British Commonwealth

“ I think every man has a right to examine as freely into the origin, spring, and foundation of every power and measure in a commonwealth as into a piece of curious machinery or a remarkable phenomenon in nature, and that it ought to give no more offense to say the Parliament have erred or are mistaken in a matter of fact or of right than to say it of a private man, if it is true of both. ”

“ For to bring home to all within her borders who bear rule and responsibility, from the village headman in India and Nigeria, the Basutu chief and the South Sea potentate, to the public opinion of Great Britain and the self-governing Dominions, the nature of the British Commonwealth, and the character of its citizenship and ideals, and to study how those ideals may be better expressed in its working institutions and executive government—that is a task to which the present crisis beckons the minds of British citizens, a task which Britain owes not only to herself but to mankind. ”

“ Clearly, so far as concerns the great dominions, the British Empire is far from being a military domination imposed by force. It is a voluntary partnership or brotherhood of free peoples, a Commonwealth of Nations. It is a wonderful achievement in the combination of unity and freedom, an experiment in the unforced co-operation of free States such as has never before been seen in human history. ”

“ The first is that men's minds are extraordinarily easily influenced by mere words. The word "Empire" suggests, to many, conquest and dominion over unwilling subjects. In so far as it does so, it begs the question. As we shall try to show, this word is really misapplied to the British realms. The character of their government and of the bond which holds them together would be much better expressed by a phrase which is now being widely used in Britain—the British Commonwealth of Nations. ”

“ Another, and, in some respects, more dangerous feature of an inchoate conception of state responsibility is the growing apart, so to speak, of certain British dependencies. The British state, for international purposes, is the British Empire, for domestic purposes it is the United Kingdom. Any limb of the former’s huge body can have interests different from those of the United Kingdom, and involve its responsibility. A significant step towards concentration of liability and control was taken by the Australian colonies in the federation brought about by the Commonwealth Act of 1900. ”

“ We shall wake to find ourselves elbowed and hustled, perhaps even thrust aside by peoples whom we looked down upon as servile and thought of as bound always to minister to our needs.’ ... "The Greater Britain that is to be may be the best security for the Mother Land in years to come, and her natural ally and friend. Australian statesmen claim that they are not only safe-guarding British interests, but also legislating for posterity and looking forward to the time—perhaps a century hence—when the population of the Commonwealth may be one hundred millions or even more. ”

“ That the supreme and subordinate powers of legislation should be free and sacred in the hands where the community have once rightfully placed them.
2dly. The supreme national legislative cannot be altered justly till the commonwealth is dissolved, nor a subordinate legislative taken away without forfeiture or other good cause. Nor then can the subjects in the subordinate government be reduced to a state of slavery and subject to the despotic rule of others. A state has no right to make slaves of the conquered. ”

“ To act thus is indeed to perfect the union and make all the inhabitants of Great Britain acknowledge, with gratitude and with joy, that they are subjects of the same well-regulated kingdom, and governed with the same impartial affection by the sovereign and father of the whole commonwealth. ”

“ This is the Palladium of our government, which cannot be stolen as their’s was from Troy; for the keepers of it are too many to be killed, because every Englishman has an interest in it: for which reason neither can it be bought and sold, so as to make a title; and a man of a moderate understanding may easily undertake that it shall never be preached away from us. And hereby England is rendered the noblest commonwealth and kingdom in the world. I name commonwealth first, because K. James I. in one of his speeches to the parliament, says, “I am the great servant of the commonwealth.” ”

“ They believed it to be still in their power to regenerate England. The House of Commons declared England to be a Commonwealth, 'without a king or House of Lords,' and, taking the name of Parliament for itself, appointed forty-one persons to be a Council of State, charged with the executive government, and renewed annually. ”

“ But their greatest achievement, I suggest, is the Commonwealth itself, and that owes much to all of them. Thus formed, the Commonwealth bears no resemblance to the Empires of the past. It is an entirely new conception, built on the highest qualities of the spirit of man: friendship, loyalty and the desire for freedom and peace. ”

“ The Parliament bent before the iron will of the people's champion, and from the Captain of a troop and the General of an army the determined farmer of the fens took the helm and steered his country through reefs and breakers, until, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, the commonwealth of England became the first power in Europe, unconquerable on the land, invincible on the sea. ”

“ Thus, by his administration of the government of one colony, during only the short space of two years, he laid the foundation for that permanent union of this and all the other colonies with the parent state, which would secure the welfare and happiness of the millions by whom they are inhabited, and add to the strength, the power, and splendour of the British empire. ”

“ If a union, either partial or complete, should hereafter be proposed with the concurrence of all the Provinces to be united, I am sure that the matter would be weighed in this country both by the public, by Parliament, and by Her Majesty's Government, with no other feeling than an anxiety to discern and promote any course which might be the most conducive to the prosperity, the strength and the harmony of all the British communities in North America. ”

“ A true Whig is not afraid of the Name of a Commonwealthsman, because so many foolish People, who know not what it means, run it down: The Anarchy and Confusion which these Nations fell into near Sixty Years ago, and which was falsly called a Commonwealth, frightning them out of the true Construction of the Word. But Queen Elizabeth, and many other of our best Princes, were not scrupulous of calling our Government a Commonwealth, even in their solemn Speeches to Parliament. ”

“ There were the workshops in which the political creed of England was fashioned, where the notion of a free commonwealth with the three estates of king, lords, and commons holding by common consent their several authority, was proved and tested till it became the mere commonplace, the vulgar property of every Englishman. ”

“ That the restrictions imposed by several late acts of parliament on the trade of these colonies, will render them unable to purchase the manufactures of Great Britain. That the increase, prosperity, and happiness of these colonies, depend on the full and free enjoyment of their rights and liberties, and an intercourse with Great Britain, mutually affectionate and advantageous. That it is the right of the British subjects in the colonies to petition the king or either house of parliament. ”

“ Here, as fully as in the self-governing Colonies, membership of the British Empire does not mean subjection to the selfish dominion of a master, or the subordination to that master's interests of the vital interests of the community. It means the establishment among a vast population of the essential gifts of western civilisation—rational law, and the liberty which exists under its shelter. ”

“ Common ideals and hopes, not formal bonds, unite the members of the Commonwealth and promote that association between them which, in my belief, has contributed significantly to the cause of human freedom. ”

“ During this same hundred years, as civilization has advanced, education enlightened the masses, intelligence expanded among the people, and experience been gained, there has grown up that marvellous form [Pg 257] of self-government under which we Canadians and our brother colonists live—the British Constitutional Monarchy. In this British Empire, in the colonial parliaments, as in the Imperial Parliament, the King or Sovereign represents all the people, not a party, and is the permanent chairman of the nation. The will of Parliament, tempered by his continued counsel, is his will. ”

“ It is provided that trade and commerce shall be legislated on by the Federal Parliament, but not exclusively so, because the local Parliament will still be able to legislate, provided, however, that if the laws of the State and of the Commonwealth clash, the laws of the Commonwealth shall prevail. ”

“ A true republic exists only where the questions of government are fairly and honorably submitted to the whole population, with a universal disposition to acquiesce peaceably in the decision of the majority, when that is ascertained. There probably has never been any such state of things as this in any country of Europe since the Christian era. There certainly was no such state of things in England in the time of the Commonwealth. ”

“ When the motion for the abolition of the house of lords, as ‘useless and dangerous,’ was being discussed, he proposed to substitute the words ‘useless but not dangerous.’ On another occasion, it is said, in drawing up a republican document, he spoke of ‘England being restored to its ancient government of commonwealth,’ and in answer to an objection that a commonwealth never before existed in England, quoted a text which had always puzzled him, where a man blind from his birth was said to be ‘restored’ to the sight he should have had. ”

“ The central government of Great Britain, as the guardian of the welfare of the whole empire, cooperates with the several governments of her colonial dependencies, and, by common consultation and arrangement, endeavours to come to such a determination as will be to the advantage of all the interests at stake. ”

“ In the case of the Union, independent States voluntarily relinquished a portion of their sovereignty to secure national unity, and entrusted the guardianship of that unity to a representative body chosen by themselves. Such a union was based on contract, and could only be constructed by communities which claimed to be independent. Far different have been the circumstances under which England has developed itself into the British Empire. England began as a sovereign power, having its sovereignty vested at first solely in the Sovereign, but gradually in the Sovereign and Parliament. ”

“ The best interests and present and future prosperity of British North America will be promoted by a Federal Union under the Crown of Great Britain, provided such Union can be effected on principles just to the several provinces. ”

“ To appreciate the magnitude of reform for which the subjects of Great Britain are indebted to this iron will and undaunted determination, the present generation must be told of British colonies scattered everywhere upon the earth's surface, each with a so-called constitutional government, composed, as modelled upon the home system, of an "Assembly," to correspond with the "Commons;" ”

“ That these Colonists are well entitled to all the essential rights, liberties and privileges of men and freemen, born in Britain, is manifest, not only from the Colony charter, in general, but acts of the British Parliament. ”

“ The idea of federation is in the air both in Great Britain and in her daughter-states. The day has long gone by when a not inconsiderable number of English statesmen looked forward to the time when the colonies should, as it was phrased, "cut the painter" and steer their own course. The consciousness of common origin and interests grows stronger; the interdependence of the mother country and her colonies is more realized; the development of rapid communication by sea and land makes the distance between the various British communities in different hemispheres less felt as every year rolls by. ”

“ And this we have done that all the inhabitants of the collonie may live quietly and securely under the commonwealth of England. And we do promise that the parliament and commonwealth of England shall confirm and make good all those transactions of ours. ”

“ The British Empire, on the other hand, is, as respects its component members, ever in progress and flux. An Anglo-Saxon colony, no less than a human being, has its infancy under the maternal care of a governor, its boyhood subject to the government of a representative council and an Executive appointed by the Crown, its manhood under Home Rule and responsible government, in which the Executive are bound to vacate their offices whenever they are out-voted in the Legislature. Changes are ever taking place in the growth, so to speak, of the several British possessions, but what is the result? ”

“ Accordingly, on the 7th of June, Richard Henry Lee, one of their delegates, moved that the congress should forthwith declare:—“That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that measures should immediately be taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a confederation be formed for binding the colonies more closely together.” ”