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These six European countries

their revenues.

A similar result

average a charge in furtherance of is seen from a tabulation of the

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revenue as the Cape group, spends no less than 1,000,000l. a year on its defence. The 7 per cent. scheme above detailed calls for only of this sum. Again, we see the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with a population of about the same numbers, but with a revenue only half the amount of the Australian group, expending 2,500,000l. on its defence.

Again, it is not unprofitable to notice the element of population in these tables. It will be seen that according to the European standard the 23,000,000 inhabitants of the six States contribute 33,000,000l. in self-defence. According to this scale the colonists of the British Empire should contribute some 20,000,000l. Or again, adopting the South American standard (where there is present a large native' population of Indians and others), the thirteen million British colonists should make a similar contribution of 5,000,000l. per annum. According, however, to the 7 per cent. scheme their contribution would not reach 2,000,000l.; and fresh evidence is seen of the benefit of participation in a large empire.

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We have thus endeavoured to embody, by way of illustration, in a supposititious scheme, the broad principle that each citizen should contribute to the self-preservation of his State in accordance with the benefits he enjoys from a continuance of its prosperity. We have heretofore spoken of revenue as the mark of this prosperity, bearing in mind Adam Smith's leading maxim of taxation: The subjects of any State ought to contribute towards the support of the Government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State.' But it may be objected that, practically speaking, revenue is only that amount of wealth which falls directly to State control, and that in determining the true standard of national pro

perty a statement of revenue has to be qualified by a statement of the burdens it supports. Thus it is that some writers on this subject have deemed it not unprofitable to entertain another possible standard of prosperity. The maintenance of the communications of the Empire means the security of the trade of the Empire; or, in plainer terms, guaranteed freedom of export and import. At once there occurs to the mind another possible basis on which to adjust the proportionate contributions to the common curity. The total imports and exports of the Empire are estimated at close upon 1,000,000,000l. A charge of I per cent. will yield the requisite 10,000,000l. This represents a contribution of about 2,000,000l. from the colonies to insure their communication with the markets of the world; no very unreasonable sum in the face of the fact that their trade already boasts an annual total of some 300,000,000l.

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Such a basis, however, conjures up the suspicion of a tendency to cripple commercial activity. It may be objected, But then industrial communities will pay so much less than commercial communities, and is not this a premium or bonus to industry as opposed to commerce?' merce?' It is true, however, that the contribution so proposed is not deducted from the imports and exports; it is no tax on trade. The imports and exports are merely adopted as signs of the proportionate value of the direct stake any colony or other fragment of the British race has in the prosperity of the whole as a whole.

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people of the United Kingdom.' Again, the British fleet and the British army are supported by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom.' And yet at the present juncture we find it a common remark in Australian papers that the powerful China squadron will keep the Russians of Vladivostock from attacking Australian ports. Australians them

selves would be the last to shirk any right responsibilities. Colonists have always been willing to take their share of the burden. The Dutch colonies pay all their own military and naval expenses. 'The whole military expenditure of the thirteen States which existed before the Revolution, including that for forts and garrisons, was paid by the produce of their own taxes.'

It is no new or uncustomary thing that colonists should make sacrifices in their own defence. Indeed, as Mr. Jenkyns once wrote, 'there is and can be no idea of permanence or unity in a system by which whole nations of Englishmen are practically disavowed in the arrangements that concern the defence of their hearths and their freedom.' In the old French war the planters of Barbados presented George III. with a frigate. And the old national spirit has increased rather than diminished in intensity. Colonists are quite ready, and willing, and eager to aid in their own preservation. They acknowledge the equity of a common contribution; and many among them feel that they are, man for man, far better able to make the necessary pecuniary sacrifices than their struggling brethren of the crowded old country.

In the second place, this scheme insures equality of distribution. Each pays in accordance with the advantages he enjoys. All citizens are taxed even though they reside in such essentially military ontposts as Gibraltar and Malta, provided, that is, they benefit materially by participation in the Empire. By

this scheme any that profit by a residence in any particular portion of the Empire take their share of the burden which enables them so to profit.

In the third place, the weak are supported by the strong out of their superabundance of strength. Nor is it only in money that the strong would foster the proper development of the weak. Those colonies whose present paucity of residents cries to their fellow-countrymen for aid in time of war, would enjoy a security otherwise unattainable through actual dearth of available manhood. According to this scheme, then, the colonies as they become 'of age' and attain to the strength of fuller growth would become the same efficient guardians of the welfare of the weaker colonies which the mother country had been to them in their own infancy and youth.

In the fourth place, this scheme of supply accords with the scheme of strategical defence previously detailed. It robs it of a class of seeming objections that have been put forward. Thus, when it was proposed to establish an Imperial arsenal in Sydney, the papers there pointed out that such action would give Sydney an Imperial as distinguished from a local importance, and that New South Wales onght: not to be burdened with the expense of defending such an arsenal. It is evident that the formation of such an arsenal, or even of an armed outpost, is a burden unfairly placed on a colony by reason of its chance geographical position. And according to the discrete theory' discussed above, no doubt this objection would be real and substantial. Colonies differ greatly in the value of their positions from a strategical point of view; and if England is to supply the fleet while the colonies afford it resting places and harbours, obviously a most unfair burden is placed upon such communities as happen to possess good harbours

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commanding the highways of the ocean. Feejee, for instance, would be put to great charge on this score, while in many of the West India Islands such harbours would be unnecessary or impossible works. In the scheme advocated in this article, such arsenal or harbour would be erected or defended at Imperial charge, and the colony in which it might chance to be situated would reap nothing but advantage therefrom.

In the fifth place, this scheme has the inestimable advantage of suiting the 'historical' circumstances of the case. It is a plan of contribution to a common cause, which has the essential merit of self-alteration in accord with any future changes. Its adjustment is perfectly autonomous. Whether the expected growth of any colony or colonies come to pass or not matters nothing; the burden to be borne will increase or decrease in strict proportion.

We need mention but one more of the advantages. The scheme boasts the high merit of simplicity. Some basis is to be determined on as an acknowledged measure of the prosperity of a colony or province of the Empire. And it matters nothing whether this basis be revenue, or exports, or imports, or what not. In the German Empire any deficit of income is made up on a basis of population. The comparative stakes in the prosperity of the Empire are to be deduced from annual official returns, and each province to provide the quota so adjusted by its own constitutional means and according to its own individual will.

II

THE AUTHORITY REQUISITE.

WE have discussed the force requisite, and seen into the details as to 'ways and means.' It remains to consider briefly that paramount authority, that embodiment of the

unity of the Empire, of which this force is to be the symbol and the right arm. And this province of the question is the great battleground between those who oppose and those who support the possibility as well as the desirability of a United Empire. It will be seen that the view about to be put forward is far more moderate in pretensions than the very absolute schemes of the more ambitious and hopeful advocates of a consolidated Imperial unity.

Yet, at the same time, does this view firmly maintain the ground of Imperial unity as opposed to the attack of those who hold that in spite of any desirability the thing is an impossibility.

The first question to be asked is, whether there be, at the present, in the British Empire any supreme power, any paramount authority, whose constitutional and legal position is over and above all other authorities. And the answer of the constitutional lawyer is in the affirmative. In the Imperial Parliament, in the Crown, Lords, and Commons, is to be found the one supreme head of the British nation.' But the second question is no less to the point. Can this supreme head, as it now exists, supply, maintain, and manage the warstrength of the Empire? And the answers, both of the constitutional lawyer and of the statesman, are in the negative. This Imperial Parliament, from various causes and reasons, is not endued with this needful attribute. It will be our object to point out a constitutional means to this end, which, though latent at the present, is precisely one of those ovvapeis which seem to be generated spontaneously within the British Constitution whensoever the necessity for their vepyɛia is brought about by cir

cumstances.

The truth is that the actual exercise of the legal supremacy of Parliament has become modified by

the very principles upon which it regulates all its actions. The colonies have grown up part and parcel of our Empire. The colonist, by leaving England and taking up his abode in Esquimault or Dunedin, still remains the English citizen; and not only preserves in all parts of the Empire his right to appeal unto Cæsar, but enjoys in addition that far higher prerogative -that privilege far above the comprehension or conscious need of the Roman-of self-government. By deputy, by acquiescence or by direct action, he shares in the management of the common affairs of the society to which he belongs. Thus is it that though, under present conditions, the Imperial Parliament is the constitutional head, nevertheless are its powers considerably modified for Imperial action.

It was during the unlucky period of the breaking off of the United States from England that there came to the front the chief questions as to the whereabouts of this supreme authority among the constituent elements of an empire which, as the British Empire,' was destined to present the world with an entirely new type of dominion. There can only be one supreme power in any one political society,' writes Macaulay. Even Burke and the great Whig party, at the time of the American troubles, acknowledged that this power resided in the Imperial Parliament. Even in America it was usually acknowledged 'that a general power of legislation for the whole Empire was vested in the Imperial Parliament... but no authority to tax colonies which were not represented.' Here, at once, is seen the hiatus in the Constitution-the lost cog which threw the whole machine out of gear.

The cause of this hiatus is wellnigh self-evident. Thus, no British subject can occupy new territory without such territory becoming

what is technically known as 'vested in the Crown.' But, on the other hand, a British subject carries with him, wheresoever he colonises, the right to the protection of English common law, the right to be governed by the laws in being at the time of his departure. The manner of the administration of these rights is decided by his constitutional representatives at the time-by that supreme British Power, the Imperial Parliament. And in this determination cognisance is taken of the peculiar conditions of each individual case. Those not particularly learned in colonial constitutions may be reminded that, at the present, there are three main groups formed in accordance with the mode in which the rights of British citizens within the limits of the colony are administered. In the Crown colonies both legislation and administration are under the control of the Crown. In the colonies possessing responsible government the Crown retains a veto over legislation, but the administration. is carried on through a Ministry enjoying the confidence of the local Parliament. An intermediate group enjoys the legislative privileges of the second group, but, as with Crown colonies,' the public officers are under the control of the Crown. At once is seen the fact that the central supreme power delegates some of its own powers for local purposes. The amount and nature of the power so delegated depends in exact measure on two elements. The first of these is the modus acquirendi' of the colony-whether by treaty, by conquest, or by pure occupancy, by mere peopling of uninhabited lands.' The second of these is the expected development of the colony. Such are the elements on the basis of which the Imperial Parliament, devising the best means for the future prosperity of such colonies, regulates their style of government. This is why English

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