Forty years later prevailing opinion was still skeptical as to the desirability of obtaining or retaining colonies.

against

There are only three ways that colonies can be of any ad- 450. A later vantage: (1) in furnishing a military force; (2) in supplying argument the parent state with a revenue; (3) in affording commercial colonies advantages. (1830)

(1) Instead of furnishing a military force, the colonies are always a great drain upon the military resources of a country, particularly in war, when they occupy a large portion of the army and fleet in their defense. In the last war, while our own shores were threatened with invasion from Boulogne and Brest, our means of defense were greatly crippled by the number of troops and ships we were obliged to keep in the colonies.

(2) With respect to revenue, we have declared by the act of the 18 Geo. III, that we will not levy any taxes or duties in the colonies except for their use.

(3) As to commercial advantages, if the colonial trade were quite free, our commercial relations with the colonies would resemble the intercourse between ourselves and independent countries; and therefore whatever advantages we shall derive from them will be embraced in two questions: (1) whether our commerce with them will be more beneficial than with independent countries; (2) whether the capital employed in them will be more beneficially employed than it would be if employed in the United Kingdom.

colonies

With respect to the first question, it is one easily solved, Unprofitablebecause where the employment of capital is free the net profit ness of that may be obtained by the employment of it in commerce with independent countries will always be as great as if it were employed in the colonial trade. The trade we carry on with the United States proves this.

With respect to the second question, it is necessary to trace the operations of capital when employed in the colonies and when employed at home. In the West India Islands it goes to feed and clothe slaves; to pay British agents, clerks, and managers; to employ ships and sailors; and although the gross profit upon it seems very high when all the charges and risks are

Too many colonies ob

tained by England in the

wars against Napoleon

considered, and also the effects of competition, the net prof: cannot be greater than it is on capital employed at home.

When capital is employed in the United Kingdom — for instance, on manufactures it pays wages to English workmen instead of buying clothes and food for slaves; it employs agents, clerks, and managers; it employs ships and sailors to import raw materials and to export the finished goods, and the rate of net profit on it is full as high as that on capital employed in the colonies.

In settling the conditions of the last treaty of peace it was most unwise to retain so many of the conquered colonies. Trinidad, Demerara, Essequibo, and Tobago were but little advanced in cultivation, a large transfer of capital was necessary for their cultivation, and there was little or no local revenue belonging to them.

At the close of the war the East India Company was anxious to be allowed to have the island of Ceylon, and it is not too late to give it up to them; but as large sums of public money have been expended since the war in adding to its value, the company should repay a large part of them as the condition of becoming masters of this island.

As the Cape of Good Hope and the Mauritius are of no use except for the defense of the East India Company's possessions, the company ought to be called on to defray all the expense of their military protection; and it is to be hoped that the opportunity which the expiration of the charter of the company will offer, will lead to an arrangement which will secure all these objects.

When peace was made in 1814 the English government wished to let Austria have the Ionian Islands, but France would not agree to this arrangement. There can be no real use in keeping these islands, with Malta and Gibraltar in our hands.

The settlement of Sierra Leone and the military posts on the west coast of Africa should be given up. The public derives no benefit from these possessions, either in a commercial or military point of view; and with respect to the slave trade, the use they are of in contributing to put it down is

so questionable as not to justify the waste of money and of human life which they occasion.

With respect to Canada (including our other possessions on the continent of North America), no case can be made out to show that we should not have every commercial advantage we are supposed now to have, if it were made an independent state. Neither our manufactures, foreign commerce, nor shipping would be injured by such a measure. On the other hand, what has the nation lost by Canada? Fifty or sixty millions have already been expended; the annual charge on the British treasury is full £600,000 a year; and we learn from the second report of the committee of finance, that a plan of fortifying Canada has been for two or three years in progress, which is to cost £3,000,000.

It was not merely English economists and financiers who felt that the bond between the mother country and the colonies was a burden. Many of the colonists, or those who sympathized with them, felt that such a connection was a disadvantage, so long as the home government interfered in the internal affairs of the colonies. The following shrewd observations in a pamphlet, entitled Responsible Government for the Colonies, call attention to the fact that no one in England really knew or cared anything about the colonies, except certain obscure clerks in the colonial office, who practically decided all colonial questions that came up.

power over the colonies

in the hands officials at of the lower

Thus, from the general indifference of parliament on colo- 451. The connial questions, it exercises, in fact, hardly the slightest efficient centration of control over the administration or the making of laws for the colonies. In nine cases out of ten it merely registers the edicts of the colonial offices in Downing Street. It is there, then, that nearly the whole public opinion which influences London the conduct of affairs in the colonies really exists. It is there that the supremacy of the mother country really resides; and when we speak of that supremacy, and of the responsibility of

the colony to the mother country, you may, to all practical intents, consider as the mother country the possessor of this supremacy, the center of this responsibility — the occupants of the large house that forms the end of that cul-de-sac so well known by the name of Downing Street. However colonists or others may talk of the crown, the parliament, and the public of the honour of the first, the wisdom of the second, or the enlightened opinion of the last, nor queen, nor lords, nor commons, nor the great public itself exercise any power, or will, or thought on the greater part of colonial matters; and the appeal to the mother country is, in fact, an appeal to "The Office."

That mother country which has been narrowed from the British Isles into the parliament, from the parliament into the executive government, from the executive government into the colonial office, is not to be sought in the apartments of the secretary of state or his parliamentary undersecretary. Where you are to look for it, it is impossible to say. In some back room-whether in the attic, or in what story we know not you will find all the mother country which really exercises supremacy and really maintains connection with the vast and widely scattered colonies of Britain. We know not the name, the history, or the functions of the individual into the narrow limits of whose person we find the mother country shrunk. . . .

The system of intrusting absolute power (for such it is) to one wholly irresponsible is obviously most faulty. . . . It has all the faults of an essentially arbitrary government in the hands of persons who have little personal interest in the welfare of those over whom they rule, who reside at a distance from them, who never have ocular experience of their condition, who are obliged to trust to second-hand and one-sided information, and who are exposed to the operation of all those sinister influences which prevail wherever publicity and freedom are not established.

In intelligence, activity, and regard for the public interests, the permanent functionaries of "The Office" may be superior to the temporary head that the vicissitudes of party politics

give them; but they must necessarily be inferior to those persons in the colony in whose hands the adoption of the true practice of responsible government would vest the management of local affairs.

A turning point in colonial policy was reached in the year 1838. Lord Durham was sent in that year as high commissioner to Upper and Lower Canada, to introduce order after the partial rebellion that had just occurred. Although his high-handed measures led to his recall the next year, he presented a report that was of permanent influence. It recommended practical self-government for Canada and the other colonies, a policy that was little by little subsequently introduced. The following passages are taken from this report, which forms in itself a good-sized volume.

Durham's

report on

On the course which your Majesty and your parliament may 452. Extracts adopt, with respect to the North American colonies, will de- from Lord pend the future destinies not only of the million and a half of your Majesty's subjects who at present inhabit those prov- Canada inces, but of that vast population which those ample and fertile territories are fit and destined hereafter to support. No portion of the American continent possesses greater natural resources for the maintenance of large and flourishing communities. An almost boundless range of the richest soil still remains unsettled and may be rendered available for the purposes of agriculture. The wealth of inexhaustible forests of the best timber in America, and of extensive regions of the most valuable minerals, have as yet been scarcely touched. Along the whole line of seacoast, around each island, and in every river are to be found the greatest and richest fisheries in the world. The best fuel and the most abundant water power are available for the coarser manufactures, for which an easy and certain market will be found.

Trade with other continents is favored by the possession of a large number of safe and spacious harbors. Long, deep,