INTRODUCTORY

IN the following pages an attempt is made to give an account of British Colonial policy. The scope of the book is limited by its title: it is not sought to compete with the many works of authority, which narrate the history of the separate Colonies, nor do even the events, which were the outcome of British policy, concern us, except indirectly, and so far as they illustrate that policy. Viewed from this standpoint, the subject seems to fall into certain main natural divisions which we may term the period of beginnings, the period of trade ascendency, the period of systematic colonization and of the granting of responsible government, the period of the zenith and decline of laissez-aller principles, and the period of Greater Britain.

We have first the period of beginnings. A new strange (1.) Period thing is coming into being, viz:-Colonization as worked of beginnings. out by the Anglo-Saxon race, and the Mother State is puzzled how to deal with it. The problem is how, in days before steam and telegraph, to maintain the authority of the Crown in countries, separate by thousands of miles of sea. In this stage, the first naïve impulse is to give to the individual grantee full power to manage his own settlement in his own way, so long as he maintains, as far as possible, e English laws. As, however, the idea of colonization by Englishmen, as opposed to settlement by conquest of barbarians, becomes more apparent, the crudity of the early view is recognised. For the moment, as in the Charter to the Virginia Company of 1606, the theory is held that legislative authority may remain in the Crown, executive functions being delegated to a local Governor; and we may note in passing what a powerful instrument of despotism well-managed Colonies might have been in the constitutional struggle of the seventeenth century

had the Stuart Kings understood statesmanship. Within 1609. less than three years, however, this attempt is found hopeless, and the theory is adopted of the Trading Company, the government of the Colony to be lodged in the hands of a Governor, appointed by a Council in England, with whom should also rest the modelling of the constitution and enactment of laws. Side by side with this, however, we find complaints of the practice of conferring powers of government on Trading Companies, and assertions of the need of governing the Colonies on a common plan. The grant of Maryland to Lord Baltimore, on the other hand, appears to be a return, with some modifications, to the cruder point of view of the days of Elizabeth. Altogether we have a sense of uncertainty, of feeling the way amidst strange surroundings, and the period may best be described as one of beginnings.

(2.) Period

ascend

At last, however, the inner meaning of colonization, of trade its final cause, dawns on the historical horizon. The Naviency. gation Act, or rather Ordinance, of 1651, it is true, only gave effective embodiment to a traditional policy; but the English merchant soon followed in the footsteps of the English shipowner and shipbuilder, and from 1660 downwards the theory for more than a hundred years holds the field that the raison d'être of Colonies is to benefit the commerce of the Mother country. No doubt, in the application of this theory, honest efforts were made to compensate the Colonies by bounties on the export of raw products, for the trade restrictions, by which they were bound, and the attitude of England towards her Dependencies was much more friendly than was that of any other European power, yet the theory relegated the Colonies to a position of permanent subordination in the economic evolution of the Empire. Upon the whole, the broad theory of English policy towards the Colonies may be summed up in the words addressed to Penn1 by a leading English statesman-"Take care you injure not the revenue and other matters ought to be

1 Penn to Logan, 1703, Logan Correspondence.

left to your own satisfaction." It is true, that running counter to this main current, we find under Charles II. and James II. a narrow stream of Royal interference. The family failing of the Stuart dynasty was to reward their favourites by putting their hands in their neighbours' pockets, and the American Colonies were too tempting a sheep not to be shorn. But, serious as such action might have been in its consequences, the revolution of 1688 came too soon for those consequences to happen, and henceforth the formula, as I have stated it, holds the field. The great wars of the earlier half of the eighteenth century were trade wars: Ireland, the Colonies, War and Peace, were but pawns in the game, which was to win Great Britain commercial supremacy. From the economic point of view of the eighteenth century the policy may have been a wise one, but, as worked out, it involved the consequence that the interests of the Colonies were to be always sacrificed to those of the Mother country. So accustomed, however, had the Colonies become to this theory, and perhaps so easy were the opportunities for evasion, that probably things might have gone on for long in the same manner, had not a crisis been precipitated by causes, with which we shall deal later on.

When all allowance has been made for the special causes of the American revolution, it must still be admitted that the spirit which they evoked had been engendered by the galling yoke of the Mercantile System. Monopoly brought forth its fruit, and that fruit was the disruption of the British Empire. Even when she had lost her American Colonies, England did not at first alter her commercial policy. At the same time, it was in practice carefully safeguarded, so that the interests of the Colonies should not suffer prejudice. Generally, on colonial questions, the note of the period is one of extreme timidity. To smother popular aspirations with kindness, and gladly to pay the piper, so that the Colonies might not ask to choose the tune, was for a time the policy of English statesmen.

Gradually, however, it begins to be recognised that a wholly (3.) The new way of regarding the Empire is coming into being. period of Turgot had long ago said that Colonies were like fruit which, coloniza

systematic

(3.) and of

ment.

when ripe, fell off, and the experience of the American War of Independence appeared to prove, in a singular manner, the truth of these words. The old Colonial policy had been based on the theory of monopoly, but the new doctrine of free trade was sapping that theory at its roots. If the principal good of Colonies was to afford a monopoly of trade for the Mother country, and if such monopolies were at once theoretically unsound and practically led to revolution, the consequence seemed to follow that Colonies were not really of use to the Mother country. We seem to be approaching the triumph of laissez-aller views. In fact, however, the English have never been a strictly logical people, and, in any case, new ways of regarding the Colonies presented themselves which were sufficient for the day. In this interval, between the virtual abandonment of the Mercantile theory and the extensive growth of laissez-aller views, a period short in time, but of great importance, intervened, wherein a genuine attempt was at least partially made, to develop colonization on some sort of scientific principles. To some extent, at least, the theories generally associated with the name of Gibbon Wakefield, made converts of English statesmen, so that for the time the unwonted spectacle was seen of English practice following, though in a very halting and doubtful fashion, instead of anticipating, theory. In the nature of things, however, such interference on the part of the Mother country was only possible in earlier stages of development, and, as the Colonies grew to manhood and aspired to selfgovernment, the period of systematic colonization naturally came to a close.

There remained, however, the important and worthy task the grant of returning to the original lines of British Colonial policy, ing of responsible and of securing to the Colonies complete self-government in govern- purely local concerns. Reasons will be found in the sequel for denying that this movement was in any way connected with a policy of dismemberment: but when this final work was for the most part practically accomplished, the question could no longer be averted, What, then, is the real good to the Mother country of maintaining Colonies?