Imperial Federation Research Articles

Empire Federalism and Imperial Parliamentary Union, 1820–1870

The movement for imperial federation has traditionally been regarded as a late nineteenth century phenomenon, which grew out of a supposed reaction against earlier ‘anti-imperialism’. J. E. Tyler set out to trace its growth ‘from its first beginnings… in and around 1868’. Historians were aware of the suggestions made before the American War of Independence that the colonies should send M.P.s to Westminster, but tended to dismiss them as of antiquarian rather than historical interest. A few also noted apparently isolated discussions of some Empire federal connexion in the first half of the nineteenth century, but no attempt was made to establish the existence of a continuous sentiment before 1870. C. A. Bodelsen did no more than list a series of examples he had discovered in the supposed age of anti-imperialism. In fact between 1820 and 1870 a debate about the federal nature of the Empire can be traced. Like the movement for imperial federation after 1870, there was only the vaguest unity of aim about the mid-century projects, and before 1870, as after, the idea was never consistently to the fore, but enjoyed short bursts of popularity. It is, however, fair to think of one single movement for a federal Empire throughout the nineteenth century. There is a clear continuity in ideas, in arguments, and in the people involved. Ideas of Empire federalism were influential, not so much for themselves as for their relationship to overall imperial thinking: to ignore the undercurrent of feeling for a united Empire is to distort the attitudes of many leading men. In the mid-nineteenth century general principles of imperial parliamentary union were argued chiefly from the particular case of British North America, the closest colonies to Britain and the most constitutionally advanced. This Canadian emphasis strengthened the analogies with the United States which occurred in any case.

Australian Public Opinion and Imperial Federation: A Study in Imperial Relations 1884-1891

Australian Public Opinion and Imperial Federation: A Study in Imperial Relations 1884-1891

Imperial federation and India, 1868–1917

Imperial federation and India, 1868–1917

The Origins of Canada's Department of External Affairs

On June 1, 1959, Canada's Department of External Affairs may look back upon a history of half a century's duration. Even so it is not the oldest foreign ministry in the overseas Commonwealth. That distinction belongs to the Australian Department of External Affairs, which became one of the original departments of the new federation created in 1901. The Canberra innovation seems not to have excited the slightest interest in Canada, despite the appearance during the same year of a book by a Canadian author containing what is probably the earliest written advocacy of separate foreign ministries for the self-governing colonies or dominions. In The Canadian Contingents and Canadian Imperialism, W. Sanford Evans developed at considerable length the case for “the creation in Canada, and in each of the other self-governing Colonies, of a Ministry of Imperial and Foreign Affairs.” It was, however, far from his intention to provide machinery for conducting a foreign policy distinct from and perhaps in defiance of that of the mother country. Evans was a staunch supporter of imperial federation, who looked on his project as a means of strengthening the imperial connection by adding to the power and influence of the centre.

Imperial Federation: A Study of New Zealand Policy and Opinion 1880–1914

Imperial Federation: A Study of New Zealand Policy and Opinion 1880–1914

New Trends in British Commonwealth Relations

THEN PRIME MINISTER Curtin declared that Australia depended on the United States for its defense in the face of Japanese invasion, many people jumped to the conclusion that the dissolution of the British Commonwealth was at hand. 'When he proposed a supreme consultative body for Empire problems, which should meet regularly, and have a permanent secretariat, an equal number interpreted it to mean Imperial Federation. But the one reaction is as far from the mark as the other. The truth is that Mr. Curtin is feeling his way towards a middle-of-the-road type of Commonwealth relation which will coincide with realities. The search for satisfactory means to reconcile the freedom of decision and action of the individual parts of the Commonwealth with the planning and execution of a united policy in regard to such overriding needs as security has been constant since the self-governing units of the Empire grew to maturity. In practice, Britain continued to provide through the Navy the basic means for protection of the Empire thereby sparing the Dominions heavy defense expenditures, and in moments of danger, a virtually united front developed. This empirical solution was accepted in default of other arrangements which could command general consent. But it has not been without criticisms and proposed alternatives in the past as well as in the present. The two major criticisms of Commonwealth arrangements voiced in the past are those which have been reinforced by recent events. On the one side, it was argued that the Commonwealth has failed to reap the chief benefits of collaboration because its integration of effort came only in time to meet but not to prevent danger. The other side has maintained that there is no real freedom of action for the Dominions if the Commonwealth stands together in moments of crisis behind a foreign policy which is largely if not entirely the creation of its strongest member, Great Britain. Each group of critics had its own solution. The first preached Imperial Federation with the same fervor and much the same arguments as Clarence Streit has used in support of Federal Union. But the movement foundered before World War I on the jealously guarded autonomy of the larger Dominions. The second group found its hope in the principles of the League Covenant as a guide for the foreign policy of all the members of the Commonwealth. But what in theory offered an easy way out of the dilemma, in practice merely meant that the problem was writ large. Collective security proved neither

The Imperial Conference of 1937

THIS year is studded with anniversaries for English-speaking peoples. It marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the drafting of the American constitution; the centenary of the Canadian rebellions, which were responsible for the ablest state paper in British colonial policy, Lord Durham's report; and the fiftieth anniversary of the Imperial Conference. The least attention has been paid to the last of these anniversaries, fact which appears somewhat surprising in view of the area and importance of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and its oft-repeated claim to have reconciled unity and freedom, the imperial connection and dominion nationalisms. The absence of celebrations may be due to the sobering realization that the golden years of unchallenged British supremacy have passed, or to the uneasy apprehension that this ambitious experiment in empire organization is presenting as serious problems of both machinery and policy as the federations which were established in Canada and Australia. When the Colonial conference assembled in i887, during the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria's reign, it counted for little, and, in fact, owed its very existence to the activities of one of those unofficial political associations which play so great part in British history. The Imperial Federation League interviewed Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister, in August i886 with the request that he call conference with the colonies to discuss trade, communications, naval policy and any other means for securing the closer federation or union of all parts of the empire. Lord Salisbury agreed and his colonial secretary, Sir Henry Holland, prominent member of the League, acted as chairman. The delegates were chosen in rather casual fashion, those from Canada for instance being the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario and Sir Sanford Fleming, the distinguished engineer; and the conference was in Mr. Duncan Hall's words a casual and amorphous thing. Few took its proceedings seriously. True, Lord Salisbury solemnly hailed

The Development of Imperial Federation

The Development of Imperial Federation

The War and the Empire: Some Facts and DeductionsThe Colonies and Imperial Federation

"The War and the Empire: Some Facts and DeductionsThe Colonies and Imperial Federation." Canadian Historical Review, 1(2), pp. 222–223

REVIEWS

Book reviews in this Article: The Logic of History. By C. G. Crump. Blessed Giles of Assisi. By Walter W. Seton. Municipal Records. By F. J. C. Hearnshaw (Helps for Students of History. Edited by C. Johnson, M.A., and J. P. Whitney Liverpool Town Books: Proceedings of Assemblies, Common Councils, Portmoot Courts, etc., 1550‐1882. Vol. I. 1550‐71. Edited for the Corporation of the City of Liverpool by J. A. Twemlow. Henry VII. By Gladys Temperley Rhyme and Revolution in Germany. A Study in German History, Life, Literature, and Character Main Currents of European History, 1815‐1915. By F. J. C. Hearnshaw. Documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1759‐1915. Selected and edited by W. P. M. Kennedy The Colonies and Imperial Federation: A Historical Sketch, 1754‐1919. By A. F. Hattersley. Boundaries in Europe and the Near East. By Sir Thomas Holdich Frontiers: a Study in Political Geography. By C. B. Fawcett

The Twin Ideals: An Educated Commonwealth

THESE volumes consist of a series of essays and articles, mostly written originally for the daily Press, on a very large variety of topics, classified under the heads:—Universities; education; medicine; venereal disease; milk and neglected children; town planning and playgrounds; rural life; national parks and the work of explorers; bush nursing; travel and immigration; social; music; electoral reform; Imperial and Australian politics. The author, a Melbourne medical man and consultant, who has taken an active part in the affairs of the Melbourne University, in Australian public and medical questions, and, during the war, in the Australian Army Medical Corps, tells in his preface of the growth of his own faith, away from the original university ideal of leavening the affairs of State by the production of a few well-trained thinkers, towards the twin ideals of Imperial federation and the production of an educated proletariat as necessary for the salvation of the Empire. The first is necessary for the security precedent to any scheme of social betterment, without which the foundations of society are hollow, and the second, the effective education of all adolescents in realities, is forced by the spectacle in Australia of the superficiality and insincerity of popular government. But is not the original university ideal of at least equal importance? The Twin Ideals: An Educated Commonwealth. By Sir James W. Barrett. Vols. i. and ii. Pp. xxxii + 512 and xx + 504. (London: H. K. Lewis and Co., Ltd., 1918.) Price 25s. net.

The Women's Suffrage Movement in England

At present neither the prospect of home rule nor the danger from Germany nor the mighty design of imperial federation assails the public mind of England so insistently as the demand for the enfranchisement of women. Since 1905 it has come to be realized that British men and women are face to face with a change of profound importance, and that the veil of the future hides immense possibilities of good or of ill soon to come.Allowing British women to take part in the government of the realm is a question of the last century and particularly of the years since 1867, but the antiquarian traces the elements of the problem in the feudal law of the earlier middle ages, when tenure and service rather than persons furnished the basis of organization, and when instances occur of women taking part in local affairs and holding office and jurisdiction. For the most part, however, these instances are valuable now merely as the slender basis for legal argument.

Historical Origins of Imperial Federation. E. Arma Smillie

<i>Historical Origins of Imperial Federation</i>. E. Arma Smillie

The University of the Cape of Good Hope

ON the invitation of Sir Lauder Brunton, a meeting took place at his residence on January 21 of gentlemen interested in university education. Among those present were Sir Arthur Rücker (of the London University), Dr. Donald MacAlister (then of Cambridge University, and president of the General Medical Council), Prof. Perry (Royal College of Science), Sir W. Arbuckle (Agent-General of Natal), Sir David Gill, Sir John Buchanan, and Mr. Howard d d'Egville, honorary secretary Imperial Federation (Defence) Committee. Prof. Osler (of Oxford University), Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., Sir Thomas Fuller (Agent-General for Cape Colony), and Prof. Stirling, dean of the medical faculty of the Victoria University, were unfortunately prevented from attending. Copies of the proposals provisionally agreed to by the committee of University of the Cape of Good Hope, relative to the re-organisation of that University, had been circulated before the meeting, and formed the basis of the evening's discussion. The result was a consensus of opinion on several leading issues, which may be summarised as under:—

Imperial Federation and Colonial Trade Policy.

Imperial Federation and Colonial Trade Policy.

Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity, by George R. Parkin

Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity, <i>by George R. Parkin</i>

Book Reviews : Imperial Federation, the Problem of National Unity, by GEORGE R. PARKIN, M. A. Pp. xii, 314, with map. New York and London. Macmillan &amp; Co., 1892

Book Reviews : Imperial Federation, the Problem of National Unity, by GEORGE R. PARKIN, M. A. Pp. xii, 314, with map. New York and London. Macmillan &amp; Co., 1892

The Trade Policy of Imperial Federation.

The Trade Policy of Imperial Federation.

Imperial Federation—Naval and Military

Imperial Federation—Naval and Military