; high, 295
and protection, 355
Waldenses, the, 409
Wales, 479
H.R.H. The Prince of, celebra-
tion of his birthday in Victoria, 377
Wallace, Professor E., and our Indian
rule, 151
Walsh, Dr., R.C. Archbishop of Toronto,
390
Dr., E.G. Archbishop of Dublin,
405
Walter, Sir E., 315
Warburton, Colonel, Khyber system of,
30
War, food supply and trade in time of,
540
expenditure, British, and Indian,
566, 567 ; French and German, 566-
568
War of 1870, the German official account
of, 537
Office scheme, 1887, 40
the, and arms and stores in
India, 27 ; referred to, 27, 56, 506,
513, 514, 520, 523, 535
Warsaw, 10
Washington, President, 243
Water-works, Government, 267
Wazaris, 31
Wealth, 236 ; and political power in
the colonies, 237 ; in South Africa,
ib.
VOL. II
Wealth and Progress, 286
Wedderburn, Sir W., and the National
Congress, 139, 146
Wellesley Province, 171
Wellington (New Zealand), 157, 259
Wesleyau Conference, 407
Kalendar, 407
- Methodist Church, the, South
Africa, and Boers and Dutch, 421,
422
- Missionary Society in India,
423, 424
Wesleyans in Australasia and South
Africa, 392, 396, 400, 402, 421 ; Cape
Colony, 416 ; Crown Colonies and
Australasia, 424 ; West Indies, 426 ;
referred to, 428, 455
West Coast settlements, 163
Western Australia, legislature of, 156 ;
and its Upper House, 260 ; religious
teaching, 370 ; Methodism, 408 ;
liquor law, 450 ; drunkards, ib. ; de-
bate on Imperial Federation, 489 ; re-
ferred to, 162, 163, 203, 206, 318, 328,
350, 368, 385, 452, 502, 526
Westgarth, Mr., and growth of property
in Australian colonies, 278 ; referred
to, 309, 340, 350
West-India Islands, Church of England
and other Protestant bodies in, 426 ;
referred to, 159, 160, 162, 384
Indian Islands, and the growth of
tobacco and tea, 199 ; problem, domi-
nant factor of the, 200 ; colonies, legis-
latures in majority of, how nominated,
205
sugar trade, its chief
market, 197 ; depression in, how ac-
counted for, ib.
West Indies, the, and self-government,
157 ; revival of interest in, 195 ;
Messrs. Froude, Salmon, and Eves on,
ib. ; results of emancipation, 196 ;
Encumbered Estates Court and capital
in the, ib. ; coolie immigration, ib. ;
effect on owners of sugar estates in the,
of legislation based on Sugar Convention,
197 ; transformation as regards produce
of estates, 199 ; result in the, of im-
portation of East Indian coolies, 202 ;
white population of, 208 ; Baptists,
424 ; and sale of sugar, 473 ; annexation
to the American Union, ib. ; coaling
stations, 533 ; referred to, 161, 163,
201, 202, 331, 354, 473, 479, 533, 577
West Indies, The, 195
West Indies, The English in the, 195
West Indies, British, 159 ; and the attrac-
tion of the United States, 222
French, 568
seas, coaling stations of the, 532
2 s
6i8
INDEX
Westport district (New Zealand), 502
Wey, the, 554
Whitehead, Sir James, 574
Wife's sister, marriage with a deceased,
how regarded in the colonies, 282, 469,
470
Wilkinson, Mr. Spenser, and the General
Staff, 563
William IV, 579
Windward Islands, grouping of, 213 ;
their government, 214 ; results of
confederation in, 215 ; disestablish-
ment, 425
Wine-growing and Prohibition, 457
Winnipeg, licenses, 435
Wise, Mr. , late Attorney-General of New
South Wales, on Catholicism as bear-
ing on Protection and free trade, 348 ;
405 ; quoted, 497
Wolseley, Lord, 563
Women, and the franchise in Canada,
281 ; position of, in Canada and Au-
stralia, ib. ; and universities, 375
Wood, Sir E., his military policy in
Egypt, 530
Woolwich, 529, 532
command, 558
"Workhouse," horror of the word, 328
Working classes, 233, 254, 294 ; and see
Labour
Working man, colonial, his normal con-
dition represented, 291
men proprietors, 292
Workman, colonial, bugbear of, 284 ;
and cheap labour in British Columbia
and South Africa, 301
Workmen, colonial, Christianity of, 303
members in the colonies, 254
- white, and Chinese labour, 353 ;
and see Labour
YORKSHIRE, 336
Young, Sir F., and colonial representa-
tion, 478 ; Home Rule, ib.
Yule, Mr., 146
ZAMBESI, free navigation of the, and
Portugal, 177 ; referred to, 163, 175,
178
Zanzibar, Sultan of, and levying of
duties, 174 ; referred to, 158, 164-
166, 170, 173, 177, 178, 194, 210
Zebehr Pasha, 172
Zenana Medical Missions and Indian
gentlemen, 137
Zhob valley and occupation, 27, 29, 35,
38
Zollverein, a, 338, 465, 471, 475, 476
Zululand, sale of liquor, 456
THE END
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