LAND & WATER 
May 25, 1Q16 
Empire Building 
The Possibilities of Imperial 
By Harold Cox 
Union 
THE conscious movement for Imperial unity is 
barely a generation old. It had its origin in a 
book published by the late Professor Seeley, 
entitled The Expansion of England, embodying 
a series of lectures which had been delivered in Cam- 
bridge. The main thesis of this epoch-making book 
was that England had expanded her Empire more than 
half unconsciously ; .she had built up vast dominions 
across the seas without specially intending to do so, and 
frequently in opposition to prevailing currents of thought 
at home. There is, at any rate, this much of truth in the 
ate Professor Seeley 's thesis that at the time he 
both to organise the dispatch of troops to the firing line, 
and to get rid of the financial control which the Germans 
had secured over some of the most important mineral 
industries of Australia. 
At the present moment it may safely be said that 
apart from a few cranks who are temperamentally dis- 
posed to criticising rather than to helping their own 
country, everyone throughout the Empire is eager for 
closer Imperial union. That eagerness arises from 
two allied impulses. In the first place, the loyalty 
which all parts of the Empire have displayed in 
rushing to the colours has created a wide-spread feeling 
wrote— namely, in the eariy 'eighties, — very few English of solid.^rity which alone calls for defini^te expression ; 
people then living had seriously and deliberately thought secondly wl> all of us now cleariy see the danger of 
of Empire building 
Barely twenty years 
had elapsed since Dis- 
raeli, who subsequently 
became a vigorous ex- 
ponent of the Imperialist 
conception, had spoken 
contemptuously of the 
Colonies as "a mill- 
stone hanging round our 
neck." Another English 
statesman, who, to an 
even greater extent than 
Disraeli, subsequently 
identified himself with 
the Imperialist move- 
ment, was in the early 
'eighties an ultra-Eng- 
lish Radical, who pro- 
bably had never given 
a single thought to over- 
sea problems. So little 
indeed was Mr. Cham- 
berlain recognised as an 
Imperial statesman that 
when in 1895, on the 
formation of the Union- 
ist Cabinet, he took the 
office of Colonial Secre- 
tary, there was a mur- 
mur of puzzled sur- 
prise throughout the 
newspaper press. Yet 
within two years, at 
the Jubilee Conference 
of 1897, Mr. Joseph 
Chamberlain formulated 
ideas which lie at the 
very basis of the con- 
ception of Imperial 
union. The events of the 
South African War strengthened Mr. Chamberlain's enthu- 
siasm for Imperial expansion, and at the same time gave 
to the country at large a more vivid conception of the 
responsibilities attached to a great Empire. 
The same events brought more clearly into public 
light and increased the public influence of another great 
Empire-builder, Cecil Rhodes. To him more than to 
any other Englishman does the Empire owe the con- 
solidation of South Africa, and his name is rightly for 
ever connected with a vast stretch of South African 
territory. 
Since then the conception of Imperial -union has 
become common property. It affects all classes and all 
parts of the Empire. In Mr. Hughes, who comes from 
tljc Antipodes, the Empire possesses a remarkable 
VHE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM M. 
PriniL* Minister of Australia 
disunion. We have 
learnt that Germany 
has for years steadily 
been planning to build 
up a great Empire of 
her own, partly to be 
fashioned out of the 
ruins of the British 
Empire. On both ac- 
counts — for mutual 
affection and for mutual 
protection —the import- 
ance of Imperial unity 
is now recognised by 
everyone. 
It is, however, useless 
to form a clear concep- 
tion of the ideal to be 
attained unless at the 
same time we take into 
account the obstacles 
which have to be over- 
come before the goal 
can be reached. It is 
from this point of view 
that it would be satis- 
factory if men like Mr. 
Hughes would add to 
their exposition of ideals 
a precise statement of the 
the steps required to 
attain them. 
There is a fairly 
general agreement that 
one of the most im- 
portant steps towards 
closer Imperial unity— 
perhaps the most im- 
portant of all — is the 
establishment of a fiscal 
system which will pro- 
mote closer trade relations between different parts of 
the Empire. On this point the example of the 
German Empire is very illuminating. In effect the 
German Empire, created in 1871, was based upon the 
German Zollverein established in 1834. The word 
Zollvcrein means neither more nor less than customs 
union. Before the Zollvcrein was established (and for 
historical accuracy it should be added that the process 
was gradual, though the year 1834 may be taken as the 
main date) Germany was cut up into a multiplicity of 
separate areas fenced off from one another by innumerable 
independent customs houses. By establishing a customs 
union these barriers to internal trade were swept away, 
and though the different (ierman States remained politi- 
cally independent, their peoples were brought into such 
EXiott and fill 
HUGHKS 
exponent of this conception. His advocacy of Imperialism cIos3 commercial union with one another that the ground 
as the leader of the Australian Labour Party may usefully 
be balanced against the anti-patriotic attitude adopted 
by a section of the Labour Party in this country. Tn.it 
some of his speeches here suffer from vagueness may be 
true, but his action in Australia has been full of determina- 
tion. Promptly on the outbreak of war he took steps 
WIS prepared for political union. 
It will not, however, do to press this analogy too far. 
Tne arguments for removing an internal customs barrier 
are obviously greater than thosj for removing a similar 
barrier between countries separated by the sea. The 
same consideration applies to any question of pohtical 
