MR. FOX ON CONFEDERATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 233, 26 February 1876, Page 12

MR. FOX ON CONFEDERATION.

When Mr. Forster delivered his great speech on the colonies, and advocated a scheme of Imperial federation, he excited the hope of many in the Mother Country and her dependencies that the policy of the Liberal party would run on all fours with his utterance. But as yet the leader of the Liberals has made no sign, nor has the party as such, backed up the ex-Yice-President of the Council on this far reaching and Imperial question. • To tell the truth, Mr. Forster has placed his party In a rather awkward predicament, because'it was a cardinal point in Liberal policy a few years back to 1 i cut the ££ painter and set the colonies adrift.” It did not pay, they argued to keep the colonies ; and Mr. Bright and his friends pointed to the American trade of those days as confirmation of their doctrine. ££ Better lose all our colonial trade than (t lose our American trade ;” and to shortsighted men and superficial thinkers ]ike Mr. Goldwin Smith, the trade returns were conclusive on the subject. But the tables have been turned since then, and England would now much rather lose its

American than its colonial trade. The following figures from the official returns will demonstrate this : 1874 : Exports to — United States ono no ;S28 ’ 000 ' 000 British North America .. £9,322,119 West Indies .. •• Australasia .. .. >• 19,000,000 East Indian, African, and Chinese Settlements .. 37,000,000 British India .. .. .. 24,080,693 Cape Colony and Natal .. 4,301,761 Although the United States trade with England is a large factor in the year’s transactions, it is by. no means of the same relative importance it was before the great civil war. Since that date the British colonies have made prodigious strides in developing their resources, while the United States, if we except the Pacific Slope, have not as a community kept pace with them. Looked at therefore from a trading point of view, the colonies have come to be regarded with favor by a section of “the Manchester School,” no strenuous opposition being offered to the annexation of Fiji, although Mr. Gladstone entered his solemn protest against it. The Conservative Government extended the Empire by annexing the Fiji group, and Mr. Forster had sagacity enough to perceive that if the Liberal party was to keep in accord with national sentiment, it must adopt a different colonial policy. Hence his speech, in which the policy of Imperial federation was discussed. But as we have already said, this action of his places the Liberal party in a dilemma, inasmuch as it will he necessary to unsay all that Avas said on the subject of colonisation during the past twenty years. A great deal of neAvspaper correspondence has been provoked by Mr. Forster’s speech, in which much more has been discussed than the broad question of Imperial federation. The traditions of the Colonial Office have come in for a fair share of censure, but in none of the letters we have read has the Avhole question been so pithily put as in one from the pen of our old fellow-colonist,. the Hon. Mr. Fox, addressed to the editor of the Colonies. The following is his letter :—• IMPERIAL FEDER ALISATION. Sir, —National character, in my humble opinion, is coloi-ed quite as much by sentiment as by laws and constitutions. But sentiment may be created or maintained by these, and it is on that account more than on account of any material advantages the colonies are likely to derive from federalisation, that the subject is of importance to them. It is of the highest importance to colonial character that our colonies should feel themselves to be integral portions of a great nation, not mere dependencies and offshoots ; that they should feel themselves entitled to share in the historic greatness of the Empire, past and contemporary, and not limit their sentiment to the comparatively petty parochial scope of their own narrow existence. It seems to me equally important that the sentiment of the parent State should be expanded to the idea that the colonies are limbs of her body, and not mere seedling plants the offspring of casual winds and waves which have carried these germs of new nations to distant soils, where they have taken accidental root —a process which, I am sorry to say, too nearly describes colonisation as allowed to drift by the Imperial Government for some two centuries past. Our colonial portion of the Empire might have been far more developed and had far fewer difficulties to struggle with in infancy, if the Imperial Government had understood that colonisation was a national function, and one of which Government should take the initiative. It is a humiliating spectacle when a desire has sprung up among individuals to annex a new province and plant a new -colony to see the professedly colonising branch of the Imperial Government halting and hesitating, and not knowing what to do, except threaten individual enterprise with future confiscation of land titles if it dare to anticipate the action of this office, which action never voluntarily comes. I can remember how a precisely similar course of action impeded colonisation in New Zealand thirty-five years ago, and it is melancholy to see history reproducing itself from Colonial Office pigeon-holes when an analogous case occurs. However, I took up my pen to touch the question of federalisation, not New Guinea. I regard the proposal to federalise as valuable because it tends to create an Imperial sentiment on both sides, and I censure the attitude of the Imperial Government because it tends to check such sentiment. But now as regards the practicability of this federalisation, which has hitherto been left out of the colonising idea. Mr. Young’s postulate that the colonies ought to be regarded as extensions of the rest of the Empire in the same sense as the States of the Heptarchy were, and the counties of Middlesex, Yorkshire, Cornwall, and Northumberland are, is a dangerous one to rest the case of the colonies upon. It involves the right of the Central Parliament to tax and administer the local affairs of the subdivisions, and it is because of the existence of that Parliamentary right that the subdivisions claim the privilege* of representation. Practically, the colonies could never consent to exchange for Parliamentary representation independent control of local affairs, nor would the Parliament of the parent State permit the interference of colonial members with the affairs of that portion of the Empire resident within the four seas. Take, for instance, the single subject of Church Establishment or Disestablishment. The colonies would never allow a majority of the Imperial Parliament to force Establishments upon them. On the other hand, the residents in Great Britain would not consent to Disestablishment by a majority obtained by an influx of colonial votes. A hundred analogous cases might be suggested. Mr. Young, however, sees this, and proposes a fundamental and entire change in the British Constitution to meet it; the creation of a Federal Parliament, to which should be reserved all matters of a character purely federal in the enlarged idea of Empire This involves an immense change in the form of the British Constitution, in practice, if not in theory. I cannot agree with you in your comments on Mr. Young's letter when you say that it is open to Imperial federalists like Mr. Young “to disclaim all idea of inventing any new form of government.” Practically, the change would be an entirely new invention : it would amount to a complete reversal of things Parliamentary as they are, and the adoption of an entirely different system of local self-government for the domestic portion of the Empire. It would be not merely revolutionary, but a revolution more complete, extensive, and deep penetrating than that of 1688, or perhaps any other in British history. To such a revolution there may be no objection ; it may be the solution of a vast accumulation of hitherto msolvable problems, and a practical discovery as great as Galileo’s. But I would observe that it differs most materially from all propositions for federalisation which have hitherto emanated from the colonies and the friends of the colonies. These have, as far as I have observed, gone no further than attempts to make colonial representation fit in with things as they are Mr. Young and yourself, if I understand you rightly, propose so to alter existing things as to make them fit in with colonial representation. Well, you have set yourself a “ big" task. I will hope not an

insuperable one. I should be glad if any hum bid aid of mine could help you in it; and if Ido not unduly intrude upon your space, will in a future number continue my remarks. Your obedient servant, William Fox. London, December 7.

This letter, as far as it goes, puts the matter very plainly before the British public. Colonies possessing representative institutions Avill not Avillingly surrender the great privilege of self-goA’ern-nient for the much smaller one of sending a few delegates to the Imperial Parliament, whose A’otes would be light as a feather in the scale Avhen opposed to the majority, Avho would be guided by the Government on all questions of colonial policjL The more the scheme of Imperial federation is considered the larger it becomes. Public sentiment is,' howev.er, setting steadily in that direction, and doubtless the problem will yet be solved to the ultimate satisfaction of the parent State and her numerous dependencies. There is no fear of a repetition of the nearly fatal policy pursued for several years in England of “ snubbing the colo- ££ nies,” and encouraging them to declare their independence. A Minister who would propose, for example, that the Dominion should be separated from England would be impeached, and Ave greatly mistake the temper of the English people if he Avould get off. And so of South Africa, Australasia, and the Eastern possessions of the Crown. The figures we have quoted show their commercial importance to Great Britain, and their political importance is certainly not less considerable.