ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1740, 17 September 1879, Page 4

ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.

(“ Sydney Morning Herald.”) Hndes tho title of “ How shall we retain the Colonies ? " Earl Grey discusses in the “Nineteenth Century ” the relations between the Colonial 011100 and the colonial Governments, and repeats the opinion he has formerly expressed, that in conceding the right of self-government to the colonies too much was conceded, and that there ought to have been restrictions preventing us from indulging in a protective policy adverse to the trade with tho mother country. The view is natural enough to a statesman who, a quarter of a century ago, thought that self-govern-ment should be grunted in instalments, and who thinks now that we have made a bad use of the liberty that has been granted to us. But ho altogether omits to consider what would have been tho relations between tho mother country and the colonies if the latter had always been chafing at restrictions on their financial policy. Being ourselves firmly persuaded of the soundness of tho true theory of free trade, wo are of course free to confess that in drifting back to the heresy of protection, some of the colonies have made a bad use of the power that they possessed. But we are quite sure that England would have gained nothing, and that the integrity of the Empire would h"ve gained nothing, by withholding from the colonies the full right to deal with fiscal matters. On the contrary there would havo been established a constant irrilation between tho Colonial and Imperial authorities, and politicians in the colony would have sought popularity by the vehemence with which they would havo denounced tho Imperial control. Eree trade and protection would not havo boon discussed on their merits, but there would have been a sort of bastard patriotism connected with the party which insisted on protection simply as enforcing the right of the colonists to tax themselves as they chose. Earl Grey aces clearly and expounds plentifully the mischief that has resulted from letting the colonists do as they like ; but he should also let hia imagination picture the greater evils that would have resulted if they had been restrained. Ho is not one of these Liberals who wish to dismember the Empire. On the contrary, ho desires tho preservation of its unity, and ho condemns the Imperial policy towards tho colonics as calculated ultimately to break up tho Empire into fragments ; but the unity of these colonies with the Empire is only worth having so long as the attachment is voluntary, is loyal, and it can only be that so long as tho instinct of self-government is satisfied, and there is no matter on which that instinct is more quick than as to tho right of taxation. Earl Grey forcibly presents the doctrine that a country that wantonly adopts a protective policy for other than revenue necessities injures itself, and implies that if tho colonies wore restrained from so doing, they would bo simply restrained from acting to their own hurt. So far wo agree with him, but we cannot adopt the further inference, that it would ho a good thing that they ■honld be so restrained. On the contrary, we hold that the colonies must work out their own political education for themselves, and that if they are so self-willed as not to learn by the experience of other countries, they must pay the price of learning from their own experience. The evils that may arise to themselves and to the mother country daring thia process of education, will be less

than the evils that would arise from any attempt to limit their fiscal jurisdiction. The mother country for a long time misunderstood what was good for itself and good for its colonies. At one time it treated its colonies simply as nurseries for its own commerce, and sought to monopolise their trade for itself. At another time it endeavored to coddle the colonies, and to prop up their local industries by giving the produce the benefit of a differential duty. It was only after going through the experience of these two economical errors, that it arrived at the conviction that as free a trade as the necessities of revenue would allow, was the best for itself and the best for its colonies. Having painfully learnt that lesson, it must wait patiently while the colonics learn the same lesson too. It cannot impose its own experience on them, or put old heads on young shoulders. In England protection was the heresy mainly of the upper classes, and it rested principally with the middle and manufacturing classes to explode it. In the colonies protection is the heresy of the working classes, and their political predominance makes it difficult for the middle and commercial classes to cope successfully with them. But none the less must the problem be worked out, and any attempt to control the play of parties by Imperial interference would only do more mischief than it would cure.

Moreover, it should be remembered that although colonial protection is injurious to the Imperial trade, the policy which has this result has its origin in a strictly local feeling. In Victoria, which is the hotbed of Australian protection, the tariff does not originate in any anti-English feeling. If it is directed against anything it is simply directed against local importers. But the intent of the law is positive and notnegative. Its object is to encourage local production, and to force the development of local manufactures. Grant that the poliey is a mistake ; still, it is strictly a local policy. To say that a local policy should be restrained in view of Imperial as opposed to local interests, is simply to say that a self-govern-ing colony shall not govern itself. The more the question is looked at in this light, the more satisfied we are that the ultimate verdict will be in favor of those English statesmen who granted self government to the colonies with as little restriction as was necessary for the preservation of Imperial authority and unity. To have made that concession timidly and distrustfully, would have been a blunder. The restriction could only have been temporary; self-government once granted, even if incompletely, carries its necessary consequences with it. Earl Grey implies that that means dismemberment; we reply that it can only mean that if the colonies wish it, and the way to make them not wish it is to give self-government the widest practicable rein.