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THE KINGDOM PAPERS No. 4.

EFFECTS OF THE CONFERENCES.

HIS EXCELLENCY LORD GREY.

(In order to draw attention to the purpose for which quotations are employed,
italics not appearing in the original are sometimes made use of.)

THE HE conferences owe their existence to the Imperial Federation League, and a not unimportant effect of the conferences is the termination of the existence of the League. A more important effect is the demonstration which the conferences have supplied of the impracticability of the League's purpose. And the most valuable effect is the distinct and rapid advance towards declared independence which the successive conferences have not only produced but have made vivid and impressive. The League and Mr. Chamberlain-the one by instituting the conferences, and the other by strenuous endeavor to use them for the purpose for which they were instituted-have been the principal instruments in the very remarkable development in recent years of Canadian nationality. Sir Wilfrid could have done little in that direction but for the necessity imposed upon him of defence against attack and of reply to challenge. With perfect patience and courtesy, but with the most indomitable courage and unfailing tact he has repulsed every assault upon Canadian autonomy; has by every successive victory added to the strength of our growing independence; and has evoked a Canadian sentiment that will soon find its full satisfaction in Canadian nationhood.

Prior to the conferences, the political progress of Canada was episodical. At varying intervals, points of dispute arose between our governors and our legislative assemblies. Some of these were soon settled, others remained in quarrel for years soon settled, if the governor gave way quickly, and long lived. if he did not.

The records of these quarrels may be searched in vain (I believe) for any discussion of the fundamentals of the colonial relationship. The debate was always confined to the point in hand, and its settlement settled nothing else. Nowhere do we find the assemblies urging that they were on the way to independence and that the time had arrived for another step in advance. On the contrary, suggestion of ulterior purpose was always met by flat denial. advance nevertheless was made, and there was never retreat.

The

Progress was dependent, therefore, upon the recurrence of episodes. Prior to Lord Elgin's governorship and, in greater degree, prior to Lord Sydenham's, the episodes were sufficiently plentiful for the supply of what would now be called a "continuous performance." But after these dates progress was slow, and only at considerable intervals did points involving political relationship arise.

The conferences changed all that. Not only did they provide an opportunity for the discussion of abstract questions, but they made such discussion inevitable. As an aid to the rapid completion of our political evolution, nothing could possibly have been better devised than the conferences. Points that might have remained unmooted, or at least unadjusted, for many decades, were then precipitated for immediate discussion and settlement. Will the colonies do this? Will the colonies do that? Shall there be an endeavor after closer political relationship? Shall we have an imperial council? Shall there be one navy or many? What is to be the situation in case of war? We should have waited long for settlement of these questions but for the conferences. They are now all answered, and every answer has furnished Mr. Chamberlain with a regret.

The results might well have been foreseen. If England had originally adopted the French idea of assimilation as applied to colonies, North American history would, undoubtedly, have been very different from what it is. She took the other view. These colonies she said are ours; they are not part of us; we are entitled to exploit them and regulate them. And after thirteen of the colonies had made successful military revolt against the idea, and after the Canadian colonies had effaced it by successful civil resistance, it would surely have been absurd to expect that Canada could have been induced, by the most skillfully arranged devices, to surrender any part of the legislative freedom which with such difficulty she had won. Speaking generally, every quarrel between American or Canadian legislative assemblies and their governors has been settled by the eventual victory of the representatives of the people. For the assemblies were always working towards legislative independence, and they have achieved it. The governors were always thwarting that progress,

and their defeat has been overwhelming. When, therefore, discussion of all outstanding questions was precipitated by the conferences, there could have been little doubt that settlement of them would be accomplished upon the old familiar line of colonial self-government. That Mr. Chamberlain could have imagined otherwise, and that by his strenuous advocacy of imperialism he has most materially advanced Canadian nationalism, will always be considered to be one of the most striking examples of the apparently insuperable difficulty which British statesmen experience in their efforts to understand colonial opinion and ambition.

Let us return to The Imperial Federation League. Not having the slightest idea in the world as to how federation was to be accomplished, and even regarding as obstructors and cavillers those who imagined that any plan of federation could be devised (ante. p. 83), the League appeared to cherish the notion that people at a meeting might be able to discover that which was hidden from all of them individually. Accordingly, it sent a deputation to Lord Salisbury (1886) to ask that a conference might be called. The request was granted, but much to the disappointment of the League all discussion of federation was excluded as impracticable (a).

The conference was held, but naturally the League was not satisfied, and, in 1891, it again approached Lord Salisbury, asking:

"that the Government should convoke... a conference. . . to consider the question of securing to them (the colonies) a real and effective share in the privleges and responsibilities of the Empire" (b).

Lord Salisbury's reply was a request for some sort of a scheme to submit to the proposed conference. Never having had such a thing, the League set about trying to produce a presentable plan, worked hard at it for over a year, and finally not only gave up the attempt but, in sorrowful despair, committed suicide (1893).

Some of its more hopeful members reconstituted themselves as The Imperial Federation (Defence) Committee, with emphasis on Defence, and carried on a propaganda until last year, when (after an enlightening visit to Canada by their Secretary) the name was changed to The Imperial Co-operative League. In the report of his tour of investigation in the Dominion of Canada, the Secretary said:

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'that in any scheme of representation that may ultimately be evolved, full recognition must be given by the United Kingdom to the growing feeling of Canadian nationality."

(a) Colonial Secretary to Governor General, 25 Nov., 1883.

(b) The Kingdom of Canada (Ewart) p. 161.

race.

"Canadians had the feeling very strongly that they were of the imperial The average Englishman regarded Canadians as something less, a cross between English and something foreign, not a thorough Briton That was why the Canadian boast of loyalty was so often met in England with cynicism" (a).

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Now we are splendid fellows. British imperialists open their houses to all of us, and one "happily inspired patriot" has rented a

"famous Thames-side mansion for the specific purpose of making it a week-end Liberty-Hall, a place of entertainment for many hundreds of our Overseas British guests and kinsfolk during the Coronation season. . . No amount of reading, or of legislating, or of speech-making, can draw a Canadian, an Australian, a South African, and an Englishman so closely together as, for example, a shared supper after a shared evening on the river in a punt, at the end of a day which they, and their womenkind, have spent in the shelter of one British home" (b).

The sight of trade profits and war profits has worked an extraordinary change in twenty-five years. Half-bred colonials are now "Overseas British guests and kinsfolk.” It is the turn of Canadians to smile.

It is a huge mistake to speak of the United Kingdom as our mother-land, and to indulge the sentimentality which the use of the adjective evokes. On some fast-approaching day Canada will separate not from a mother, but from an owner who has always used her for his own selfish purposes. I do not blame the United Kingdom. I merely state the fact. Other owners treated their colonies (on the whole) with still less generosity. I confess, nevertheless, to a little of the sentiment of my friend. I inherited it, and, probably, it will always actuate me. But it is overwhelmed by the thought of Canada claiming world-recognition as a nation, by the thought of the termination of her mean colonialism.

Does some one say that I am prejudiced, and that my language is strained? Very well, substitute the picture painted by Mr. Chamberlain:

"It seems to me that there are three distinct stages in our imperial history. We began to be, and we ultimately became, a great imperial Power in the eighteenth century, but, during the greater part of the time, the colonies were regarded, not only by us but by every European Power that possessed them, as possessions valuable in proportion to the pecuniary advantage which they brought to the mother country, which, under that order of ideas, was not truly a mother at all, but appeared rather in the light of a grasping and absentee landlord desiring

(a) Globe, 29th April, 1904.

(b) The Standard of Empire, 12th May, 1911.

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