Speeches delivered in Canada in the Autumn of 1908

SPEECHES IN CANADA

by
VISCOUNT MILNER

presented to

of tbe

of Toronto

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BE

SPEECHES DELIVERED
IN CANADA

IN THE AUTUMN OF 1908

Bv
VISCOUNT MILNER

oi -77

TORONTO :

WILLIAM TYRRELL & CO.
1909

COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1909

BY
WM. TYRREIJ, & COMPANY

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL

SPEECHES IN CANADA

BY
VISCOUNT MILNER

PREFACE.

At the request of some of my Canadian friends, I
have consented to the publication of the addresses which
I delivered in Canada — mostly to Canadian Clubs — dur-
ing my recent visit to that country.

The only speech of any length delivered by me at
any public meeting in Canada, which is not reprinted
here, is my speech at the dinner of the British Empire
League in Toronto on October 28th.

This omission is not made because I desire in any
way to modify that speech, still less because I fail to
appreciate the importance of the occasion upon which it
was delivered.

The audience at the British Empire League dinner
was as representative and influential as any I had the
honor of addressing during my whole visit, and Colonel
Denison's speech on that occasion would have been
alone sufficient to make the meeting a memorable
one. But the conditions of an after-dinner speech are
necessarily not the most favorable for the discussion of
a complicated and somewhat technical subject like that
of Imperial Preference, and, as a matter of fact, I dealt
with precisely the same questions, but at greater length
and with more elaboration, a few days later in my ad-
dress to the Board of Trade of Montreal, which is in-
cluded in this volume. I did not wish to weary my

readers by presenting them with what is in substance the
same speech, twice over.

I have only one word to say in extenuation of the
very rough and fragmentary character of the material
now submitted to the public. The addresses contained
in this volume are not a series of lectures, nor do they
represent a premeditated effort of any kind. I was
simply caught at various stages in a somewhat hurried
and arduous journey, and compelled, nolens volens, to
speak. And so I just did the best I could, always with
inadequate preparation, and sometimes without any.
Under the circumstances, any little value which these
speeches may possess must be attributed to the fact
that the subject which was uppermost in my mind at the
time — namely, the future relations of Canada and the
other self-governing dominions to the United Kingdom
and to one another — is one to which for years I have
given a good deal of thought ; and that, in speaking about
it, I was drawing on a certain fund of experience. I
should be the last to claim that my treatment of it in
these pages was by any means exhaustive. But they may
nevertheless contain suggestions of some interest to other
workers in the same field.

MILNER.

S.S. "Victorian," Nov. loth, 1908.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

1. IMPERIAL UNITY. EXTERNAL ADVANTAGES.

Canadian Club, Vancouver October pth

2. IMPERIAL UNITY. INTERNAL BENEFITS.

Canadian Club, Winnipeg October i$th

3. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.

Canadian Club, Toronto October zjth

4. SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT.

Canadian Club, Ottaiva October $ist

5. PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

Board of Trade, Montreal Nov. ist

6. IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM.

Women's Canadian Club, Montreal Nov. 2nd

7. CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION.

Canadian Club, Montreal Nov. $rd

I.

THE CANADIAN CLUB, VANCOUVER,
OCTOBER 9TH.

This is the first time I have had the privilege of
addressing one of those Canadian Clubs, which now
I believe exist in most of the great towns of the
Dominion, and which, according as they give free expres-
sion to every form of opinion, are calculated to exercise
a most important influence on the development of the
intellectual and social, and, using the word in its best
sense, the political life of Canada. I am very grateful
for the opportunity you have afforded me, but I hope you
will not expect a long or momentous oration. I am not
by training an orator, but an administrator, and I have
come to Canada not to preach, but to learn. For many
years I have heard and read a great deal about this coun-
try. It is one which looms large and ever larger in the
thought and interest of all those who care about the Brit-
ish Empire. It is destined to take a very important
place, perhaps in time even the first place, in the world-
wide group of sister nations, which we designate by that
term.

Now ever since I have thought about such things
at all, I have striven to be a devoted citizen of Greater
Britain. I have spent the best years of my life in its
service, and now that I am out of official harness I have

2 IMPERIAL UNITY

no higher ambition than to be regarded as a man, who,
though he may live almost entirely in the Old Country,
does not belong to it exclusively, but belongs to the
whole Empire ; one who, at any rate, is capable of under-
standing and sympathizing with the people of what I
may call the younger nations of the Empire; who realizes
their difficulties, sympathizes with their aspirations, and
who can always be relied upon to take a fair, an intel-
ligent and a helpful view of any questions affecting them
in their relations to the United Kingdom or to one an-
other.

Now, that you will say is a tall order. I am quite
aware of it. I know that it is a big ambition to be an
all-round British citizen, not to say an all-round British
statesman. I daresay I may make a great mess of it —
perhaps no man living can make a complete success in
that field, but whether I succeed or whether I fail, it is
an honorable ambition and one with which I think you
are bound to sympathize.

At any rate, you will see why it was a matter of
supreme interest to me to become better acquainted with
Canada. Though I have long been a student of Cana-
dian affairs, though I have many Canadian friends, made
in the Old Country, and made perhaps more especially in
South Africa, I have never actually been in Canada till
the last three weeks. It is just twenty days to-day since I
landed at Quebec, and I have never felt more than dur-
ing my present journey what an enormous difference it

IMPERIAL UNITY 3

makes, however much you may have studied a subject
or thought about it, to be able to see things for yourself.
It is true that I have only rushed through the Dominion ;
I am the last man to think that so hasty a visit entitles
me to pose as an authority on Canadian affairs. Nothing
could be more intolerable — don't I know it? — than the
globe trotter who dashes through a country in a few
days, and then thinks he knows all about it, when all
he really knows is the inside of two or three hotels. I
assure you, gentlemen, I have suffered from him in my
time just as much as any of you, and I am not going to
imitate him.

Take British Columbia alone. It would take months
to go through it, and years to know it. But for all that
I do know it a great deal better than I did a week ago.
And this is true of all my experiences in this country.
I feel I realize with greater vividness than I expected,
not only the vastness and the immense possibilities of the
Dominion, but also the differences, I might almost say
the contrasts, which exist between different parts of it.

That is, so far, the dominant impression left upon
my mind. I may be entirely wrong; you will not be
hard upon me if I am. First impressions are often
wrong, and I am merely telling you frankly, as I be-
lieve you would wish me to speak, how the matter strikes
me, not in any dogmatic way, but because it is sometimes
interesting and useful to know how things, with which
one is very familiar, so familiar perhaps that one has

4 IMPERIAL UNITY

ceased to think about them, strike a man who sees them
for the first time.

I have been deeply impressed not only by the extent
of the country, but by the fact that I seem to have been
travelling not through one, but through four different
countries. And that although, to my great regret, I have
not been able to visit, and I fear shall not be able to
visit, on this occasion, the Maritime Provinces on the far
Atlantic. And so I realize better than ever, how bold
was the conception of those who first grasped the idea
of moulding all Canada from Cape Breton to Vancouver
Island into one great Confederation. They were great
political architects, who leaped the intervening wilder-
ness, as it then was, between Ontario and British Colum-
bia. Of course, it was only the common flag, it was only
the fact that that flag had been kept flying in British
Columbia here on the shores of the Pacific, which made
that union possible in the first instance. Had you and
those who came before you not kept that flag flying
here, as I believe you always will keep it flying, that
great transcontinental state, the creation of which pre-
sented such difficulties in any case, would have been a
sheer impossibility. The old Crown colony of British
Columbia, that outpost of Empire, has therefore an im-
portance in world history which is not generally recog-
nized.

But, after all, the common flag, in this as in other
cases, was only a great opportunity. It may mean every-

IMPERIAL UNITY 5

thing or it may mean very little, according as the oppor-
tunity is neglected or developed. In this case, human
genius and energy made the most of the opportunity, and
the success was beyond all human anticipation. The
builders builded better than they knew. But it is one thing
to bring several distant and diverse communities into one
political union; it is another to inspire them with a com-
mon soul. Many people doubted when the Confedera-
tion was first formed, whether it was possible for the
British communities of North America, with all their
differences of race, with all the physical obstacles to
their intercourse, with all the external attractions draw-
ing them away from one another, to develop a common
national life. The event has proved that this fear was
unfounded.

Immense as has been the development of the ma-
terial resources of the country, and it is only just be-
ginning, there is another development, not less important,
not less momentous, though it has perhaps attracted less
attention in the world, I mean the growth of a common
devotion to their common country among the inhabitants
of all parts of Canada ; the growth of a Canadian spirit,
a Canadian patriotism. And that without any loss of
individuality in the several communities. If men had
sought to ignore the differences of character and history,
if they had sought to force what are now the provinces
of Canada into one common mould, Confederation would
have been a failure. It was only by recognizing local

6 IMPERIAL UNITY

life and local independence, it was only by combining
independence in local affairs, with an effective union for
common affairs, by unity in diversity, that this country
has been built up. Canadian patriotism has not grown
at the expense of local patriotism, but in addition to it.

And there is a greater and wider lesson in that. How
will this growth of Canadian patriotism affect Imperial
interests? There are people, perhaps many people, who
think that Canadian patriotism will tend to draw Canada
away from the sister nations into an isolated existence,
isolated though no doubt powerful. I do not, myself,
share that feeling. May I tell you how I have heard it
put more than once during my visit to Canada? People
have said to me, people whose opinion I feel bound to
respect, " Canada is a land inhabitated by people of vari-
ous races and of different origin and traditions ; it is pos-
sible to make them all good Canadians, but it is not pos-
sible to make them all good Britishers :" and, in a sense,
no doubt, that is true ; but I for my part shall be satisfied
if they all become good Canadians. I do not, myself, fear
that the growth of a distinct Canadian type of character,
of a strong Canadian patriotism, is going to be a danger
to the unity of the Empire.

My faith in the British Empire, which is something
different from an Empire of England, or even of the
United Kingdom, is stronger than that. It is not reason-
able to expect that men who are not of British race, or
who, though originally of British race, may have become

IMPERIAL UNITY 7

alienated from British traditions, should be Imperialists
from love of Great Britain. But I think the time will
come when they may be Imperialists from love of Can-
ada. Let them only learn to love Canada, the country
of their adoption, or in the next generation the country
of their birth, let them care greatly for Canada, and let
them and those Canadians who are of British birth unite
in the development of a strong local patriotism. The
more they all care for Canada, the more ambitious they
are for her, the more proud they are of her, the more
I believe they will appreciate the position of world-wide
influence and power which is open to her as a member of
the British Empire.

I am not speaking of what exists to-day. I am
thinking of the future. How are these things going to
work out? Canada is going to be a great country in any
case, one of the great countries of the world. But she
will not be unique in that. There are some other coun-
tries her equals in extent, and which, even with her vast
development, will be far more than her equals in popula-
tion. The time will come when with the growth of her
population and trade she will have interests in every part
of the world. How is she going to defend them ? Sooner
or later she will have to enter the field of world-politics.
What will she find there? Nations, not a few now, and
there are going to be more, who count their armed men
by millions, and their giant battleships by scores. Is she
going to compete on that scale with the armaments of

8 IMPERIAL UNITY

the great world-Powers ? Or is she going to take a back
seat, and a back seat, mind you, not only in war but in
peace? Wars between great nations are going to be
rarer and rarer as times passes. But every year and
every day, not only on the rare occasions when nations
actually fight, the power of fighting exercises its silent,
decisive influence on the history of the world. It is like
the cash reserve of some great solvent bank. How often
is it necessary actually to disburse those millions, the ex-
istence of which, in the background, nevertheless affects
the bank and everybody who deals with it all the time?
It is credit which determines the power and influence of
nations just as it does the fate of any business. Credit
in business rests ultimately on the possession or command
of cash, though the owners may never actually have to
produce it. And so the influence and authority of a
nation, its power to defend its rightful interests, de-
pend ultimately on that fighting strength in war, which
it nevertheless may never be called upon to use. See
what is happening in Europe to-day. International
boundaries are being altered. Solemn treaties are being
torn up. Yet not a shot has been fired, probably not a
shot will be. The strong will prevail and the weak
will go to the wall without any such necessity.

Is Canada, as she grows and her external relations
increase, going to allow herself, I will not say to be in-
vaded, but just to be hustled and pushed off the pave-
ment, whenever it suits any stronger power ?

IMPERIAL UNITY g

Or is she going to rely for protection on some
friendly neighbor such as the United States? I do not
think that either course would be consonant with the
dignity or self-respect of Canadians. But are they, then,
to be compelled to compete in armaments with the great
world powers, to turn aside from the development of
this great country, which demands all the energies and
resources of a far larger population than it has, in order
to build up great armies and navies? Not at all. There
is another alternative, easier, much easier, much more
natural and much more effective. I have said that Can-
ada is not unique in being a great country. But she is
unique in being one of a group of countries, which has
a strong foothold in every corner of the world. That
group only needs to hold together and to be properly
organized, in order to command, with a comparatively
small cost to its individual members, all the credit and
all the respect, and, therefore, all the power and all the
security, which credit and respect alone can give a nation
among the nations of the world. No doubt Canada, if
she is to take her place in such a union, will have to de-
velop, as I believe she will desire to develop, her own
fighting strength. But not to a greater extent than would
be necessary in any case for the adequate development of
Canadian self-respect, or beneficial to the manhood of her
people, and certainly nothing like to the same extent as
would be absolutely inevitable if she desired to stand alone.
Without any loss of individuality, without any exces-

-io IMPERIAL UNITY

sive strain upon her resources, it is within her power to
enjoy all the glory and all the benefits of that great
position, not only on this continent, but throughout the
world, in which every self-governing community under
the British Crown is equally entitled to participate.
Canada would be greater, far greater, as a member, per-
haps in time the leading member of that group of power-
ful though pacific nations, than she ever could be in
isolation.

One word in conclusion, to obviate any misunder-
standing. If I contemplate a future in which Canada
will contribute more than she does to-day to the mainten-
ance of Imperial power, do not suppose that I under-
estimate what Canadians have already done, or what
they are even now doing for the common cause. I
ought to be the last to forget, and I never shall forget
what Canadians did at a supreme crisis in the history
of the Empire in South Africa; and I fully realize that
the mere development of a great country like this within
the Empire must of itself tend constantly to enhance the
prestige and potential strength of the Empire as a whole.
The last thing that would occur to me would be to lecture
Canadians on their duty. It is in no such spirit that I
have ventured to point out, that the greatness of the
Empire to which they belong is a matter of deep concern
to Canadians as Canadians, whether they be of British
origin or not, and that there is no contrast, but rather a
necessary connection, between Canadian and Imperial

IMPERIAL UNITY n

patriotism. Let that once be recognized, and I have no
doubt whatever that the people of Canada will draw for
themselves the inferences which their interest and their
dignity alike dictate. They will claim, and rightly claim,
to have a greater voice in controlling the policy of the
whole Empire. In my opinion that will be an unmitigated
advantage all round. I could quote instances, but it would
take me too long, in which, as I think, Imperial policy
would never have gone astray, if the opinion of the
younger nations could have been brought to bear upon
it. It is high time that those who guide the destiny of
the Empire should learn to look at international prob-
lems, not only from the point of view of the United
Kingdom and its immediate dependencies, but from that
of the Empire at large. The younger nations will wish
to make their voices heard, and the sooner they do it the
better. And in proportion as they claim an influence on
Imperial policy they will recognize of themselves the
necessity of increasing Imperial strength.

I thank you for the kindness and patience with
which you have listened to me. I hope I have not tres-
passed too much upon your time. The questions I have
discussed are questions about which there must be great
differences of opinion here, as in any other portion of the
Empire. I have stated my own position, and have stated
it frankly, and I now leave these two matters with you
for your own consideration: first, the necessity of
national strength not only for purposes of war, but for

12 IMPERIAL UNITY

purposes of peace and peaceful development; and,
second, the evidence which your own history affords,
that there is no incompatibility between local and national
patriotism, as there is, in my opinion, no incompatibility
between Canadian national patriotism and the wider
patriotism of the Empire.

II.

THE CANADIAN CLUB, WINNIPEG,
OCTOBER I5TH.

Speaking last week to the Canadian Club of Van-
couver, I dwelt at some length upon what I conceive to be
the advantages which Canada and other members of the
British Imperial family, such as Australia, New Zealand,
or, for that matter, the United Kingdom itself, derive
to-day, and may derive in still larger measure in the
future, from facing the world as a single great power.
If anyone is sufficiently interested in the matter, and
cares to see what I said then, there is a full report of my
remarks, not indeed a faultless one, but a wonderfully
good one, in the Vancouver Daily News- Advertiser of
October loth. I do not wish to repeat myself, and I
shall deal with quite a different aspect of the life of the
Empire to-day. But there are just one or two things
which I must repeat, though I shall do so as briefly as I
can, in order to explain to you from what point of view
I approach the subject.

The word British, as applied to the Empire, does not
mean English, nor yet English, Scotch and Irish all
together. The Empire is not something belonging to the
United Kingdom any more than to Canada, or to Aus-
tralia, or to any other single portion of it. All the sub-
jects of the King ought to be equal sharers in it, and so to

14 IMPERIAL UNITY

regard themselves. For my own part, I firmly refuse,
and shall always refuse, to regard any quarter of the
Empire as otherwise than a part of my country, or its
inhabitants otherwise than as my fellow-citizens, my
fellow-countrymen, and that not because I happen to be
an Englishman. If I were a Canadian, I should feel, and
be entitled to feel, precisely the same. No doubt since
the Empire has tumbled up in a very casual manner, and
its organization is still very imperfect, this view is to-day
somewhat a "counsel of perfection." The people of the
United Kingdom do in fact at the present time control
the foreign policy of the Empire, and provide for its
defence, in a very different measure from the inhabitants
of other parts of it. But that is a state of affairs which
I hope to see gradually altered, as it has been to some
extent altered already. A good deal has been said
recently about the self-governing states of the Empire,
other than the United Kingdom, taking a greater
share in Imperial defence. I think that is right,
and I believe that they recognize it. But from
my point of view it is no less essential that they should
take their part in moulding Imperial policy. For
instance, and by way of illustration only, they all con-
tributed to our success in the South African war. It was
right that they should do so, for the great issue at stake
there was not of local but of general interest. But though
they took part in the war, their participation in South
African affairs ended with its conclusion. It was

IMPERIAL UNITY 15

regarded as a matter of course that the United Kingdom
alone should deal with the situation in South Africa as the
war left it. In my opinion, the policy to be adopted after
the war should have been, like the war itself, the business
of the whole Empire, and not of the United Kingdom
only. If Canada, Australia, New Zealand had had a
voice in it, if the organization of the Empire had been
sufficiently advanced to make that course practicable, I
think we should see a more satisfactory state of affairs in
South Africa than we do to-day.

That, then, is my position, the position of an Imperial
Unionist, using that word in its broadest and in no party
sense — a Unionist in that I wish to see all our common
affairs the subject of common management in peace as
much as in war. If wars were altogether to cease, as we
all hope and believe that they will grow less and less fre-
quent, I should not on that account attach less importance
to a united Empire.

And now only one more reference to what I said at
Vancouver. In answer to those who hold that the growth
of a Canadian spirit, of Canadian patriotism, in which I
rejoice, is incompatible with the Imperial idea, I tried
to point out how decisively the history of this country
itself belies such fears. There are no greater contrasts
within the British Empire to-day, or at any rate within
the self-governing states, than existed in Canada before
Confederation, and indeed still exist. You had physical
distance and inaccessibility. Nova Scotia is farther from

16 IMPERIAL UNITY

British Columbia than from Great Britain, and the then
unbridged prairies and Rocky Mountains were out and
away a greater obstacle to intercourse than the Atlantic
Ocean. You had likewise differences of race. But in spite
of all these, United Canada is a great accomplished fact
to-day. And it has become so without loss of individu-
ality in the several and very diverse states which compose
it, and without violence being done to their distinctive
character and traditions. The principles which have been
so satisfactory in the making of Canada are applicable
in a wider field.

And Canada is not the only example. The history
of our race and of other kindred races for hundreds of
years shows many instances in which, never, indeed, with-
out doubt, opposition, and criticism at the outset, but with
complete success in the end, independent communities,
intensely jealous of their independence, have nevertheless
solved the problem of effective and enduring union for
common purposes without injury to their individual char-
acters and patriotism. There is nothing at all new in the
idea. What is novel is the largeness of the scale on
which it is sought to realize it. But then the novel con-
ditions of human life, the great and progressive improve-
ment in the means of travel and communication, the
triumphs of science over distance — what has been called
the "shrinkage of the world" — are favorable to political
architecture on a large scale. Imperialists are only men
who realise the facts of the world they live in, who have

IMPERIAL UNITY 17

grasped the bearing and consequences of the changes, to
which I have referred, rather sooner than other people.
And now, gentlemen, I have done with my recapitu-
lation. I am going to break new ground. Enough has
been said, for the moment, about the value of Imperial
unity for purposes of external protection. Let us look
at it to-day in its bearing on internal development. We
Imperialists are frequently represented as people who
think only of national power, of armies and navies, and of
cutting a big figure in the world ; in fact, in one word, of
the material and external aspect of national life. Most
emphatically do I enter my protest against any such mis-
conception. Give me that political organism, be it small
or large, which affords to its members the best oppor-
tunities of self -development, of a healthy and many-sided
human existence. I believe that the close association of
the several peoples under the British Crown, their leading
a common national life, tends to promote these things,
and that there would be a distinct and immense loss, if
the tie were broken, alike to the various communities as
wholes and to all the individuals who compose them.

Take first the individual. We live in a migratory
age, and mankind, as far as one can foresee, is likely to
become more rather than less migratory. Men find the
older countries too crowded, and go forth to seek fresh
opportunities and more elbow room in the new, or they
go for purposes of business and study, or from mere
inclination, from the new to the old. Again there is a

-i8 IMPERIAL UNITY

growing intercourse, this for business reasons mainly,
between the tropic and the temperate zones, and generally
between countries of diverse climate and products. The
economic interdependence of the different parts of the
world is constantly increasing this tendency.

Now, in this constant movement, so characteristic of
our age, the citizens of a worldwide state have a great
advantage. The British Empire, comprising, as it does,
so large an area in both hemispheres, and in every conti-
nent on the globe, containing every variety of climate and
product, and almost every form of human activity and
enterprise, offers to every born subject of the King, of
European race, a varied choice of domicile within its own
borders, and opportunities of migration without expatria-
tion, which no other state in the world affords. The
United States probably come nearest to it in this respect,
but the United States are not its equal in the number and
variety of the opportunities which they offer to their
citizens within the confines of their own country.

It is no exaggeration to say that, without exception,
British citizenship is the most valuable citizenship in the
whole world. Regarded as a free pass, it has the widest
currency. The man of white race who is born a British
subject can find a home in every portion of the world
where he can live under his own flag, enjoying the same
absolute freedom, and the same protection for person or
property as he has always enjoyed; using his own
language, and possessing from the first moment that he

IMPERIAL UNITY 19

sets foot there the full rights of citizenship. And that
without sacrificing anything, without foreswearing his
allegiance to the land of his birth, as he must do in order
to obtain citizen rights in any foreign country.

It is needless to dwell on the vast advantage which it
is to the people of the United Kingdom to be able to
make homes for themselves in so many parts of the new
world, without ceasing to be Britons. There is nothing
which more excites the envy and admiration of foreign
nations. But is there no corresponding advantage to the
younger nations of the British family in the fact that
they have a home, and a footing, and a place as of right,
in the old world, which no other denizens of the new
world possess? Take the people of the great republic
on your borders. They come to Europe as visitors by
tens and hundreds of thousands, and many of them come
to stay. And welcome visitors they are, especially in
Great Britain. The sense of relationship is strong and
growing, and we are all very glad of it. But much as he
may feel at home in Great Britain, much as we may do to
make him feel so, the citizen of the United States can
never be at home there in the same sense in which a
Canadian or Australian can. The great historic sites to
which he makes his pilgrimage, the monuments of art
and antiquity, the accumulated treasures of centuries of
civilized existence, great as may be the attraction they
possess for him, are yet not his, as they are yours and
mine. And, of course, he cannot take his part in the

20 IMPERIAL UNITY

public life of the country without abandoning his own
nationality. The Canadian can do so at any time and for
just as long as he likes without any such sacrifice.

These privileges of British citizenship are without
parallel in history. I cannot dwell at greater length upon
all that is involved in them, either in the way of material
benefit, or in their effect on character, though I feel
strongly that the multiplied sympathies and the wider
outlook which the citizenship of a world-state gives, have
an educating influence of the highest value. And, here, if
I may, without appearing to be egotistical, refer to my
own case, I should just say that I am conscious how
greatly my own life has been enriched by my experiences
in Egypt and South Africa, arduous and even painful as
they sometimes have been. I am not now thinking of
the political or business aspect of these experiences, but
simply of the education, which it was to me, to be brought
into close touch with the life of these two countries, so
extraordinarily dissimilar and yet both so interesting.
That was an experience which I could never have had
in the same degree as a mere foreign visitor. And I feel
the same about my present sojourn in Canada. It is much
too short, but I am getting more out of it, in the way of
my own improvement, than I should out of a stay of
equally brief duration in any foreign country.

Now turn from the individual to look at the com-
munity. Despite a general similarity of spirit and aim
which distinguishes the self-governing states of the Em-

IMPERIAL UNITY 21

pire throughout the world from other nations, there is
no doubt great diversity between them. They are devel-
oping distinct but closely related types of civilization and
character, and, that being so, they have much to learn
from one another, which can best be learned and perhaps
can only be learned if they draw closer together instead
of drifting into separation and that inevitable consequence
of separation, potential antagonism. This is a big sub-
ject, much more than I can elaborate at the end of a long
address. But I may just indicate what is running in my
mind. My personal experience of the younger communi-
ties of the Empire is limited. But as far as it goes, it
confirms what has often been asserted by careful observ-
ers. In the freer and less conventional life of these com-
munities men are more readily judged by their essential
worth than they are in the Old Country. Social distinc-
tions are of less account. "A man's a man for a' that."
In this respect the younger states are in the best sense of
the word more democratic. Again, the supreme impor-
tance of education is more generally recognized. It is
impressive to see the new provinces of the Canadian
West, which have only existed as political entities for a
few years, already equipped with such stately school
buildings, already starting Universities and resolved to
start them on no mean scale. Again, it is a commonplace
that new departures in social organization are more read-
ily attempted here or in Australia or New Zealand than
in the United Kingdom. There is not the same excessive

22 IMPERIAL UNITY

caution about making experiments, or the same difficulty
in breaking loose from the domination of time-honored
theories and routine. For one who, like myself, is some-
thing of a radical, at any rate in the field of economics
and social reform, there is much encouragement in all
this, as well as much instruction.

But if there is much that the Old Country can learn
from Canada, is there not also much that she can give
to Canada in return? I speak from a brief experience,
and I may be quite wrong, but you will wish me to say
frankly what strikes me. The younger states of the
Empire have taken all their fundamental institutions from
the Old Country. I am not sure that they have yet repro-
duced all that is best in her public life. Without ignoring
the excesses of party spirit in the United Kingdom, which
I am the last to defend, I think that as a rule the tone of
public controversy there is comparatively high. The
number of men who engage in public affairs, contrary to
their own interests and even inclination, from a sheer
sense of duty, is considerable. The civil service, impar-
tially recruited, entirely free from party bias, absolutely
independent and yet self-effacing, is probably the best in
the world.

Now turn from the political to the intellectual life of
the country. I think the general level of education and
intelligence is higher on this continent. But I also think
that on the topmost plane of literature and learning, of
course with individual exceptions, there is something in

IMPERIAL UNITY 23

the maturity of thought and perfection of scholarship
which distinguish the Old Country and the Old World
generally, which seems entitled to peculiar respect. But
I will say no more on these points. On the whole, it
would be better for Canadians to look out for what is
best and most worthy of imitation in the Old Country,
and for me to spend my time in Canada in looking out
for what is best and most worthy of imitation here. That
would appear to be the right division of labor in the
present case.

And now, before sitting down, I want to answer two
criticisms, not external but internal criticisms. I mean
doubts which have arisen in my mind as to the appropri-
ateness of what I have been saying to-day. The first is
this : for the past fortnight, during which I have trav-
elled thousands of miles and conversed earnestly with
scores of able people, I have been ceaselessly in contact
with, hearing all day and dreaming all night, and imbib-
ing, so to speak, through the pores of the skin, the story
of that immense development, present and future, of
Western Canada, which necessarily preoccupies the minds
of all its inhabitants to-day. The only thing which every-
body cares for, so says my internal critic, is the one thing
I have said nothing at all about. But not because I am
not impressed with it, or fail to realize its importance
alike to this country and to the future of the Empire. If
the plains, which I have just been traversing, are going
to become the principal granary of the United Kingdom,

24 IMPERIAL UNITY

and I don't see how they can fail to become that, this is
evidently a new factor of tremendous moment. But then
it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to dilate upon it
here. There is not a man in this room who does not
know much more about it than I do. If I am going to
dwell on the great future of the Canadian West and all
that it involves, let me do so, not in Winnipeg, but in
London.

But now that I have silenced one internal critic, up
jumps another and a more formidable one. "What," he
says to me, "have we not heard enough of all these fine
generalities about Empire and Imperial Union ? Is it not
time to come to something more definite and practical?"
Now that objection appeals to me very much, for, absurd
as it may seem to say so at the end of this interminable
rigmarole, I am not a man of speech, but a man of action.
No amount of practice will ever make speaking anything
but pain and grief to me, and especially speaking in gen-
eralities. It is very much easier to discuss a particular
definite proposal. But then, in the first place, this is a
club for the formation of opinion and not for the discus-
sion of programmes. And I must reluctantly admit that
there is still a great deal to do, quite as much, or more, in
the Old Country as here., in creating a sound attitude of
mind on Imperial Unity. It is not that in a vague and
after-dinner-speech sort of way there is not great enthusi-
asm with regard to it. But of the people who share that
enthusiasm, very few take the trouble to think out what

IMPERIAL UNITY 25

they themselves can do to turn it to practical account.
Men are waiting for a sign, for some great scheme of an
Imperial constitution, which, as it seems to me, can only
result from, and not precede, the practice of co-operation
in the numerous matters, in which it might be practised
now without new institutions. And so opportunities are
missed every day, which would not be missed, if there
was a more general and vivid sense of what is incumbent
on those who sincerely aim at being citizens of Greater
Britain.

I have tried in my imperfect way to live up to that
ideal all my life, and have found it a constant source of
strength and inspiration. I do not think I have been a
worse Englishman because I have never been a Little
Englander, but have sought to realize, beyond my duty
to England, the duties and obligations of a wider patriot-
ism. May I put it to you, quite bluntly, it is only if a
similar spirit prevails in all parts of the Empire, that the
great heritage of our common citizenship and our world-
wide dominion can either be preserved, or so developed
as to yield all the benefits which it is capable of yielding
to every one of its inheritors. It is no use a few of us,
even a large number of us, working away for the common
cause on the other side of the Atlantic, unless others are
working for it over here, working for it as Canadians,
keeping it in their minds from day to day, watching for
every opportunity which may further it, on their
guard against every step which may imperil it. It is only

26 IMPERIAL UNITY

by a long pull and a strong pull and a pull altogether, that
we can place our great common heritage, the British
Empire, above the danger of external attack or internal
disruption.

III.

THE CANADIAN CLUB, TORONTO,
OCTOBER 27™.

It is perhaps rather unfortunate that the subject of
my address to-night should be a political subject. Even
the most ardent lovers of political discussion must, I
fancy, be feeling some satiety on the day after the close
of a hotly contested general election. But if my subject
is political, it is at any rate not party-political. It has
nothing to do with any of the questions which at present
form the staple of party controversy in this country. My
views may excite, indeed they are bound to excite, differ-
ences of opinion, but they will not follow the ordinary
lines of party cleavage.

Only one more preliminary remark. I have not come
to Canada as a lecturer or a propagandist. The object of
my journey is simply to make myself better acquainted
with Canada, with the conditions of its life and the
opinions of its people. And from that point of view my
visit has been an unmitigated success. It is difficult for
me to tell you how much instruction I have derived from
it. Whether it would not have been better to allow me
thus to improve my mind, without at the same time com-
pelling me to exhibit its emptiness by making speeches, is
another question. Whatever may be the advantages, and

28 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

the charms, of the role of a silent observer, it is one which
the vigilance and the enterprise of the Canadian Clubs
have rendered impossible in my case. They are scattered
all over the land, and, like the robber barons, whose castles
lined the great mediaeval trade-routes, they insist on
taking their toll of the passing traveller. True, I have
succeeded in evading several of them. But where evasion
is clearly hopeless, I do my best to pay up cheerfully, and
to look as if I liked it. But I beg you to observe that this
payment is not in the nature of a voluntary contribution.
I am not volunteering my opinions. I am told to "stand
and deliver" them. That being the case, I am bound to
deliver them frankly. No other course would be compat-
ible with self-respect or respect for you. But if, being
pronounced opinions, they knock up against the pet
prejudices of some, or disturb the contented inertia of
others, I shall decline to be responsible for the "moral
and intellectual damages" so occasioned.

And now, not to detain you too long, may I take one
or two things for granted ? In the first place, it may seem
very conceited of me, but I will take it for granted that
my audience to-night are acquainted, in a general way,
with the spirit in which I approach the question of the
relations of Canada with the Mother Country, and with
the other parts of the British Empire. And I will take it
for granted further — this is perhaps a bolder assumption,
but I am prepared to make it — that, broadly speaking,
this spirit is in harmony with the spirit and temper of the

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

a

great majority of those in Canada who think much or
earnestly about this question. I may be quite wrong, but
that is my present impression. I think there is a wide-
spread, a preponderant, I do not say a universal, desire
among the people of this country, not only to maintain
the union which at present happily exists between Canada
and the other self-governing states under the British
Crown, but to see that union grow closer, to foster more
intimate commercial and social intercourse, a better
mutual understanding, and greater mutual helpfulness.
Underlying that desire is the conception, not clearly
grasped perhaps, but constantly becoming stronger and
more definite, the conception of the Empire as an organic
whole, consisting, no doubt, of nations completely in-
dependent in their local affairs, and possessing distinct
individualities, but having certain great objects and ideals
in common, and capable, by virtue of these, of develop-
ing a common policy and a common life.

Well, now that being a general desire, the question
arises how to realize it. And here opinions diverge widely.
My own view is that, if people already friendly and
related, wish to become more friendly and more closely
related, to develop greater intimacy and interdependence,
the only way for them to achieve this is to do things
together ; great things, if possible, in any case things that
are of some moment, and are worth doing. To do this,
that, and the other important piece of business together,
not to stand talking of your mutual affection and sym-

30 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

pathy — that is the method, as it seems to me. And there
are many opportunities for co-operation between the
members of the Imperial family, some that have been
taken, many more that have been and are being missed.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that nothing can be done.
An enormous amount can be done even with our present
instruments. And if the instruments are imperfect, it is
in using them that we shall invent better ones. Some
people think that no progress can be made without the
creation, as a first step, of some Imperial Parliament or
Council representative of all parts of the Empire. I do
not agree with them. But do not misunderstand me. I
am and always have been a Federalist. Personally, I am
unable to conceive the effective permanent all-round
co-operation of the self-governing states of the Empire
without a common organ, an executive belonging to all
of them, in the constitution of which they will all have a
share, which will be responsible for the defence of their
common interests, and armed with power to defend them
effectually. And for my own part I do not think the
difficulties besetting the creation of such a body are any-
thing like as great as they appear to many people.

But, in my view, this is the natural end of a particular
process of constitutional development. It is not the
beginning of it. It may come more or less quickly. Or
the true solution may be found in some other form of
organization, which, on the basis of our present knowl-
edge and experience, I personally am unable to conceive.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 3L

What is certain is that we can only arrive at an ideal
system of co-operation by actually beginning to co-oper-
ate in the problems immediately before us.

Do not let us allow differences of opinion as to the
future constitution of the Empire — I do not deprecate
the discussion of such matters ; in fact, I welcome it, only
I don't want it entirely to absorb us — I say, do not let
such differences prevent our working together to-day,
wherever we can work together, for purposes which we
all, or the great majority of us, consider desirable. To
sum up. While we keep the ideal in view, let us pay
immediate attention to the one practical thing after
another that arises and that can be dealt with here and
now.

Now, there is one respect in which I think most
people are agreed that a great deal can be done to draw
together the different parts of the Empire, and that is the
development of trade relations between them. But this
is a subject on which, great as its importance is, I will not
dwell to-night. I shall have other opportunities of dis-
cussing it. Another great branch of the subject is
co-operation for defence. In approaching that I wish to
remove one common source of misunderstanding. The
way in which the case is sometimes put is an appeal, or
something like an appeal, on the part of the United
Kingdom, to Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand, to
lighten the vast burden resting on the Mother Country.
Personally, I am not in accord with that manner of

32 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

approaching the question, for many reasons. I think
there is something in the argument, that the United King-
dom, certainly as long as it retained Indian and other
dependencies, would require at least as large an army and
navy as it has to-day, even if the self-governing states
were wholly separate, and the United Kingdom was under
no obligation to protect them. Moreover, I think that
even under present conditions, their membership of the
Empire adds more to its collective strength, than liabili-
ty for their protection adds to its responsibilities. But
no doubt the general position would be much stronger
if all the self-governing states were to adopt the course,
which Australia seems disposed to adopt, of creating a
national militia, and laying the foundations of a fleet.
And I for one should welcome such a policy, wherever
adopted, not as affording relief to the United Kingdom,
but as adding to the strength and dignity of the Empire
as a whole, to its influence in peace as well as to its
security in case of war.

It is not a question of shifting burdens, but of devel-
oping fresh centres of strength. For this reason I have
never been a great advocate of contributions from the
self-governing states to the army and navy of the United
Kingdom, though as evidences of a sense of the solidarity
of the Empire such contributions are welcome, and valu-
able, pending the substitution of something better. But
I am sure that the form which Imperial co-operation in
this field will ultimately take, and ought to take, the form

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 33

at once most consistent with the dignity of the individual
states and most conducive to their collective strength and
organic union, is the development of their several defens-
ive resources, in material and in manhood. I know that
it may be argued — it has been argued — that individual
strength would make for separation. But I have no sym-
pathy whatever with that point of view. On the con-
trary, I believe that in proportion as the self-governing
Dominions grow in power they will feel a stronger desire
to share in the responsibilities and the glory of Empire.

But quite apart from any danger to the Imperial spirit
in the several states, which I do not fear, there are no
doubt many difficulties about the creation of separate
defensive forces, and there is a danger of their develop-
ing on lines so dissimilar as to hamper conjoint action
should it become necessary. This is especially true in the
case of the navy. The professional and technical, not to
say the strategic, arguments for a single big navy of the
Empire are enormously strong, so strong that they might
conceivably overcome, as they have to some extent over-
come in the past, the political objection. But without
wishing to be dogmatic on a subject which requires a
great deal more careful study on all hands than it has
yet received, I must say that, speaking as an Imperialist,
I feel the political objection very strongly.

If the self-governing states were going, under our
present constitutional arrangements, merely to contribute
to a central navy, whether in money or, better still, in

34 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

men and ships, I do not think they would take that inter-
est and pride in the matter which it is essential they should
take. They would continue, as now, absorbed in their
local affairs, and, even if they felt their obligation to the
Empire as a whole, they would rest content to have dis-
charged it by such a contribution. The contribution,
under these circumstances, would probably not be large,
but that is not really the weakest point in such a system.
Its fatal weakness is that the participation of the self-
governing states in Imperial affairs would begin and end
with the contribution. The responsibility for the whole
direction of Imperial affairs, for policy, would still rest
with the United Kingdom alone. That might save
trouble for the moment, but it would be a very poor sub-
stitute for a real Imperial partnership. I know the latter
cannot be achieved all at once, but I want to proceed on
lines which lead towards it, and which do not lead away
from it. The true line of progress is for the younger
nations to be brought face to face themselves, however
gradually and however piecemeal, with the problem of
the defence of the Empire, to undertake a bit of it, so to
speak, for themselves, always provided that whatever
they do, be it much or little, is done for the Empire as a
whole, not for themselves only, and is part of a general
system.

I may illustrate my idea by the analogy of a firm in
which different partners, with shares perhaps of very
different amounts, take charge in different centres, but

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 35

always of the interests of the firm, not merely of their in-
dividual interests. I can see in my mind an arrangement,
in the first instance, possibly, a number of separate and
special arrangements, by which the self-governing states
would supplement, with their own forces, acting under
their own control, but on a mutually agreed plan, the
efforts already immense, but not even thus quite
adequate, which the United Kingdom makes to
cause the influence of the Empire to be felt in every por-
tion of the world. You know what the presence of a
British ship of war means in any waters. For once that
they have to fire a shot, our sailors render a hundred
invaluable and little-recognized services to the Empire,
and to civilization, in time of peace. But they cannot be
in all places where their presence is desirable. Without
firing a shot a gunboat in the Southern Pacific may pre-
vent the recrudescence of slavery, or in the North Pacific
act as a salutary warning to poachers. Imperial interests
would be as well served, in either case, by an Australian
or a Canadian as by an English gunboat.

I hope I have said enough — time will not allow me to
say more — about the spirit in which, the object with which,
I desire to see the self-governing states develop for them-
selves that fighting strength which has once already, at a
moment of great emergency, contributed so greatly to the
safety of the Empire. Let me say one word as to method.
It is of the highest importance, not only for strategical
reasons, but as a contribution to Imperial unity, that these

36 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

forces, without being forced into one rigid mould, should
yet be trained, armed, officered on similar lines, so that,
in the details of military and naval organization as in
policy, these separate efforts may dovetail into one
another. From this point of view I think Mr. Haldane's
idea of a general staff of the Empire is an idea of great
value. The soldiers and sailors of different parts of the
Empire will be under the control of their several govern-
ments, and those governments must arrange for the
manner and degree of their co-operation. But they will
all be the servants of the one Empire and of its common
sovereign, and they cannot know too much of one another.

We need not wait, indeed we ought not to wait, for a
war to make them better acquainted. The same object
can be attained by a systematic interchange of services in
time of peace. It would be of immense value for any
British officer to serve for a time in a Canadian or Aus-
tralian force. It would be of no less advantage to the
Canadian or Australian to put in a period of service in
another part of the Empire than his own. At a further
stage of the development, the principle of interchange
might be extended, from individuals to whole regiments
and to ships.

And this idea of interchange of service can be and
ought to be applied in many other directions than that of
Imperial defence. It is not only the military and naval
service of the Empire which would benefit by it, but the
civil service as well. The civil service of the self-govern-

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 37

ing states has been largely fashioned, as their political
institutions have almost wholly been, on the model of the
Mother Country. No doubt that is less true of Canada
than of some of the sister states. But in Canada also
there is a tendency, and a very wholesome tendency, to
adopt at least the main features of the system, which a
long and dearly bought experience has led us to adopt
in the United Kingdom. But if we are all going forward
on the same lines, why do so in water-tight compart-
ments? Why not have a common standard, at any rate
in the higher grades of the civil service? The men who
possessed that qualification would then be available for
administrative work in any part of the Empire, and the
government of any one state would have the best ability
and experience of the other countries to draw upon as
well as that of their own.

I do not see why administrative ability should not flow
freely between one part of the Empire and another, as
professional ability already does. We have a Canadian
professor at Oxford and several Canadian lecturers.
That is an excellent beginning in one direction. But I
think it would be of at least equal importance to have
Canadian attaches at several British embassies which I
could name, and Canadian administrators in some of our
Indian districts. Again, in any tariff-making commission
that might be appointed in the United Kingdom the
experience of men from any of the British countries,
which already have widespread tariffs, would be invalu-

38 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

able. And on the other hand, there are probably men in
some of the departments of the civil service at home who
would be useful for your purposes here in Canada. Per-
manent transfers might be the exception rather than the
rule, but temporary transfers could with great mutual
advantage become quite common. They would be of the
greatest benefit to the individuals concerned, and would
tend to keep up a high standard all round, and to militate
against routine and stagnation.

Now these are only a few instances. I could go on
for hours giving other illustrations of what I mean by
doing things together. They are all in harmony with that
which is the root idea of Imperialists, namely, to develop
the common life of the Empire. The basis is, of course,
our existing common citizenship, the fact of our all being,
to use a technical term, British subjects. Yet we are still
far, very far, from doing all that we could do to reap the
benefits which our common citizenship offers, or even to
show a proper respect for it. Citizenship of the Empire
is an immense privilege. Yet how careless and haphazard
is the manner in which it is at present conferred ! There
is no uniform system of naturalization in the different
states. Each deals with the matter without regard to the
others, and what is the result ? Every man naturalized in
the United Kingdom, where the period of residence
required is long, is a British subject in every part of the
Empire. But a man naturalized in Canada, Australia,
South Africa or New Zealand, where the periods are

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 39

shorter but different one from another, is only a British
subject in the particular country in which he is natural-
ized. This is the beginning of chaos. There ought to be
the same conditions precedent of naturalization in every
part of the Empire, and they ought not to be too easy.
But once admitted to the privileges of British citizenship,
a man should enjoy them to the full in every country
under the common flag.

But the point I am mainly insisting on is the
opportunities of individual development and mutual help-
fulness which our common citizenship affords. Are we
doing all we can to increase these opportunities ? I
believe we are doing more than formerly, but still not
enough. We are only beginning to realize, and that not
fully, the importance of directing the stream of immigra-
tion, and of capital, from one part of the Empire to
another rather than to foreign countries. And yet every
tie, commercial, social, educational or political, which
causes men to pass and repass from one part of the Em-
pire to another, is of real importance in welding us
together and making us realize the meaning and value of
the common citizenship. " Multi pertransibunt et ange-
bitur scientia." Yes, and not only will knowledge be
increased, but patriotism — the wider patriotism of the
whole Empire.

And again, people cannot all travel, but they can all
read. How little do people in any part of the Empire
read of the doings of their fellow-citizens in other parts?

40 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

Yet they have time to read abundance of trash of all
sorts. I believe there are many who would gladly read
better stuff if they had the opportunity. Is it too much
to hope that now that we have cheaper rates for mailed
matter, especially if we can also get cheaper telegraphic
rates, there may be a vast improvement in this respect?
Assuredly there is the greatest need for it. It rests
largely with the enterprise of the press, and I hope they
will rise to the height of their great opportunity.

And now I have done. If I have only touched, hur-
riedly, imperfectly, incoherently, on a few aspects of a
vast subject, of which my own mind is full, I hope I have
at least appeared to you to be grappling with a real prob-
lem, and not engaged in phrasemaking. People often say
to me, "We wish you would give us a short address —
just twenty minutes or half an hour — about the Empire.
It must be quite easy for you." As a matter of fact, there
is nothing that I find more difficult. I am so intensely
conscious of all that the Empire stands for in the world,
of all that it means in the great march of human progress,
I am so anxious to give full and yet unexaggerated
expression to my sense of the high privilege of British
citizenship. But there is nothing so odious as cant, and
this is a subject on which it is particularly easy to seem
to be canting. Not that I am afraid of falling into a
strain of boastfulness. The last thing which the thought
of the Empire inspires in me is a desire to boast — to
wave a flag, or to shout "Rule Britannia." When I think

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 41

of it, I am much more inclined to go into a corner by
myself and pray. But, even thus, the road is full of pit-
falls. One misplaced word, the wrong turn of a phrase,
may make the sincere expression of lifelong conviction
sound like mere empty verbiage and rodomontade.
Moreover, I am keenly alive to the amount of positive
mischief which may be done by a few careless expres-
sions. But there are some among my audience who, hav-
ing given years of service to the cause of the Empire,
must often have felt the same difficulty. I can leave it
to them, living as they do here amongst you, to interpret
and supplement my imperfect utterance. And I know I
shall have all their sympathy when I say that, if it is
sometimes wearisome and distasteful to have to talk about
the Empire, there is nothing so bracing, so inspiriting, as
to try to live for it.

IV.

THE CANADIAN CLUB, OTTAWA,
OCTOBER 3 IST, 1908.

This is not the first time since coming to Canada
that I have had to appeal to the indulgence of my audi-
ence, on the ground that long journeys and a vigorous
course of sight-seeing are not at all compatible with the
adequate preparation of addresses worthy of such gath-
erings as that which I see before me to-night. In the
present instance I have indeed had no time for prepara-
tion, but the subject is one with which I have had so
intimate and so recent an acquaintance that I may
perhaps be able to say something sensible and interest-
ing about it, though without any attempt at elabora-
tion. The subject about which I propose to speak to you,
therefore, is South Africa. But do not be alarmed at
the prospect. South Africa has been, and to some extent
still is, a topic which excites bitter political controversy.
Let me say at the outset that I shall not refer to any
question of a political or controversial nature. Putting
politics entirely aside, the problems of South Africa are
extremely interesting, and, in some respects, very similar
to yours here in Canada. There are also, no doubt,
many and great differences, to some of which I shall
presently allude. But I think that a comparison of the
conditions of the various younger countries of the Em-

44

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

pire is always full of interest and of instruction. And if
I read aright the spirit which animates the Canadian
Clubs, I think that information about other parts of the
Empire is always welcomed by them, and that it all helps
to that education in the wider citizenship which it is one
of their chief objects to promote.

To begin with. One of the points of similarity which
strikes one at once between Canada and South Africa is
the problem of distance. The vastness of both countries,
the great stretches of hardly-inhabited territory, which
separate the principal centres of settlement, are among
the main difficulties which have stood in the way of unifi-
cation both here and there. Hence it comes that the
question of communication, of transportation, looms so
large in the history of the development of either country.
South African prosperity, the connection between differ-
ent parts of South Africa, which will very shortly result
in a confederation such as yours, would have been abso-
lutely impossible without the enterprise of the people who
first pushed forward the great lines of transcontinental
communication. The first line of rails which connected
the end of Lake Superior with the Pacific Ocean is in
its importance to the history of this country paralleled
almost exactly by the importance to the history of South
Africa of the great enterprise which pushed a little local
line of 56 miles — as it was thirty or forty years ago — first
some 700 miles to Kimberley, then, in another direction,
some thousand or more miles to Johannesburg, and

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 45

finally beyond Kimberley something like seventeen hun-
dred miles to the Zambesi, and which has since pushed it
500 miles beyond the Zambesi into the very heart of
Africa. It is impossible to overestimate the part which
a vigorous policy of railway construction has played and
is playing in South Africa, not only in respect of the
material development of the country, but in making its
political unification possible. Indeed, the Iron Road,
which is indispensable to the effective settlement of every
new country of extended area is of more vital importance
in South Africa than anywhere else. More important
even than in Canada. For Canada, at any rate in its
eastern portion, is fortunate in the possession of great
lakes and a great navigable river. It is almost every-
where rich in waterways. South Africa, on the other
hand, is peculiarly deficient in inland waterways. It is
the railway or nothing — nothing but the mule-cart or
the ox- waggon. It is impossible to overestimate the
change, the transformation, which is wrought in
all the conditions of South African life by the
advent of the railroad. Those portions of the country
which, like the far northwest of Cape Colony, are still
devoid of the only effective means of communication,
continue to present that character of arrested develop-
ment, the sparsity of population, the backwardness, and
the isolation, which till recently kept almost the whole
of this country so cut off from the general progress of
the world.

46 SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

And now the question arises, and it is one to which
everybody interested in South Africa is looking for an
answer, what are the possibilities of development within
the country which has been so recently knitted up ? Many
people have asked me during my present journey, "How
does South Africa compare with Canada in respect of
opportunities, of the chances which it offers to settle-
ment and immigration?" This is, of course, a question
which it is impossible to answer, but there are several
aspects of it, on which it is easy to throw a certain
amount of light. Speaking generally, the resources of
the two countries at the present time present the greatest
imaginable contrast. Canada, though she is by no means
deficient in mineral wealth, is still pre-eminently an agri-
cultural country. Her main contribution to the markets
of the world and the main cause of her recent enormous
development — the main cause, though not the only one —
is her great and growing agricultural wealth, the extent
of which is a discovery of comparatively recent time.

In the case of South Africa, the position is exactly
reversed. The agricultural products of South Africa
are comparatively inconsiderable ; her economic strength
lies in her enormous mineral wealth. Now, I do not
think the extent of that mineral wealth is yet by any
means fully realized. Figures appear in the newspapers
constantly, but it needs a pretty close attention to these
figures to grasp their full import. Taking gold alone,
and taking the gold mines of the Transvaal alone, I have,

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 47

within my own experience of South Africa, seen their
output grow from less than £12,000,000 sterling a year
to something like £24,000,000. That has been the prog-
ress in twelve years, despite the great interruption caused
by the war. And I have no doubt whatever — I remember
being laughed at when I said this five or six years ago —
that the production will very soon amount to £30,000,000
sterling a year, or $150,000,000 — £30,000,000 a year taken
out of the ground along a narrow reef fifty miles in
length.

Now, these are enormous figures. It requires some
imagination to realize them. And observe that I am
speaking only of the gold production of a single small
district — the Witwatersrand. As yet, though, as you
may imagine, hundreds of men are constantly engaged
in looking for fresh outcrops, though hardly a month
passes without rumours of some new discovery, as yet,
no payable extension of the Rand reefs has been found ;
nor has anything at all like them been found in other
parts of the Transvaal or of South Africa. But it will
be many years yet before the gold-bearing reefs of the
Rand, which are of sure and unquestionable productive-
ness, can be exhausted. I will not attempt to say how
many. That is a question which is hotly debated, and
about which there is the greatest difference of opinion
among experts. My own belief is that, especially in view
of the constant reduction of the cost of working, which
tends to bring the poorer portions of the reefs within

48 SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

the range of profitable exploitation, it may well be fifty
years before the Witwatersrand is worked out. It may
seem fantastic to contemplate an average production of
twenty or thirty millions of gold a year for half a cen-
tury, but personally I think it not only possible, but
probable.

These, however, are guesses about the future. To return
to the facts of the present. Next to the Witwatersrand,
with twenty to thirty million sterling of gold a year, you
have the diamond mines of Kimberley producing diamonds
to as large an amount as the world can afford to take. The
difficulty there is to keep down production in order to
prevent prices falling away. In the diamond mines of
the Transvaal you have an annual production of between
£4,000,000 and £5,000,000, to which there seems to be no
end for many years to come. And during the last few
years another diamond mine, the "Premier," has been
opened up near Pretoria in the Transvaal, which is prob-
ably of even greater extent (though the stones may not
be of quite the same quality) than the mines at Kimber-
ley. In addition to all this you have gold mining in
Rhodesia steadily increasing, and at present amounting
to between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 a year. And it will
be strange indeed if this is the end of all things as far
as the mineral wealth of South Africa is concerned. In
any case you have this enormous wealth assured for the
next fifty or perhaps a hundred years. And as I say, it
would be a strange thing, indeed, and contrary to all

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 49

human probability, if other sources of wealth of a similar
kind were not discovered long before these are exhausted.

But I have always maintained that the true policy of
South African development is to assume that this im-
mense wealth, which is certain, is the end of all things
there ; that is, in the way of precious metals. I hold that
it is wise to assume that there is nothing more to come,
and to devote ourselves betimes to the development of
other resources upon which the country can live when
these minerals are exhausted. That is, to my mind, the
sum and substance of wisdom so far as the economic
future of South Africa is concerned. The revenue of
the country depends practically, at present, upon its min-
eral production; the mineral wealth keeps the country
going. But it is not enough that it should merely keep
the country going. By means of this mineral wealth
other resources must be built up on which the country
may live when the precious metals have been dug out of
the ground. This will be more and more recognized as
the true policy of South African development. The
question is, what other resources are there ?

Let me say at once that there is nothing, and there
never can be anything, at all equal, from the point of view
of agricultural wealth, to your Western prairie. I have
no doubt about that. There is nothing of that size and
continuous quality. There are splendid patches of agri-
cultural land, but not so enormous, not so continuous,
not so sure. Still, there is a great variety of resources

So SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

at present quite untouched. For instance, the wealth
of South Africa in coal is only just beginning to be
tapped, and her wealth in iron, which in some parts of
the country, especially in the Transvaal, is very great, is
so far quite untouched.

Having regard not only to the quantity of coal and
iron, but to their juxtaposition, the closeness in which
these deposits lie to one another, there is, I believe, no
reasonable doubt that the time must come, sooner or
later, when the production of iron and of all the articles
into the composition of which steel and iron enter, will
play a very important part, and that it may very well be
the case that the centre of South Africa will be the
greatest industrial region of the southern hemisphere. It
is impossible to speak positively on this subject, but it is
a matter which in estimating the chances of the future
cannot be left out of the account, and one which those
who have the control of the affairs of the country would
do well to keep constantly in view. Of course, it stands
to reason that so long as a very limited European popu-
lation has this vast quantity of precious metals to exploit,
they will pay a lesser degree of attention to other
products which may be permanently of even greater
benefit to the country, but the exploitation of which gives
less immediate profit. Therefore, the development of
minerals, other than the precious metals, is a matter
which will come gradually, and which may not attract
so much attention until the working of the precious

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT si-

metals shows some signs of coming to an end. And so
coal and iron, especially iron, are for the present com-
paratively neglected.

But, if the mineral resources of South Africa, other
than the precious metals, are of problematical develop-
ment, something substantial can certainly be done, and
something is being done, to increase the productivity of
the soil. And people are beginning to discover that if in
this respect South Africa can never hope to rival the
most favored countries, she is nevertheless capable of
far more than people once gave her credit for. The old
idea of South Africa was that though the rich coast strip
might yield the most valuable products of a sub-tropical
climate, that strip was not very large and not very
healthy, and that the healthy high veld, which consti-
tutes the bulk of South Africa, was incapable of being
more than a moderately good sheep- farming or ranching
country. And a great deal of the veld can undoubtedly
never be anything else than a pastoral country. Large
tracts of it, mainly in Cape Colony, can only support
sheep, and other large tracts have so far never supported
anything but horses and cattle. But since this matter has
been taken systematically in hand people have begun to
discover, in the first place, that land which used to be con-
sidered only valuable as pasture will really bear rich
crops, especially mealies, and again that a great deal of
country which it was thought could only bear crops with
irrigation can, under more scientific treatment, bear crops

52 SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

of valu.e even without this artificial assistance. These
discoveries, together with the great improvement which
is being effected in the quality of flocks and herds by the
introduction of better breeds, and by the successful war
waged on the greatest curse of South Africa, epidemic
disease among animals, are opening a new prospect to
the South African farmer. If only the other great
scourge to which he is exposed, the plague of locusts,
can be tackled with equal success, the future will be a
bright one. And there is every hope of such improve-
ment.

One of the most important features in South Africa
to-day is the development of her agricultural resources
by the means of science. That is of special interest to
Canadians for two reasons. One is that this development
is a good deal similar to what has happened in your own
West, in this respect, that in the West to-day millions
of acres are being cultivated with the greatest profit,
which were despaired of even by good judges of agri-
culture ten or twenty years ago. The supposed difficulty
and supposed impossibility have turned out to be a delu-
sion. Precisely the same thing is happening, though on
nothing like the same scale, in South Africa to-day, and
land is being profitably used which in time past was
looked upon as hopeless. And there is another point
which will be of interest to you. This development,
which has begun within the last few years, is largely due
to the fact that, directly after the war, we started in the

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 53-

two new colonies, the Transvaal and the Orange River
Colony, very active agricultural departments. The Gov-
ernment took the matter up as it never had been taken
up before. Up to that time the principle of South
African government was very much the same as that
which at one time dominated the minds of people in
Great Britain, namely, that the development of the
resources of a country was not a thing which concerned
the government, but that all the government had to do
was to keep order, to see fair play between man and man,
perhaps to remove any barriers which might stand in the
way of trade and industry, and to trust to the enterprise
and energy of individuals to do the rest. As a matter of
fact, that system has rarely answered. I do not think it
is a perfect theory for an old country; it never answered
in a new one. Now, in South Africa the first thing
which the Government did after the war, and which was
carried on side by side with repairing the damage of the
war, was to try to start the country, in every respect, but
especially in respect of agricultural development, on a
higher plane than that on which the commencement of
the war found it.

We looked round the world to find the men who
might be competent to run a thoroughly scientific and
energetic agricultural department in both the new col-
onies. And we found them in different parts of the
world, but we found some of the best of them on this
continent, and especially in Canada. And not only

34 SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

did some of the men come from Canada, but
I think all the men who came, in any leading and
responsible position, had made a special study of the
agricultural development which has been so charactei istic
of the United States and of Canada. For that teaching
of scientific agriculture which is going, I believe, to effect
the transformation of a large part of South Africa, a
complete transformation of its economic condition, we
looked to the experience and the lessons of scientific
agriculture in this country. And I am glad to think that,
despite all the differences which divide South Africans
to-day, and despite the contrast which in some respects
undoubtedly exists between the present regime and the
regime which preceded it, the agricultural departments
of the new colonies have struck root to such an extent, and
the good work that they have already achieved has
received such an amount of recognition, that, whatever
may happen to other things, this is a piece of solid pro-
gress which nothing is going to undo.

Now, one word in conclusion on a wholly different
subject. I have purposely avoided all political refer-
ences, but there is one political question, not of a con-
troversial nature, which naturally excites so much inter-
est to-day, that I wish very briefly to refer to it. I allude
to the great subject which is being considered at Durban
during these very days, the federation, or, as some pre-
fer to put it, the unification of South Africa. Call it
what you will, the problem is to create one central legis-

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 55

lature and government for all South Africa, with or
without subordinate provincial governments and legis-
latures. The result of the conference at Durban will, I
have not the least doubt, be the closer union of South
Africa. The exact form of that union I would rather
not attempt to forecast. But there is this great differ-
ence between the problem of the union of the South
African states and the problem which confronted the
statesmen of Canada before Confederation, that there
is nothing really separating the states of South Africa
to-day except artificial boundaries. I do not mean to
say that there are not deep divisions among the people
of South Africa. There are deep divisions, and only
time can overcome them and draw the two great Euro-
pean races together into one nation, and perhaps a long
time may be required. But these divisions exist inside
every one of the states, not absolutely in the same pro-
portion, but in very much the same proportion. It is
not a case, for instance, of bringing together a British
community and a Dutch community; it is a question of
uniting a number of communities in all of which these
same elements exist. Therefore, so far as the question
of race is concerned, great as are the difficulties which it
presents, it does not present any special difficulties to
union, because, whatever problems may arise from the
co-existence of nations of different languages and ideas
in one body politic, these problems already exist in each
of the separate states, and they are not going to be

56 SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

increased, but rather diminished, or, at any rate, modi-
fied, by uniting those separate states into one state. The
obstacles to union are of another character, and perhaps
the greatest of them is, that one of the states is so much
wealthier and more prosperous, at the time being, than
the rest, that there may be people within that state who
do not wish to share their prosperity with the rest of
South Africa; and, on the other hand, there may be
people in the other states who are afraid of coming into
the partnership with such an overwhelming neighbor.
I do not, however, believe that this or any other difficulty
will prevent the union from being accomplished. The
majority of people in all the states, of people of both
races, are too much alive to its necessity. And they all
have a great common difficulty to face — I am speaking
of the white people — in the fact that, though they are
the absolute masters of the country, the ruling race, they
are still only a minority, and a small minority, in the
midst of a much more numerous colored population.
The whites number a million and a quarter, there or
thereabouts. But the colored population, mostly pure
blacks, are four or five times as numerous. And that is
a situation which is full of difficulty, and which consti-
tutes no doubt the most serious of all the problems which
lie before South Africa. The precise nature of the diffi-
culty is, indeed, often misunderstood. There is no ques-
tion, at least not in my opinion, of the black population
ever becoming a danger to the political supremacy, to

SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 57

the government of the whites. There may be occasional
rebellions. I doubt whether they will be frequent or very
serious. In any case I am sure the white races will be
more than able to cope with them. The real danger, if
I may so express myself, is not a military, but a social
one. It lies in the influence which contact with a less
civilized race, in fact, the mere presence of a less civil-
ized race, may have upon the European population itself.
One consequence of the fact that the colored people
are the majority, the subject majority, and that they
constitute what you might call the working class, is that
work, manual labor such as it is no discredit for a man
to perform in any European country, no discredit, but
the contrary, comes to be regarded as beneath the dig-
nity of a white man in South Africa. He will not do
what he considers a black man's work. If he is obliged
to do it, he feels himself degraded by it. This tends to
indolence, to an unhealthy contempt for many kinds of
work, which are in themselves honorable, on the part
of the whites. It tends to the degradation of those of
them, who are, after all, compelled to do work of that
kind, and so to the creation of that socially undesirable
stratum which is known, in the Southern States, for
instance, by the name of "mean whites." U/**^* t*aA

Time does not allow me to dwell at greater length
on this difficult and complex subject. I only wanted to
point out that the Native Question, which naturally exer-
cises the minds of all men in South Africa, is a question

58 SOUTH AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

rather different in its character from what it is com-
monly supposed to be by the outside world. But, what-
ever its difficulties, it will no doubt be easier to deal with
in a united South Africa, than under three or four dif-
ferent and conflicting systems in the different states.
For this, as for every other reason, those who have the
welfare of South Africa at heart — and we must all desire
the welfare of that great and important part of our com-
mon Empire — cannot but feel an earnest wish that the
present effort to bring about South African union may be
crowned with success.

V.

BOARD OF TRADE, MONTREAL,
NOVEMBER IST.

Speaking at Toronto the other day, I expressed the
belief that the policy of tariff reform was at no distant
date going to prevail in the United Kingdom. Prophecies
are cheap, and that is, of course, only a personal opinion.
Still it is one which I hold very strongly. And it is quite
certain that, if tariff reform does come, it will come to
stay. Parties may very probably still be divided with
reference to the range of the tariff or the height of par-
ticular duties. But no party is likely to propose a simple
return to our existing system, any more than at the pres-
ent time any party in Canada advocates the complete
reversal of the so-called "National Policy" originated by
Sir John Macdonald.

But assuming the United Kingdom to adopt a tariff
similar in its general character to that of other great
industrial and commercial nations — similar to that of
Germany, for instance, though no doubt with a much
lower average rate of duties, especially on foodstuffs — a
great change will come over the whole aspect of the
Imperial problem. For it will then be possible to recipro-
cate the preference at present given by Canada and other
dominions to the Mother Country, and the prospect of a

60 PREFERENTIAL TRADE

great development of trade within the Empire will seem
much nearer than it does to-day.

Now, to my mind, what is known as "Preferential
Trade" between different parts of the Empire has always
appeared one of the happiest and most fertile ideas ever
introduced into the sphere of national economics. To
treat the Empire as an economic whole without any
internal barriers is not a practical proposition. On the
other hand, it is both bad business and bad politics that
the different communities within the Empire should deal
with one another in any respect as if they were foreign
countries. The policy of preference is a working com-
promise. And it is a principle of wide application affect-
ing a great deal else besides import duties. If the
United Kingdom were to remain, as I for one feel con-
vinced it will not remain, a country of unrestricted free
imports, I should still adhere to the principle of prefer-
ence. I should still, for instance, desire to see the stream
of emigration and of capital directed from the United
Kingdom to other parts of the British Empire rather
than to foreign countries, though without a change in the
British tariff, and consequently without the possibility of
substantial mutual concessions in respect of customs
duties, it would be much more difficult so to direct it.

Even at the risk of wearying you, I should like to
make this point of view perfectly clear. The principle
of preference, and the reasons for it, I should define as
follows : in the interests of the Empire as a whole we

PREFERENTIAL TRADE 61

are bound to desire the greatest development, in economic
as in other respects, of every part of it. It follows that
every part, which like any of the self-governing domin-
ions, is a distinct and independent economic unit, must
be free, as indeed they all are free, to shape its fiscal
policy according to its own special requirements, with a
view to the fullest development of its own wealth and
productive power. The same, of coures, applies to the
United Kingdom itself. But, subject to that, it is desir-
able to encourage the maximum of intercourse, including,
of course, commercial intercourse, between the different
states and to foster trade within the Empire to the
greatest possible extent. Nothing could contribute more
to that result than the general adoption of the rule, that,
other things being equal, or very nearly equal, the people
of any state in the Empire should obtain what they need
to obtain outside their own borders, from other portions
of the Empire, rather than from foreign countries; that
wherever they reasonably can, they should give their cus-
tom to their own kith and kin rather than to foreigners.
Mutual concessions in respect of tariffs must exercise a
powerful influence in that direction; they must tend to
lead trade into channels within the Empire rather than
into channels outside it; not to divert it from its natural
course, but to keep it in one course rather than another
where both are natural. They constitute a permanent
factor of immense importance, just turning the scale in
innumerable cases in favor of one source of supply as

62 PREFERENTIAL TRADE

against a competing source of supply ; in favor of a
British as against a non-British source.

I maintain that if any group of nations, situated as
the great self-governing dominions of the Empire are
relatively to one another, were to adopt such a policy of
mutual concessions, they would be the gainers by it. It
would tend to give stability to trade, it would tend to give
their several exports a position of vantage and security
in certain great markets, and would mitigate the risks
and uncertainties of unrestricted international competi-
tion.

So much from the economic point of view, pure and
simple. But the case for reciprocal concessions between
different parts of the Empire is, of course, immensely
strengthened, when we consider also their political effect.
By buying its wheat, as far as possible, from Canada
rather than from Argentina, the United Kingdom will be
helping to build up* the prosperity of the Dominion. By
buying china and earthenware or glassware or cutlery
from the United Kingdom rather than from Germany or
Belgium, Canada is helping to give employment to British
instead of foreign hands. By obtaining her sugar from
the West Indies instead of the Continent of Europe, Can-
ada is making all the difference to the economic pro-
spects of the West Indies. Needless to argue that de-
velopment and employment in any part of the Empire
is more important to us than an equivalent amount of
development or employment in some foreign country.

PREFERENTIAL TRADE 63

Stated in broad and general terms, that is our case.
I should like to illustrate it more particularly by what
has happened already as a consequence of the preference
given to the United Kingdom by Canada, and what would
be likely to happen if that preference were reciprocated.

Xow, as regards the benefit which the trade of the
United Kingdom has derived from the existing Canadian
preference, there really is no room for dispute. Every
now and then some ill-informed free importer still ven-
tures to belittle that benefit. But on a close examination
of the trade statistics in detail it is impossible for any
fair-minded man to resist the conclusion that, as a very
competent observer put it to me the other day, "Prefer-
ence has kept Great Britain from losing such trade with
Canada as she has still got." On this point I might quote
the words of Mr. Bain, formerly Deputy Commissioner
of Canadian Customs, which are contained in an appendix
to a most valuable report on the "Conditions and Pros-
pects of British Trade in Canada," published as a Blue-
Book in London this year. Mr. Bain says (p. 108) : —

"Dealing now with the preferential tariff, I venture
to assert in the strongest way that, if such preference had
not been granted, British trade with Canada would be on
a very small basis to-day."

Again he says:

" The preference undoubtedly accomplished the pur-
pose for which it was intended, and it not only arrested
the decline in British trade, but gave it a very healthy
impetus."

64 PREFERENTIAL TRADE

I believe that these are conclusions based on evidence,
and evidence so strong that no fair-minded and well-
informed free importer can refuse to accept it. The pres-
ent Chancellor of the Exchequer, as you know, has
accepted it. While arguing that to adopt reciprocity-
would cost the United Kingdom too dear, he admitted in
the freest and most generous terms the advantage to the
United Kingdom of the Canadian preference. And the
same is true of the preference given by other dominions.
I think you may take it that on this point controversy
is practically over, and that the benefit derived by the
United Kingdom from existing preferences, if nothing
occurs at this juncture to impair that benefit, is going to
be one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of
tariff reformers, and will contribute materially to the
victory which I anticipate.

That victory would, I hold, be of immense impor-
tance, not only to the United Kingdom, but also to Can-
ada. I am not sure that the bearing of it on your own
development is fully realized. People in this country
certainly seem to be in favor, and strongly in favor, of
the United Kingdom granting a preference in return for
the Canadian preference ; but I think they are in favor of
it as a matter of sentiment, as a matter of principle, and
not so much from any belief in the importance of its
practical effects. And I can well understand that to the
farmer of the West, for instance, in the first rush of his
new prosperity, to the man who finds the crop of a single

PREFERENTIAL TRADE 65

year replacing or almost replacing all that he has spent
upon his land, the advantage of two or three cents a
bushel against an unseen competitor in a distant market
may appear a matter of very small account. He probably
does not give it a thought — not at present. But things
will not always be as they are at present. The West as
a whole, indeed agricultural Canada as a whole, is bound
to develop and grow immensely in wealth and prosperity ;
but individual profits will not show as large as they do
now, though even now they only do so over a special
and limited area. Mixed farming will gradually take the
place of specialized wheat farming over a large part at
least of the western prairie. And even specialized wheat
farming where it may still prevail will require more capi-
tal than it did at the outset. Moreover, Canada is not
the only country which is making prodigious strides in
agricultural development. Her food products, whether
vegetable or animal, whether the wheat and oats of the
western prairie or the cheese and butter of the Province
of Quebec, in so far as they are not consumed at home,
will have to compete in external markets, and above all
in the great British market, with similar products from
many parts of the world, and especially from the Argen-
tine. In the keenness of that competition a very small
permanent advantage will have a very great effect. Two
or three cents a bushel may seem a small matter. They
are not a small matter when multiplied by two hundred
millions.

66 PREFERENTIAL TRADE

Moreover, this is a question of development. All the
new countries want capital. There is not enough spare
capital in the world to go round. In the competition for
what there is, which is the fiercest competition of all, an
advantage will lie with the countries which appear to be
more profitable as fields for investment, because, other
things being equal, their products are in a position to
compete on specially favorable terms in some of the most
important markets. And that consideration will tell with
peculiar force in Great Britain, where, if the principle of
Preference were to be endorsed by the nation, a great
impetus would be given to the sentimental as well as the
material influences making for the investment of British
capital in other parts of the Empire rather than in
foreign countries.

And in this general Canadian development all classes
will share. It is not merely a question for the farmer.
The transportation agencies, the manufacturers, are
equally concerned. Indeed, the position of the Canadian
manufacturers — I do not, of course, expect them to admit
this — seems a peculiarly favorable one. They have got
a protected home market, which gives every promise of
vast expansion. Whatever Canadians require, which
Canadian manufacturers can produce at anything like
equal cost with other people, Canadian manufacturers
will supply.

But at the same time, as I hope and believe, under
Preference British manufacturers will get the lion's share

PREFERENTIAL TRADE 67

of the rest, in so far as they can supply it. I lay great
stress on that qualification. People are often perturbed
by the great growth of trade between Canada and the
United States. I do not think it is necessarily injurious
to trade between Canada and the United Kingdom.
There are a vast number of articles which Canada draws
from the United States which she could not by any possi-
bility draw from Great Britain. The trade of this country
with the United States will grow, and ought to grow, but
its growth need not involve any injury — quite the reverse
— either to Canadian or British industries. The bulk of
the importations into Canada from the United States does
not hurt them at all, though I do not, of course, deny that
there are some classes of goods imported into Canada
from the United States which I should prefer to see
imported from the United Kingdom.

I say I think the position of the Canadian manufac-
turers is a very strong one. But I should like, certainly
with great fear and trembling and quite foreseeing that
I may bring an avalanche on my unlucky head, to utter
one word of warning.

There is a growing feeling in favor of Free Trade in
many parts of the country. I do not think it will prevail.
I do not think that, either in the interests of Canada or of
the Empire, it is desirable that it should prevail. But I
believe the movement would become very formidable if
the bow of Protection were strung too tightly, and indeed
if it were not, as time and circumstances demand, to be

68 PREFERENTIAL TRADE

somewhat relaxed. From the point of view of the manu-
facturers themselves it would be a mistake to be too
aggressive. As long as they retain a position of substan-
tial vantage in the home market, they have no interest,
but the reverse, in diminishing the prosperity of their
own customers, as excessive duties do diminish it. And
as regards the position between Canadian and British
manufacturers let me say just this: a good deal of harm
was done at one time by the idea that the policy of pref-
erence aimed at an artificial division of industries between
Canada and the United Kingdom, certain kinds of manu-
factures being, so to speak, appropriated to Canada, and
the United Kingdom being left undisturbed in the exer-
cise of others. I do not believe in such an artificial lim-
itation, but I do believe that, with reasonable tariffs and
mutual preference, there will be something like a natural
adjustment. The policy of Preference is sometimes
represented as an exchange of sacrifices. It is nothing of
the kind, and the word sacrifice is quite out of place in
connection with it. The idea simply is that, while Can-
ada should make for herself everything she can make at
a reasonable cost, she should buy what she cannot so
make from the rest of the Empire rather than from out-
side it, provided that the rest of the Empire is capable,
again at a reasonable cost, of supplying it. As a matter
of fact, if this principle were adopted, there would
in practice be something like a division of labor in
supplying the Canadian market between Canadian and
British manufacturers.

PREFERENTIAL TRADE 69

And no doubt friction would occasionally arise,
though with good management it ought to arise very
seldom. With regard to such cases, to cases for instance
where it is urged that the British preference, even though
it still leaves a high duty upon the British article, never-
theless tends to prejudice the Canadian producer, and to
transfer work from Canadian to English or Scotch hands,
all I can say is, I do not want British preference to harm
Canada in any way whatsoever, but I want the matter
considered from the point of view of Canada, of Cana-
dian industry as a whole, and not merely from that of a
particular trade. It is all a question of degree, of what
is a reasonable amount of protection to the Canadian
producer. But it is quite evident that if a particular
trade or trades, which have no natural advantages in
Canada, can make the Canadian consumer pay much more
than their value for the products, he will have so much
less to spend on the products of other Canadian industries
which may be much more suitable to Canadian conditions.
In such a case it is not only to the advantage of the
United Kingdom, but to the advantage of Canadian
industry as a whole, that the British producer should come
in. And there is one thing more to be said about such
causes of friction. They will be rare, but we can never
expect altogether to avoid them. I think, however, that
they will only be dangerous as long as the system of
Preference is in its infancy, and especially as long as
it is one-sided. At present if any Canadian trade is or

7o PREFERENTIAL TRADE

thinks itself unfairly affected by the preference given to
British goods, there is no one in Canada interested in
presenting the case on the other side, and so ensuring
that it shall be fairly considered on its merits. But once
let the whole body of Canadian exporters be interested
in maintaining a preference for Canadian goods in the
United Kingdom, once let the whole Canadian community
feel the benefits of closer commercial relations with the
United Kingdom, and any aggrieved trade will have to
make out a real case before it will be able to obtain public
sympathy.

And it must not be forgotten that Canadian manu-
facturers themselves will be directly as well as indirectly
interested in the maintenance of a preferential duty by
the United Kingdom. One of the features of tariff
reform will certainly be a tax on imported manufactures.
Now, Canadian manufacturers already compete to some
extent in the markets of the United Kingdom — take
agricultural implements, for instance — with similar manu-
factures from other countries, and especially from the
United States. Strong and growing Canadian industries
will be increasingly engaged in such competition in the
British market. I think they will be among the keenest
defenders of preference for British goods in the Canadian
market against any unreasonable attack.

And now, in conclusion, only two further remarks.
I sometimes hear complaints in Canada about the slow
progress which the idea of mutual preference seems to

PREFERENTIAL TRADE 71

make in the United Kingdom, and I hear that slow
progress attributed to a want of sympathy, of response,
on the part of the Mother Country to the advances made
to her by Canada and the other self-governing dominions,
to something like a refusal to grasp their outstretched
hands. That impression is natural, extremely natural, but
it is nevertheless an erroneous one. To us, who know
all the enormous difficulties which the new departure in
economic thought had to encounter in Great Britain,
progress does not seem slow, but fast. And in any case
I am sure that our delay and hesitation is not due to any
want of sympathy with the idea of a closer union of the
Empire.

At heart the vast majority of people in the Old
Country have a very strong feeling of attachment to the
young countries of the Empire, a very strong desire that
the bonds between all the members of the Imperial family
may be maintained and strengthened. The bulk of the
British people are Unionists at heart — Unionists, I mean,
not in any party sense, but in the sense of desiring to
keep the Empire together. No doubt there is a section
of which this is not true, a section who really are Little
Englanders, Cosmopolitans and Separatists. And no
doubt also the operation of the party system often gives
to this, as to other minorities, a much greater influence
than they are entitled to either by their numbers or their
character. But it is quite certain that the attitude of this
section is entirely out of accord with the general national

72 PREFERENTIAL TRADE

sentiment. And if there is delay in accepting either the
idea of mutual preference, or any other proposal which
aims at promoting Imperial unity, it is due to doubts as
to the efficacy of the particular scheme to attain its object,
and not to any want of sympathy with the object itself.

And, lastly, let me says this : No man is a stronger
advocate of Preference than I am, but do not let me be
supposed to hold that Preference alone, even in its widest
application, is going to solve the whole problem of
Imperial unity. Trade relations are important, very im-
portant, and very far-reaching, but they are not every-
thing. Neither do I know that closer trade relations,
immense as their value would be in keeping us together,
will necessarily lead to the growth of common political
institutions or of a common policy.

The reason for putting up a big fight for Preference
is that it is something making in the right direction (some-
thing in itself desirable on economic grounds, and desir-
able in its ulterior effects on wider grounds) which is
immediately practical. It is something which can be
accomplished now. The great danger of the whole
Imperial movement is that it may lose itself in aspirations.
And in some ways that danger is greatest with the very
people who are the keenest Imperialists. They have a
great and splendid ideal — I entirely sympathize with it —
of an out and out federation, and they are apt to think
that unless we have got that, nothing at all can be done.
My own feeling is that so far from there being nothing

PREFERENTIAL TRADE 73

to be done, hardly a day passes on which something might
not be done, some impulse given in a right direction, some
check given to movement in a wrong one. I am all for
the big ideal, but am quite equally convinced of the
necessity of tackling practical problems as they in fact
arise, provided we tackle them in the right spirit. Pref-
erence is a real live issue, which affects vast numbers of
people and interests everybody. It is a real live question,
and therefore it is worth all our efforts to bring it to a
satisfactory conclusion, not only for its own sake, but for
the sake of the moral, for the sake of the demonstration
that we are not unpractical visionaries, but that the spirit
which animates us, while it may find its full satisfaction
only in some future and as yet distant achievement, is
capable of accomplishing here and now results which are
of great immediate value to all the communities within
the Empire.

VI.

WOMEN'S CANADIAN CLUB, MONTREAL,

NOVEMBER 2ND.

Although I do not propose to preach a sermon, I am
going to begin with a text. And with characteristic mod-
esty I am going to take that text from one of my own
old speeches. I have said the same thing a dozen differ-
ent times in different words, at different places, but this
is how I seem to have said it at Rugby, on November
iQth, 1907 : "The greatest danger that I foresee is that the
ideals of national strength and Imperial consolidation on
the one hand and of domestic reform and social progress
on the other, should become dissevered, and that people
should come to regard as antagonistic, objects which are
essentially related and complementary to one another."
I believe in national greatness and power, but I hope
I take a fairly comprehensive view of what constitutes
them. It is not only armies and navies, though these have
their functions to perform; it is not merely guns
and ships, though these also are necessary; it
is not merely a well-filled treasury and good
credit; it is not merely high policy, though ac-
cording as that is wise, prudent, and far-seeing, or
short-sighted, spasmodic and impulsive, the value of
fleets and armies and reserve funds may be greatly
heightened or diminished. I say ultimately greatness and
power rest on the welfare and contentedness of the mass

;6 IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM

of the people. And this involves so much: the physical
health of men and women with all that is necessary to
insure it; air, space, cleanliness, exercise, good houses,
good food, and all that is generally included in domestic
economy. Physical health first as the basis; then, of
course, trained intelligence, the power of thought and
observation, quickness of hand and eye, the development
of various forms of industrial skill, and so forth.

I might go on all day recounting the multitude of
things which make for the welfare and contentedness of
a people, from physical health onwards, through educa-
tion, to the highest planes of morality and religion, things
which were never better summed up than in the old
prayer-book phrase of "health, wealth and godliness."
But my special point is that all this involves an immense
amount of social organization. In our complex modern
society there is room, no doubt all the room and the need
in the world, for individual enterprise and initiative. But
there is no room for a policy of laissez-faire, or "go-as-
you-please and the devil take the hindmost." unless you
are prepared to have such a mass of "hindmosts," such
a number of failures as will drag down the whole com-
munity to a lower level. In the keen rivalry of nations,
in the constant competition between them, from which
none can escape (I am not thinking of war; wars might
forever cease, but there would still be competition in
peace), one of the things which is going to count most is
waste, waste of human power through bad social and

IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 77

industrial arrangements. There is a great silent force
always working on the side of those nations which waste
least in that respect.

One other point. I have spoken of well-being and
contentedness. You cannot have contentedness, as dis-
tinguished from mere sluggish acquiescence, without a
certain measure of well-being. More than that, you can-
not have patriotism. Not that I mean to say for a
moment that patriotism is the exclusive possession of the
well-to-do. One often finds the strongest sentiments of
patriotism in members of what is commonly known as
the working class, and there is good reason for that, too.
I think in some respects the dignity of citizenship, pride
in being a member of a great nation, is a more valued
possession to the man in a humble station than it is to the
great and wealthy, who have so much else to enjoy and
be proud of. But there is a limit to this. Patriotism, like
all the ideal sides of life, can be choked, must be choked,
in the squalor and degradation of the slums of our great
cities, or by exceptionally hard and cruel conditions of
life anywhere.

" No shade for those that sicken
In the furnace fire of life,

No hope of more or better

This side the hungry grave,
Till death release the debtor,

Eternal sleep the slave."

78 IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM

Where conditions exist which cause feelings such as
these to take possession of great numbers of the people —
and I fear such conditions do exist frequently in many
of our large centres of population — you cannot expect to
find patriotism. You cannot expect a casual laborer in
an English town, for instance, working for fifteen or
twenty shillings a week, and having a wife and family
to support, and no certainty that he will get even that
fifteen or twenty shillings from week to week, I say you
cannot expect that man to set much store by being a
citizen of a great empire, or even to care about a vote,
except for what he may get out of it for himself or his
class. I need not dwell further upon this. I hope I have
made my point clear. It is that one of the essentials of
national greatness is good social organization, and that
patriotism and Imperialism (Imperialism, which is simply
the highest development of patriotism in the free peoples
of a world-wide state) must look inwards to the founda-
tions of society, to prevent disease at the roots, as well as
outwards, to ward off external danger and attack.

And here is where the influence of women especially
comes in. I do not mean to say that I underestimate their
influence in any branch of national policy. On the con-
trary, it may be of quite peculiar value all round, were
it only in this respect — that it is less likely to be deflected
from the right line in any great national and Imperial
issue by party considerations than is the opinion of the
average man. No doubt women, too, are often partisans,

IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 79

bitter partisans, but they are not brigaded, platooned, as
men are, in party divisions. They are not exposed to the
same temptation, or to the same pressure as men
often are, to subordinate public, national, Imperial inter-
ests, to the interests or supposed interests of a
party organization. I say, Heaven forbid that we
should try to circumscribe the influence of women in
public life. And very fortunately, even if we wished to,
we could not do it. Their influence is, in fact, all-pervad-
ing. But their actual work will necessarily lie mainly in
the sphere of internal and social development. What I
want them to realize is that in doing that work well they
are rendering national and Imperial service as much as
any soldier or sailor or diplomatist.

I have been told that one of the foremost of living
Englishwomen recently addressed this club, and that all
that she talked about was the provision of playgrounds
and other means of recreation for the children of the poor
in London and other great centres of population in the
United Kingdom. I think she was perfectly right. What
does one of our greatest modern writers and artists in
words say about this? In simple and childlike language,
no doubt, for he was only writing a "Child's Garden of
Verse," but yet with deep underlying truth, he says : —
" Happy hearts and happy faces,
Happy play in grassy places,
This is how in ancient ages
Children grew to kings and sages."

8o IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM

I do not know that there is any greater Imperial
service that could be rendered than if we were to provide,
as we do not provide, but as we might provide, ample
space and means of healthy recreation for even the poor-
est children in our great cities.

Now, this is a problem, one of a group of problems,
which are no doubt less urgent and which come home less
to you in a vast thinly-peopled country like Canada than
they do to us in the crowded, thickly-populated countries
of Western Europe. But I am not sure that the peculiar
difficulties of a crowded town life are not going to be
reproduced on this side of the Atlantic, only with added
irony, because there is so much room. I do not know
how many of those present have read a book called the
"Jungle." It gives a terrible picture, an exaggerated
picture, no doubt, but still, I fear, not one wholly
devoid of truth, of very undesirable social conditions in
one of the great cities of the United States. I do not
think there is anything like that in Canada. Far from it.
But I do think that the people in many of the new towns
which are growing so fast, especially in the Canadian
West, hardly realize how rapidly slums, and the other
evil features of a crowded town life, do spring up, unless
careful provision is made beforehand to avert them — pro-
vision so easy to make in the first instance, if people
would only be sufficiently far-sighted, so hard to make
afterwards, when all the surrounding open space has been
taken up and has attained a prohibitive value. Then,

IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 81

when it is too late, people are sure to regret that in the
first instance they did not reserve sufficient elbow room
for a large population and a sufficiently ample public
domain. But if men are too much absorbed in their
business or in political questions of more immediate inter-
est, but by no means of equal ultimate importance, to
think of such things, surely the women might look after
them.

Now please observe that this is merely a single illus-
tration of a neglected public interest. I want women to
come to the rescue, especially on the neglected sides of
public life. I do not believe in a division of interests — I
mean, to confine women to one class of questions and
men to another. I do not believe in a division of inter-
ests of that kind, but I do believe in a division of labor.
We cannot afford to dispense with the aid of women in
the great work of social organization, if only because
there are not men enough to go round.

I often hear of there being too many people in a par-
ticular trade or a particular profession, but I have never
yet heard of a plethora of men available for the innum-
erable kinds of public and social work which require do-
ing. The fields are ripe for the harvest, but where are
the laborers? We cannot, I say, afford to dispense with
the aid which women are willing and able to give. Some
people maintain that when one talks like this one is en-
couraging woman to neglect their domestic duties, that
one is taking them out of their proper sphere, and so

82 IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM

forth. No sane person would encourage women to go
into public work to the neglect of their domestic duties.
But there are many of them who have time to spare, who
have special gifts for social work, and who are very
anxious to undertake it. I say it would be madness to
repress them, especially when there is so much work
which goes undone. We have begun to learn this lesson,
at least in the old country.

In the United Kingdom to-day the assistance of
women is welcomed, and they are doing an increasingly
important work in many directions. As inspectors in
factories, as members of boards of guardians, and indeed
as members of all bodies which are concerned with local
government, and especially with regard to the manage-
ment of schools, they are taking a more and more prom-
inent position, and the community is immensely the better
for it. Everything that pertains to education, to housing,
to hospitals, to the life of women and children employed
in mines and factories and shops, to the care of those
who have fallen in the race of life, whether they have
fallen for good — the numbers of whom, in a new country
like this, should be comparatively small — or whether they
have only fallen temporarily, and can by timely and sen-
sible help be set on their feet again — all these are spheres
of work, in which the co-operation of women is peculiar-
ly valuable.

I might greatly extend this catalogue, but I am not
here concerned to give a catalogue of women's opportuni-

IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM 83

ties, but rather to bring home to you the national aspect,
so to speak, of them all.

I have spoken of the work done by women in the Old
Country because it is what I have myself seen and
know. I cannot speak with equal experience of what is
being done by them in Canada. But of this I am firmly
convinced, that what is known throughout the Empire as
"the women's movement" can only gain, and may gain
immensely, from an exchange of experiences, from the
women of one part of the Empire following the efforts,
and learning from the successes, or the failures of women
in other parts. That is one of the chief advantages of
the unity of the Empire, of what I have spoken of as our
common citizenship. We have got to evolve between us
all a higher type of civilization. People do, in fact, learn
more easily from those of their own household. We do,
in fact, learn more easily from the efforts and experi-
ments of men and women in other parts of our own Em-
pire than from what is done or attempted in foreign
lands. Social experiments in the other dominions of
the Crown produce an effect in Great Britain which
is not produced as readily by similar experiments, say
in the United States or in Germany. There is a special
instance which occurs to me at this moment, namely, that
in the attempt to deal with the evil of sweating in Eng-
land, we have derived peculiar instruction from what
has been attempted with a similar object in Australia.
And there is a very great deal that we can learn with

84 IMPERIALISM AND SOCIAL REFORM

regard to social organization generally from other parts
of the Empire also. Nor need the Old Country be
ashamed in so doing. She is in a good position to repay
in other respects the debt which she owes to the younger
countries. It is by mutual knowledge, by mutual help,
by learning from one another, that we shall preserve in
some and develop in others the vivifying and inspiring
sense of being, despite many differences of origin and
tradition, one people with a great common mission in
the world.

VII.

THE CANADIAN CLUB, MONTREAL,
NOVEMBER 3RD.

This is the last opportunity I shall have, at any rate
for some time, of addressing a Canadian audience. That
being the case, I may, perhaps, without appearing too
egotistical, be permitted to say a few words about my
personal experiences during this my first journey on the
American Continent. I shall be sailing from Quebec
the day after to-morroy, just seven weeks from the time
when I landed there. In the interval I have visited every
province of the Dominion except the Martime Provinces.
That is an unfortunate though inevitable omission which
I hope some day to repair. But it is comparatively ea'sy
for a traveller from the Old Country to see something
of the Maritime Provinces in a four or five weeks' trip.
In this instance, having a greater continuous amount of
time to spare than I am often likely to have, I thought
it best to make sure of seeing the more distant parts of
Canada, and so, after spending a few days at Quebec, I
traversed the whole country to the shores of the Pacific,
and have now spent as much time as remained to me in
visiting the principal cities of what used to be known as
Upper and Lower Canada.

Of course, I am quite aware that hard as I have
worked to see all that could be seen in the time at my
disposal, there is a vast deal more that I have missed.

86 CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION

The knowledge I have acquired of Canada is necessarily
very limited and superficial. There are many places
which I longed to visit, but could not visit; and there is
no place which I have visited where I did not feel the
need of more time. Still, with all its shortcomings, this
has been a most instructive as well as a most delightful
journey. It is always pleasurable and interesting to see
a country for the first time. But the pleasure and the
interest are greatly enhanced when, as was my case in
this instance, one knows something about it from previous
study. And then I have enjoyed another great advantage.
Wherever I have gone I have had friends to take me by
the hand and ensure my seeing not merely the outside of
things, but being brought into some real contact with the
life and interests of my various places of sojourn. In
this respect I have been most fortunate everywhere, but
nowhere more fortunate than here in Montreal.

The drawback of my journey, if it has had any
drawback — I do not like to complain where I have so
much more to be grateful for — is that I have been asked
to make so many speeches, and that frequently I could
not, without discourtesy, refuse to comply. I own that
I am rather appalled to think how many words I have
spoken in public, often with most inadequate preparation,
during the last six weeks. People are too apt to think
that because a man has spent many years in public life
he is necessarily a ready speaker. But this is a great
mistake. There are two kinds of public servants. There

CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION 87

are those whose primary business is to mould and to
guide public opinion. They are necessarily always speak-
ing, and may reasonably be expected to attain consider-
able fluency. But there is another class, whose business
is to perform certain definite pieces of public work.
Their duty is in the office rather than on the platform;
as it may take them, as administrators or diplomatists, to
distant parts of the earth. For men of this class the rule
holds good that "if speech is silver, silence is gold." They
are apt to find that their business is better done the less
they talk about it in public. Now, for nine-tenths of my
public career I have belonged to the latter category, and
I must be forgiven if I am not an adept at much speaking.

But, since on this occasion I am perforce among
the orators, what is it that I have been attempting
to do? Most of my speeches have dealt — this was what
was asked and expected of me — with various aspects of
what, for want of a better word, is called "Imperialism."
In what spirit have I approached that theme? My object
has certainly not been to lecture the people of Canada or
to try to convert them to any particular doctrine. It has
been a much more modest one, namely, to explain my
own point of view. I am not asking people to agree
with it, but I do want them to understand it. And I am
not sure that even now, after all that has been said and
written on the subject, people do understand the point
of view of what I may call an out and out Imperialist.

88 CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION

Let me, therefore, try once more, very briefly and
directly, to sum it up.

My point of view is that of a citizen of the Empire,
of one who, no doubt, recognizes a special duty to that
portion of it in which he happens to reside — in my case
England — as, for the matter of that, he has a special duty
to his own parish and his own country — but whose highest
allegiance is not to England, or to the United Kingdom,
but to the great whole, which embraces all the dominions
of the Crown. That is his country. He does not regard
himself as a foreigner in any part of it, however distant,
however different from the part in which he habitually
resides. He would consider it to be a great loss and a
great wrong — yes, something altogether wrong and
unnatural — if events occurred which compelled him so
to regard himself. It is part of his birthright to be a
citizen, to be at home, in every quarter of the Empire.
Speaking as an Englishman, if in treading on Canadian
soil I had to admit that I was treading on foreign soil, I
should feel that I had been deprived of an inestimable
privilege. And I should feel precisely the same, if, being
a Canadian, I found myself a foreigner in any part of
the British Empire. For this world-wide state, this
Empire, belongs just as much to every born Canadian,
Australian, New Zealander, South African, as it does to
any Englishman, Irishman, or Scotchman. This is, I
hold, the o*-ly right view of the mutual relations of the

^/

self-governing states of the Empire, of which the United

CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION 89

Kingdom itself is one. They are equal sharers in a com-
mon heritage. That is true Imperialism.

I know there are difficulties about grasping this doc-
trine. Let us, therefore, try to see just what it means,
and also what it does not mean. I want to strip this
great idea of all disguising, all deforming misconceptions.

We who believe in the unity of the Empire, who
desire to see it become a more perfect unity, who are in
favor of every measure and every tendency which
makes in that direction, are constantly being admonished
of the difficulties and the danger which might arise from
different parts of the Empire " interfering with one
another's affairs or meddling with one another." But
such admonitions indicate an entire misunderstand-
ing of our position. The complete independence
of every self-governing state of the Empire in its
local affairs is a fundamental principle of Imperial-
ism. Nobody dreams in these days of the British Parlia-
ment making laws for Canada or Australia. Such an
idea is alien to all thinking men, but it is particularly
repulsive to Imperialists, for they would see in it the
greatest danger to the very thing which they have so
much at heart — unity of action for common purposes.

But there is another misconception which seems
more difficult to eradicate, and that is the idea that Im-
perialism means that the self-governing dominions,
while, no doubt, remaining independent in their respective
local affairs, should be grouped as satellites round the

90 CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION

United Kingdom, and should, in matters of common
interest, all dance to the tune set by some Imperial piper
at Westminster. Once more I say no Imperialist either
expects or desires to see the dominions occupying any
such subordinate position. His notion is that, just in
so far as any of the self-governing dominions sees its
way to sharing in the responsibilities of empire, it should
also share in the direction of Imperial policy. And
his ultimate ideal is a union in which the several states,
each entirely independent in its separate affairs, should
all co-operate for common purposes on the basis of abso-
lute unqualified equality of status.

No doubt the idea of such perfect equality presents
difficulties to many minds. They see that, however much
you may talk of equality of status, the different states
of the Empire are in actual fact still very unequal in
strength and resources. The United Kingdom, in par-
ticular, still is, and must for many years longer continue
to be far superior in these respects to any other member
of the Imperial family. And therefore they fear that
it would, in fact, drag the others after it, possibly into
adventures and complications, in which they would have
no interest and from which they greatly desire to be free.
And certainly that is the last thing which as an Imperial-
ist I either contemplate or wish. Moreover, it is the last
thing which, as a matter of fact, I think at all likely to
happen. In my opinion, a common policy, the active par-
ticipation of the dominions in the counsels of the Empire,

CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION 91

would be much more likely to keep the United Kingdom
out of unnecessary foreign complications than to involve
the other states in such complications. An united Empire,
while enormously strong for purposes of defence, would,
as it seems to me be absolutely averse from, I might
almost say incapable of, a policy of adventure.

But while I think that the fears to which I have
just alluded are groundless, I admit that they are, under
present conditions, with the present great inequality of
power between the different states of the Empire, not
altogether unnatural. And therefore it is that, in the
interests of Imperial unity, though not only for that
reason, every Imperialist must long to see the greatest
possible increase in the population, the resources, the
strength, the internal cohesiveness, the national self-
consciousness and self-reliance, of the great dominions
of the Crown other than the United Kingdom. He must
desire this, both for their own sakes and as calculated to
increase their ability and their willingness to enter into
a permanent indissoluble union with the United Kingdom
and with one another. For his belief is that, as the self-
governing states grow in power, and as their relations
with the outside world increase, two consequences will
follow. On the one hand, they will become more con-
scious of the need of mutual support, of the advantage
of being, not isolated states, but members of a world-
wide union; and on the other hand, they will be more
willing, because they feel themselves more capable, to

92 CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION

share in the responsibilities and the glory of Empire.
It is on their strength, not on their weakness, on the
growing extent and multiplicity of their interests, not
on their continuing to live isolated lives in their several
corners of the world, that the Imperialist relies for the
impulses which will bring about closer union.

That being the case, you will well understand with
what sympathy and with what hope I, as an Imperialist,
contemplate the present great development, not only of
the material resources, but of the national spirit of
Canada. There are those who seem to fear that the
growth of a Canadian spirit, of Canadian patriotism, will
be a danger to the unity of the Empire. I take precisely
the opposite view. The last thing I should dream of
doing would be to run Imperial patriotism against Cana-
dian. I want to rest the one upon the other.

I have heard it said a good many times of late, not
by Englishmen, but by Canadians, that public life in
Canada is unattractive because there are no big issues.
That seems to me an extraordinary view to take. No
big issues! The next half-century will determine the
question whether Canada is to remain part of the British
Empire. And the decision rests with Canadians. No
external compulsion could well be applied, certainly none
will be applied, to influence them in it. And their
decision may involve the fate of the Empire as a whole.
In any case, it must enormously affect its position and
influence in the world. Look at the map. Take Canada

CONDITIONS OF CLOSER UNION 93

out of the chain that girdles the globe, and you not only
diminish enormously the size of the King's dominions — I
do not care so much about mere size — but their continuity
and capacity of consolidation. The Empire might remain
a great Power without Canada. Indeed, the United
Kingdom alone might, and would, remain a great Power,
for greatness is not merely a question of dimensions.
England by herself was great in the Middle Ages, great
in the time of Elizabeth, when Scotland was still a
separate Kingdom and no British Empire existed. And
the other portions of the Empire may become great
states in isolation, if the whole splits up. But it would
be ludicrous to compare any of them, whatever its
future development, to the undivided whole. That whole
is the greatest political entity in the world to-day;
properly organized, it must be by far the greatest Power.
I am not going to beat the drum ©r sing paeans in praise
of it. But in all soberness and sincerity the British Em-
pire, with all its defects and weaknesses, is yet an influ-
ence, second to none, nay, more than that, an influence
without an equal, on the side of humanity, of civilization
and of peace. The continuance of that great power for
good depends largely on the action of Canada, of the
Canadians of this and the next generation. With such
a problem confronting them, it is impossible to com-
miserate with the people of this country, least of all with
those of them who are still young, on the lack of big
issues in their political life.

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