CHAPTER XXIII

COMMONWEALTH

Status of the Dominions

Canada

Newfoundland

Australia

New Zealand

Union of South Africa

Eire

Unity of the Commonwealth

Conclusions

STATUS OF THE DOMINIONS.

The first great community of Britons and other Europeans to
be established as part of the British Empire overseas was the
North American Colonies; and the attempt to govern them
without sufficient regard for the inhabitants' wishes resulted in
their loss at the end of the eighteenth century. During the nine-
teenth century, when similar communities were growing up in
Canada and Australia, the opinion was sometimes expressed that
they too would separate from the Mother Country, and that the
object of policy should be to arrange the separation with as little
ill feeling as possible. But it soon became apparent that there
were solid advantages in preserving disconnection. Migration
to the unpeopled spaces overseas would be more attractive if
the travellers knew they were not going to a foreign country;
the investment of capital would be encouraged if it were known
that the same ideas of law and property prevailed overseas as in
Britain; and the growing populations would be a new source of
power and prestige. But if the American mistake was not to be
repeated, the overseas Britons must be given a generous measure
of self-Government. Thev were accordingly provided with forms