COLONY 



with emigration, it is perhaps natural for the 

 mother country to regard her colonies primarily 

 a- affording an outlet tor her own surplus popula- 

 tion. As a matter of fact, the inhabitants of 

 Australia are almost exclusively British; HO, too, 

 .are the inhabitants of Canada, with the notable 

 exception of the province of QneMO, which remaiiiH 

 tu tliis 1 1 ay thoroughly French in language, in 

 religion, and in sentiment. At the < 'ape, again, 

 tin- descendants of the Dutch settlers still form 

 about one half of the whole population. But when 

 the statistics of emigration are looked into, it will 

 IHJ found that the I'nited States prove much more 

 attractive than all the colonies added together. 

 In 1853-93 the total number of emigrants from 

 the United Kingdom, of British and Irish origin, 

 amounted to 7,759,329, of whom 5,194,930 selected 

 the United States as their new home. Of 227,179 

 emigrants (British ami other) from Britain in 

 1894, 159,00.) went to the United States, 23,731 to 

 Canada, and only 11,185 to the Australasian colo- 

 nies. The census returns of the United States in 

 1890 show 3, 1*22, 9 11 persons born in the United 

 Kingdom. The figures for Canada in 1891 are 

 475,450 ; and the Australasian colonies in 1891 reck- 

 oned nearly half their total population (4,297,889) 

 as born in the United Kingdom. The home govern- 

 ment has taken no measures to direct emigration 

 to the colonies, beyond establishing in 1886 an 

 Emigrants' Information Office in London, for the 

 collection and publication of trustworthy infor- 

 mation. Queensland alone gives free passages. 

 Natal and Western Australia give assisted pass- 

 ages to farm labourers and domestic servants. See 



EMIGRATION. 



The tie between the mother-country and the 

 colonies is more manifest in the case of commerce. 

 The old practice has long ago been abandoned of 

 compelling the colonies to trade only with the 

 mother-country ; and those of them that are self- 

 governing have even been allowed to impose pro- 

 tective tariffs against British manufactures. But, 

 nevertheless, the trade of Biitain with her colonial 

 possessions has maintained itself more steadily 

 than her trade with the rest of the world. During 

 the fourteen years from 1872 to 1886, the imports 

 into the United Kingdom from British possessions 

 < including India), notwithstanding the fall in 

 value, increased from 79,372,853 to 81,884,043, 

 while the proportion of these imports to the 

 total imports rose from 22 to 23 per cent. In 

 the same period the exports to Uritish possessions 

 increased from 05,009,212 to 82,067,711, while 

 their proportion to the total exports rose from 

 21 to 31 per cent. In the year 1893-94 the imports 

 from British possessions into the United Kingdom 

 had a value of 91,205,462 (20 per cent, of the 

 total imports), and the exports from Britain thither 

 of 86,991,135 (34 per cent, of the total). Such, 

 expressed in dry figures, is the meaning of the 

 maxim that 'trade follows the flag.' Though 

 statistics are not so readily obtainable, there can be 

 no doubt that the investment of British capital in 

 the colonies, and the interest paid on it, forms a 

 still closer bond than the interchange of com- 

 modities. In 1893-94 the aggregate public debt 

 of all the colonies was about 312 millions sterling. 



The most interesting question that remains to be 

 considered is the political relation l>etween the 

 colonies and the mother-country. Not so many 

 years ago it was tacitly assumed that the grant of 

 responsible government to the greater colonies 

 implied the further concession of complete inde- 

 pendence whenever the colonies should care to 

 demand it. History seemed to afford support for 

 no other conclusion. Quite apart from the case of 

 the United States, it was argued that any form of 

 apolitical union was impracticable between members 



of a state scattered over HUC!I immense distance* 

 and with such divergent intercut*. Above all, it was 

 doubted svhether tlie Blender link exUting could 

 stand the strain of a great Euro|eaii war. What 

 concern has Canada with Constantinople, or Aus- 

 tralia with Afghanistan? But there were always 

 soiiM- to whom such calculations ap|eared to IMS a 

 base abandonment of England's historic place 

 among nations ; and the colonists themselves have 

 always professed the most perfect loyalty to the 

 British connection, exactly in proportion as they 

 have l>een intrusted with autonomy in their own 

 local affairs. Canadian roynyeum took a prominent 

 part in Lord Wolseley's boat expedition up the Nile 

 in 1884 ; and a battalion of 800 volunteers from 

 New South Wales fought by the side of British 

 soldiers round Suakin in 1885. The sense of 

 distance has been largely obliterated by the mar- 

 vellous progress of steam and electricity. The 

 circumnavigation of the globe is now accomplished 

 as easily and as frequently as was the grand tour 

 in the 18th century. Many of the younger politi- 

 cians make it part of their education to visit India, 

 Australia, and Canada ; the colonists, too, have 

 ceased to be strangers in England ' home,' as they 

 always call it, though born thousands of leagues 

 away. In this connection the future historian will 

 not think it beneath his dignity to record the 

 beneficent influence of cricket. An English team 

 first went to Australia in 1862 ; while Australian 

 elevens have played on equal terms with the best 

 cricketers of England in every alternate year since 

 1878. The increase of intercourse has brought with 

 it an increase of mutual knowledge and of mutual 

 respect. The holding of a great exhibition of 

 colonial and Indian produce at South Kensington 

 in 1886, and the plan of commemorating the jubilee 

 of the Queen by an Imperial Institute, have given 

 concrete expression to the feeling of solidarity that 

 was everywhere growing. Few persons, either in 

 England or in the colonies, would now be found 

 to advocate the weakening, still less the severing, 

 of the present political ties. 



With regard to the scheme known as Imperial Con- 

 federation, less agreement is to be found. It may 

 be suspected that many of its British supporters 

 have been influenced chiefly by their greater dislike 

 of separation ; while in the colonies it has nowhere 

 been received with enthusiasm. The essence of 

 the original scheme was that the parliament of 

 Great Britain and Ireland should divest itself 

 of its sovereignty in favour of a federal council, 

 formed by election out of all the constituent parts 

 of the empire. To this council would be delegated 

 the initiative in foreign affairs, the power of treaty- 

 making, the right of declaring war, with the con- 

 trol of the army and navy that necessarily follows 

 therefrom. Putting aside the difficulties that would 

 arise from the inequality of the colonies among 

 themselves, it is easy to see that Britain must, 

 for a long time to come, exercise the decisive pre- 

 eminence in such a council. 



In the meantime something has already been 

 done, and more may l>e, to strengthen the position 

 of the colonies in the English political system. 

 Canada, the Australasian colonies, and the Cape, 

 each have an agent-general resident in London, 

 whose functions are steadily growing in dignity. 

 It has become the custom for every new Colonial 

 Secretary to invite the agents-general to a cere- 

 monious reception on his appointment; they are 

 consulted, either singly or collectively, in all 

 matters affecting the colonies which they repre- 

 sent. It is not impossible that their status may 

 ultimately develop into something intermediate in 

 authority and honour between tlie council of the 

 India Office and the corps diplomatique. The elastic 

 powers of the Privy -council might easily be utilised 



