must have caused the most thoughtless of readers to reflect upon the extent to which submarine telegraphy has brought England and Australia so near to each other as to remove the most formidable of the obstacles which have hitherto stood in the way of a united British Empire.

EDWARD DICEY.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.

THE unity of the Empire and Imperial rights are in everybody's mouth, yet few understand what constitutes an empire and what Imperial rights include. Again, the man in the street clamours for a closer union between the Mother Country and its dependencies; but he has only a scant notion as to what is meant by dependencies and what are the component parts of the British Empire. He discourses largely of preferential tariffs to be enacted by the Colonies, and is profoundly ignorant of the real meaning of a preferential tariff, with its complicated relations. We hear faint suggestions of the creation of an Imperial Zollverein as a step to a self-supporting Empire, and the statement that such an institution existed in Germany is deemed a sufficient proof of its feasibility. Lastly, and most absurdly of all, we are told in grandiloquent language that he who is not in favour of preferential tariffs is a Little Englander who wishes to drive our oversea brethren into the wilderness and shatter the fabric of the Empire.

Now, this vague talk about the unity of the Empire is most mischievous and misleading in so far as it indicates a doubt of its existing solidarity, and implies a charge that the Mother Country has not done, and is not doing, all in its power to protect the Colonies and to VOL. LV.-No 325

BB

secure their affections. It confuses also under the term of Colonies the vastly differing communities which constitute the British Empire. It pays no regard to the mode in which those communities have been governed, and are governed, or to the great progress that has been made in the views of British statesmen in regard to the Colonies— in short, it is the outcome of ignorance of our colonial history.

To begin with definitions, the driest and yet most essential element in a disquisition such as this-What is an empire, and what are dependencies? Burke thus describes the former :

Perhaps I am mistaken in my idea of an empire as distinguished from a single state or kingdom, but my idea of it is that an empire is the aggregate of many states under one common head, whether this head be a monarchy or presiding republic. It does in such constitutions frequently happen (and nothing but the dismal cold dead uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening) that the subordinate parts have many local privileges and immunities. Between these privileges and the supreme common authority the law may be extremely nice.1

A dependency has been defined by Sir G. C. Lewis to be part of an independent political community which is immediately subject to a subordinate government.'

A colony is, strictly speaking, a species of the genus dependency. It may be defined to be a portion of the population of a country which settled on distant lands with the intention of forming a political community subject to a dominant community-the Mother Country. But, in ordinary language, all our dependencies except India are called colonies, as formerly they were all called plantations. Bearing these definitions in mind, we look at the map and find that the British Empire occupies about one-fifth of the surface of the habitable globe, and consists of the United Kingdom, with its attendant islands, and about forty-three dependencies under separate and independent governments, varying in size from Canada, which is thirty times the size of the United Kingdom, to Gibraltar, the area of which is two square miles and seventy-six times smaller than Rutland. These dependencies may be classified as follows for practical purposes: (1) Self-governing colonies.

(2) India.

(3) Other dependencies.

(4) Spheres of influence and quasi dependencies.

The extent of each division in area may be approximately given as follows:

The United Kingdom

Self-governing colonies

India

Other dependencies

Spheres of influence and quasi dependencies

''Speech on Conciliation with America,' p. 191.

Square miles

120,979 7,000,000

1,766,000 2,500,000

500,000

2 Colonial List, p. xxiii.

Thus the area of the British Empire is ninety-eight times that of the United Kingdom, while the area of the self-governing colonies alone is nearly sixty times as large as that of the Mother Country. Next let us turn to the question of population :

Here, then, if we omit India, which has neither part nor parcel in any scheme of colonial federation, and regard population and not area, we have the comparison completely reversed, for the United Kingdom, if in area sixty times less than that of the self-governing colonies, which are alone concerned in the scheme now before the consideration of the public, contains a population about three and a half times as large.

Construct, then, a map of the colonial world on the scale of population and Canada will be dwarfed into a space of one-eighth and Australia into a space of one-eleventh of that of the United Kingdom, and so on with the other Colonies. The Big Englander and the Little Englander may squabble to their hearts' content over their respective maps of the Empire, but the fact remains that, if men and not cattle or barren wilderness are the chief factors in government, the United Kingdom completely overshadows the Colonies.

Perhaps it would be well if the Big Inglander would reflect that size is no more the characteristic of grandeur in nations than in individual men. The Little Corporal,' whatever may be our opinion of his moral stature, still stands out in modern history as the greatest of men. Palestine and Athens have exercised an influence on the world in comparison with which the Assyrian Empire, Babylon, and even Rome herself almost sink into insignificance. Yet Palestine proper is not as large as Wales. From Dan to Beersheba is 186 miles, and its extreme breadth is fifty miles. Attica is nine times smaller than Palestine-its greatest length is fifty miles, its breadth is thirty miles—and, as already stated, the United Kingdom is ninety-eight times smaller than its dependencies.

If we turn from the areas of the countries which make up the British Empire to considering the relative volume of trade of the Mother Country with foreign countries and with its dependencies, we again find how striking is the position of the United Kingdom. The value of her whole commerce is in round numbers 850 millionsof this 600 millions is with foreign countries and 200 millions with our dependencies. This 200 millions is divided nearly equally between the self-governing Colonies and other dependencies, the balance being slightly in favour of the self-governing Colonies. As

the dependencies other than the self-governing Colonies, with few exceptions, deal with us on the principles of free trade, nearly half of the internal trade of the Empire is carried on under circumstances that do not admit of the introduction of preferential tariffs without imposing on them the system of protection. India, for example, a free-trade dependency, has dealings with us to the extent of 62,447,600l. a year, while Australia, our best self-governing customer, stands in the list at 45,448,4631., and Canada at 27,571,2461.

The result, then, is that foreign customers, to the value of 600 millions, and customers in the British possessions, to the value of nearly 100 millions, are to be offended, disturbed, and interfered with in order that we may attract an hypothetical additional trade with customers who deal with us to the extent of a little more than 100 millions."

A mere knowledge, however, of the extent and population and trade of the Empire is only a first step towards a comprehension of the problem of Imperial unity. Before we can judge of any proposals for strengthening the bond between the Mother Country and her children, we must inquire how the Empire has been built up, what have been the ties between its constituent members, and what the measures and opinions which from time to time have had a favourable or unfavourable influence on consolidation. What then was the origin of this vast community of states? Truly a very small one. The first attempt at colonial settlement was made in 1583 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in Newfoundland, which still retains precedence as the first British Colony. Next came the acquisition by degrees of the thirteen colonies in North America, and the conquest of Canada, which together made the United Kingdom the greatest colonial power in the world except Spain. Besides these vast territories, the Empire, at the time of the revolt of the American Colonies, included certain possessions in India, some territory on the Gold Coast of Africa, Jamaica and other islands in the West Indies. In the course of the great French war, many dependencies of other countries which were wholly under absolute government came beneath our sway; but though penal settlements were founded in Australia, little progress was made in colonisation properly so called.

During the reign of Queen Victoria our Colonial Empire advanced by leaps and bounds, and made greater progress than during the centuries since the foundation-stone was laid by Gilbert in Newfoundland. Much territory in India, South and East Africa, and the Pacific Ocean was acquired; and the development of Australia, New Zealand, Cape Colony, and much of Canada belongs to the same period.

India is under a different administration from that of the Colonies, and must be considered as altogether detached from them. It has

3 See British Trade and the Zollverein Issue, chap. v. ; by Chiozza.