If my confidence in Canadians is not well founded-, if in reality, there is just cause for apprehension as to our political futurethe reason for danger consists solely in the fact that our political position is not upon a permanent basis. Some change has to be made. And the question is inevitable: What shall its nature be? Other countries are not afraid of better trade relations with their neighbors or of immigration, for the simple reason that their constitutions have been finally adopted and definitely fixed. Our choice has yet to be made. You and I to-day (Must I still say it?) are not agreed as to our own political future. At the present time, very few would vote for incorporation with the United States. Not many years ago, a great many were ready to accept it with equanimity. In a few years more? I do not know. But what I do know is that I should like to see the matter settled once and for all, while opinion is as unanimous as it is to-day. To leave it open, is to leave it to uncertainty. To leave it open is to produce the suggestion that to conserve our political freedom, we must refuse to increase our commerce with our largest business-relation; that we must turn back the stream of immigration; that we must exclude American capital and enterprise. Disastrous action of that sort is wholly unnecessary. Our political future is perfectly safe as soon as we ourselves have declared what it is to be. National sentiment is the only secure bulwark of national existence. We shall never have it as long as we remain a colony. Let our independence, then, be acknowledged. Let us learn to regard ourselves as a nation. Let us claim the place, and the rank, and the respect to which we are entitled. Let us be no longer a "colony" even in name, nor yet one of the "dominions beyond the seas." We are, as I have said before, on this side of the seas. We have the most magnificent and most richly endowed country on the face of the globe. We have eight millions of the sanest, the strongest, and the most intelligent people in the world. We are acquiring a just pride in our material position, and our unprecedented progress. And, if we shall only rise to the height of our national manhood, we shall, I most firmly believe, very soon be a homogeneous and united people, well able to hold our own, whether in the peaceful pursuits of industry and commerce, or in the direst engagements of most strenuous war; and whether in defence of our own land, or of the land from which most of us have sprung, and which yet retains (may it always retain) our sympathies and our affections. Before closing, will you allow me to read to you language which that very ardent and very able imperialist Sir Allen Aylesworth recently (22nd December 1910) addressed to the Canadian Club at Halifax: "I look forward to no far distant day when Canada will be a nation and will stand among the people of the world on a footing as proud as that of the United States. It may be that in the fullness of time it will be thought by the men who govern Canada and the British Empire that it would be better to separate and that Canada should stand alone. No man could foretell the future. So far as Canada is concerned they build for the future best who build for the present best. We should maintain that tie of kinship and loyalty that binds us to the motherland across the sea. I hope that not only in my lifetime, but in that of all of us, Canada shall stand where she does to-day, and that in the future she shall seek to form a simple and leading partner in the galaxy of nations that will surround and uphold the British throne." The only difference between Sir Allen and me, I am glad to say, is one of time. Our desire for the future of Canada is the same. But he would continue, indefinitely, our appearance of subordination. He is content that his country shall be a colony, or a "British dominion beyond the seas,". He is satisfied that he, and all of us, shall go down to our graves as inhabitants of a country unable to "stand among the people of the world on a footing as proud as that of the United States." I am not. I may be too proud, but if so, it is not as a man but as a Canadian. If our powers of self-government were incomplete, I could well imagine that a proposal to increase them might meet with opposition. But I confess that I cannot appreciate the force of an objection to a declaration of an existing fact, more particularly if the effect of that declaration would be to elevate us to higher levels of existence; to make us more proud of our country; to put us upon a footing of political equality with the United States. If such a declaration would introduce anything but. the very situation which Sir Allen desires for us (but hopes that he may not live long enough to see) I could understand opposition to it. But, Sir, inasmuch as that situation is one in which Canada shall be a "leading partner in the galaxy of nations that will surround and uphold the British throne." I, for one, feel that it cannot come too soon. For nearly 130 years the United States has proudly stood as a nation "among the people of the world." Canada has now more than twice the population that the United States had at the commencement of that period. One hundred and thirty years ago, North and South America were the property of European nations. To-day there is not an acre of colonial soil there, except in Canada and Guiana. By rebellion the others earned their nationalism. By loyalty, sometimes strained but never sévered, and by manly, but peaceful, assertion of the right of a vigorous and intelligent race to govern itself, we have earned ours. Why shall we not have it? There is not a trumpery Spanish Republic in Central America that does not outrank Canada. Go, indeed, to one of the little islands of the Carribean Sea, and you will find on one-half of it a petty negro republic, enjoying a national, and international position that Canada has not. Sir Allen hopes that in the lifetime of any of us, Canada may never equal these republics. On the contrary, I most earnestly desire that all of us shall see Canada rise from her squalid and ignoble colonialism to splendid nationalism. It is inconceivable that such a sturdy, self-reliant, capable, and intelligent people should be content to be outranked in political status by Hayti, or even by the United States. I echo most heartily the language of Mr. Geo. R. Parkin, the greatest of Canadian Imperialists: "If the greater British colonies are permanently contented with their present political status, they are unworthy of the source from which they sprang." Mr. Parkin used that language a good many years ago, and he was urging, even then, a change suited, as he thought, to our increasing importance and dignity. We have doubled and quadrupled, in some respects since then. And we all feel with Professor Leacock that, this "worn-out, by-gone" colonialism "impairs the mental vigor and narrows the outlook." Let us then take it off, and cast it from us. The motherland is ready for our full enfranchisement. She would gladly celebrate our coming of age, and, with pride, welcome us to full political equality. Her statesmen encourage us in our just, and natural, aspirations. They appreciate, better than many of our own people, that independence is already ours; that its recognition is but the acknowledgement of undoubted, and admitted, and most creditable fact; and that its proclamation is a necessary step, either in the construction of some new union, or in the formation of the great combination to which Sir Allen Aylesworth and I, alike, look forward, in which Canada shall be a "leading partner in the galaxy of nations that will surround and uphold the British throne." OTTAWA, March, 1911. JOHN S. EWART. THE KINGDOM PAPERS NO. 2. IMPERIALISM (In order to draw attention to the purpose for which quotations are employed, WHAT THAT is imperialism? What is its purpose? And what is the effect of its influence? EMPIRE: The best way to arrive at the meaning of imperialism is to ascertain the precise import of the word empire. It has two meanings: One of them has reference to the rank and title of the sovereign; and the other to the nature of the relation between two states. (1) The first of these meanings of the word empire may be taken from Murray's Dictionary: "A government in which the sovereign has the title of emperor." The word emperor, from being originally a coveted Roman military appellation, came to be the title of the Roman sovereign; and its subsequent supposed superiority to the title King (a superiority still vaguely felt, although not always admitted) is due to the fact that many Kings were, for many centuries, subject to the Roman Emperor. "Unwilling as were the great kingdoms of western Europe to admit the territorial supremacy of the Emperor, the proudest among them never refused, until the end of the middle ages, to recognize his precedence, and address him in a tone of respectful deference" (a). This . meaning of the word empire has, of course, no application to the British Empire. In India, George V is Emperor of India. Elsewhere he is King; and it would (at present) be impossible to persuade the British people to change the historic title of their sovereigns. We must find some other reason for the phrase The British Empire. (a) Mr. Jas. Bryce, in The Holy Roman Empire, pp. 189, 190. And see pp. 22, 23, 250. (2) The second meaning of the word empire is (as given by the same dictionary): "An aggregate of subject territories ruled over by a sovereign state." It will be observed that there is, in this definition, no reference to the title or rank of the sovereign. It deals solely with the relation between two states, one of which is sovereign and the other subordinate. And it is not at all necessary that the sovereign state should be monarchical in its own structure. For example, the Philipines are part of the empire of the United States-because those islands are ruled by the United States. Strictly speaking, it would be incorrect to include the United States, itself, in the phrase the American Empire. It is the subject states alone which constitute the American possessions, or the American Empire. It has become customary, nevertheless, to include the United Kingdom in the phrase British Empire; and when people extol the glories of the British Empire they do not refer exclusively, or even particularly, to the colonies. Whether or not this extension is useful, it is certainly confusing and tends to cloud the real meaning of the word empire. Sanity would sometimes be saved if the British Empire were understood to mean the "aggregate of subject territories" which are ruled over by the Colonial Office. For present purposes, I do not quarrel with the customary use of the phrase (a). We ought, however, to take care that we are not misled by it. We should keep clearly in mind that, in an empire, the relation between the associated states is necessarily that of dominant and subordinate. If the states are all politically equal, they may be a federation, or a confederation, or a league, or something else, but they cannot be an empire. All the States of the Union to the south of us are equal. No one would think of them as an empire. An empire is: "an aggregate of subject territories ruled over by a sovereign state." It is clear, therefore, that if, in any particular conjunction, there is no ruling state and no subject state, there can be no empire-unless indeed the title of the sovereign is emperor. In that case, according to our first definition, his territory is an empire, and the island of Hayti was once a state of that class. (a) Mr. Chamberlain used the word correctly when he said: "If we had no empire." (Proceedings of the Col. Conference 1897, p. 7.) The phrase 'our colonial empire" is frequently and correctly used. |