Colonial Self-government

Abstract

Colonial self-government is a central and familiar theme of British imperial history. The issue was first forced on the attention of Englishmen at the time of the American Revolution, when they failed to discover an acceptable means of combining colonial autonomy with imperial unity, with the result that the first empire in America ended in a violent bid for independence. Half a century later the problem again arose in British North America. This time a way was eventually found, through the device of responsible government, to grant the colonists the local autonomy they desired within the framework of empire. This satisfactory resolution of a fundamental and recurring imperial dilemma was applied, where and when appropriate, to other colonies of European settlement in the mid-nineteenth century, and in time proved capable of further extension. Many Victorian politicians and writers hailed the discovery and application of colonial self-government as a triumph of liberal statesmanship, the external counterpart to parliamentary government at home. It thus became firmly incorporated within the Whig tradition of progress and enlightenment.