"I BELIEVE, FROM A LEGAL POINT OF VIEW, THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT IS SUPREME OVER THE PARLIAMENT OF CANADA OR AUSTRALASIA, OR THE CAPE, OR SOUTH AFRICA. BUT IN FACT, THEY ARE INDEPENDENT PARLIAMENTS, ABSOLUTELY INDEPENDENT —(cheers)—AND IT IS OUR BUSINESS TO RECOGNIZE THAT AND TO FRAME THE BRITISH EMPIRE UPON THE CO-OPERATION OF ABSOLUTELY INDEPENDENT PARLIAMENTS” (a). In Canada we reserve our cheers, I am afraid, for anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism. We do not sufficiently realize that absolute independence is but the affirmative corollary of these negatives. In England (as I have before remarked) the position is much better understood; and, it is a splendid encouragement to Canadian nationalists that the generous cheers which followed Mr. Balfour's assertion of the parliamentary independence of Canada should have come from the country which waged war against the asserted independence of the other British-American colonies. Upon another occasion Mr. Balfour said: 'It is a matter of common knowledge—and, may I add, not a matter of regret, but a matter of pride and rejoicing—that the great Dominions beyond the seas are becoming great nations in themselves." (b). Thank heaven, the voice of imperialistic disparagement of Canadian efficiency, and Canadian nationhood, is rapidly failing. Ere long there will not be a single Canadian who will refuse to join in his British brother's acclaim of that, which to every subject of the King, ought to be, and will be "A MATTER OF PRIDE AND REJOICING.” Ottawa, December, 1911. JOHN S. EWART. (a) Times, 1 Feb., 1911. (b) House of Commons, 21 July, 1910. THE KINGDOM PAPERS. NO. 7. TWO DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF INDEPENDENCE(a). NE TEMERE DECREE. (In order to draw attention to the purpose for which quotations are employed, DVOCACY of Canadian independence would be very much simplified if two difficulties could be got out of the waydifficulties which one would think ought not to exist. One is the confusing vagueness of imperialistic claims; and the other is unfamiliarity with the conception of two independent kingdoms acknowledging allegiance to the same king. I desire in the present address, to do what I can to remove these difficulties. I want, in the first place, to make clear that we have not, as the language of imperialists sometimes gives occasion to think, any proposal with reference to Canada's political future, except independence; that although some years ago imperial federation was held out to us as a possibility, no plan of federation ever was or ever could be produced; that the association formed for the advocacy of federation dissolved; that it was reformed as a federal defence society; that it has abandoned federation altogether, and adopted the nationalistic idea of co-operation; that there is now nothing left but the vaguest and most incoherent of invocations of the spirit of imperialism; and that some of the very best of imperialists are actually looking to nationalism as a necessary prerequisite of the realization of their larger ideals. I want to prove this, but not merely by my own assertions or arguments. I have recently had a debate in the magazine of the Royal Colonial Institute, United Empire, with two notable imperialists (Mr. Ellis M. Cook, and Mr. Richard Jebb). I shall read to you as much of that debate as relates to the subject I have now in hand, and I shall ask you to judge for yourselves of the validity of my assertion as to the vagueness of imperialistic claims. I shall (a) A modification of this Paper was delivered as an address to the Canadian Club of St. Catharines on 22nd January, and to the Canadian Clubs of Montreal and McGill University on 5th February, 1912. give you what can be said upon both sides of the subject, and I shall enable you to ascertain for yourselves, in that best of ways, whether imperialists present to us any alterative to independence. After wards I shall deal shortly with the second of the difficulties to which I have referred. But first let me explain why it is that the first of these difficulties forms a real obstacle to the acceptance of independence. Attention to the line of nationalistic argument will reveal the reason. It is as follows: (1). Nationalists and imperialists agree that our present situation is ignoble and insupportable. Splendid Canada in colonial garb-stalwart Jack in baby clothes, is ridiculous and shameful. The chiefs of Canadian imperialism are not a whit less sensitive about humiliation of that sort than I am. Dr. Parkin has said: "If the greater British colonies are permanently content with their present political status, they are unworthy of the source from which they sprang" (a). Professor Leacock has said: "The colonial status is a worn-out, by-gone thing. The sense and feeling of it has become harmful to us. It limits the ideas, and circumscribes the patriotism of our people. It impairs the mental vigor and narrows the outlook of those who are reared and educated in our midst” (b). And Mr. C. A. Magrath whose imperialism, he says, is to him a religion, declared the other day that: "The existing situation is an impossible one, in that the representatives of the British Isles may, at any time, plunge the others into difficulties wich foreign powers" (c). (2). Founding ourselves upon this agreed basis, nationalists proceed to the second proposition of the argument. We urge that change ought to proceed along the line of previous evolution, and, in accordance with all previous advancement, by taking another step along the road which Canada has always travelled. One hundred and fifty years of steady, persistent, unswerving progress along that road has brought us to a position of practical independence. Our self-control is only nominally and theoretically incomplete. We have our own army, our own navy (or a beginning of it), and our own flag on the jack staff. In foreign affairs, as well as with reference to internal government, our freedom is not only ungrudgingly admitted by the British government and by all British statesmen, but it is proclaimed (as by Mr. Balfour) as "a matter of pride and rejoicing" (d). (a) Imp. Fed., page 12; and see page 31. Any change in our constitutional relationship, I say, ought to be along the line on which our development has always proceeded. Very little attempt to contravene this second proposition in the nationalist argument is made by imperialists. Some Canadians among them do not, indeed, applaud as heartily as they should (and as Mr. Balfour does) the fact that (to use his language), “The great Dominions beyond the seas are becoming great nations in themselves" (a). but whether these men like it or not, the fact is too palpable and too popular for dispute. (3) The last stage of the argument, or rather the deduction from the previous premises is so perfectly inevitable that opposition to it would seem to be impossible. For if our present position is unbearable; if change ought to proceed along the line of previous development; and if that development has already reached completion from a practical point of view, no one surely can object to the conformity of theory to fact, more especially when, by that simple means, our country would attain the rank and station in the world to which her greatness and her achievements have so amply entitled her. The argument for independence, then, seems to be very simple and very complete. Let us now consider the first of the two difficulties which it encounters. For some years a large number of persons advocated closer political incorporation of the United Kingdom and Canada in what they called an "imperial federation". The idea was utterly visionary, and perfectly impracticable. Its very name was a contradiction, for the adjective, imperial, connotes a relationship of dominant and subordinate states, while the noun, federation, connotes a relationship of equality. Its supporters, although frequently challenged, never attempted to reduce it to the form of an intelligible plan. And the notion has now been definitely abandoned by the only association formed for its advocacy. The Imperial Federation League has become The Imperial Co-operation League. It is on the right line at last. Let me quote, in this connection, the language of a celebrated imperialist-Sir Gilbert Parker: "With the greater facilities of our modern times and our close touch due to science and swift transportation, parliamentary federation seems further off than it was then. Old federationists like Joseph Howe, and James Service, and (a) Ibid. |