Imperial Council

“ The ideal of Federation which naturally presents itself to the mind is one which provides a supreme Parliament or Council, national not merely in name but in reality, because containing in just proportion representatives of all the self-governing communities of the Empire. Such a body, relegating the management of local affairs to local Governments, and devoting its attention to a clearly defined range of purely Imperial concerns, would seem to satisfy a great national necessity. ”

“ This standing Council of the Empire was to be formed of a President, one Elector, one Bishop, one Prince, one Count, and sixteen representatives of the States. It was to summon the Diet, of which it served as a standing committee, to nominate the members of the Imperial Chamber, to collect taxes, to maintain order at home, and decide on questions of peace and war. Although under the presidency of the Emperor or his Stadtholder, nothing of importance could be done without its leave, and thus it shared the executive power with him. ”

“ In fact the council committee, known as the Lords of Trade and Plantations, assumed its duties in 1675 with a high sense of loyalty and a display of energy that ended a period of drift and opened a decade of unified and forceful conduct in imperial control. The conditions were favorable to imperial centralization. The dominance of Charles II. over the forces of opposition created a brief period of internal stability, and the close of the Dutch wars in 1675 brought years of peace abroad. ”

“ It would impair, if not altogether destroy, the authority of the United Kingdom in such grave matters as the conduct of foreign policy, the conclusion of treaties, the maintenance of peace, or the declaration of war, and, indeed, all those relations with foreign powers, necessarily of the most delicate character, which are now in the hands of the Imperial Government, subject to its responsibility to the Imperial Parliament. ”

“ At his side is the imperial chancery, a body of officials who, in turn, have to do in each department with the affairs of the whole empire. The imperial court, too, in spite of all its limitations, is none the less a court for the whole empire. Not less clearly is the territorial unity expressed in the unity of legislation. In the circumstances in which we left the old empire there could scarcely be any question any longer of real imperial legislation. ”

“ Imperial Federation means a constitutional system, under which she would be no longer misruled and misunderstood, by a Government, in which she has no share, in which she places no confidence, and by whom her wants and wishes are often ignored. It is not, as is frequently untruly asserted by writers, and speakers, who have neither studied, comprehended, nor understood its theory and intention, its end and aim, that it means the subjugation of the independence of the Colonies to the control of the Mother Country. ”

“ Should there be a British empire ruled by Parliament in all its parts, either in England or oversea? or should Parliament govern at home, and the colonial assemblies in America, with only a federal bond to unite them? Should the English understanding of representation be imposed upon the colonies? or should America’s institution triumph in its own home? If there was to be a successful imperial system, Parliament must have the power to tax all parts of the empire. ”

“ If, therefore, the old régime be changed and the governmental authority be restored to the imperial court, if the councils of the whole empire be collected and the wise decisions received, and if we unite with all our heart and with all our strength to protect and maintain the empire, it will be able to range itself with the nations of the earth. This comprises our whole duty towards our country. ”

“ Are there common interests or compelling forces that have merged hitherto sovereign states into federal or imperial union? Is it conceivable that such mutually jealous nations as the European powers may surrender willingly their individual interests of minor importance for the sake of the larger good of the whole? ”

“ Besides the Imperial Parliament, each state has its own special legislature and laws, but railroads regarded as necessary for the defense of Germany or the facilitating of general communications may come under a law of the empire, even against the opposition of the members of the confederation whose territory is traversed. The states have their respective armies, but it is the emperor who disposes of them; he appoints the heads of the contingents, approves the generals, and has the right to establish fortresses over the whole territory of the empire. ”

“ Our Imperial Commissioners have reported to us that the prosperity and power of foreign nations are largely due to principles of constitutional government based on the will of the people, which assures bonds of union and sympathy between the Sovereign and his subjects. It is therefore our duty to consider by what means such a Constitution may be granted as shall retain the sovereign power in the hands of the Throne, and at the same time give effect to the wishes of the people in matters of administration. ”

“ The policy of imperial cooperation—the policy whereby each great colony became independent of outside control but voluntarily acted in concert with the mother country and the sister states on matters of common concern—sought to reconcile liberty and unity, nationhood and empire, to unite what was most practicable in the aims of the advocates of independence and the advocates of imperial federation. ”

“ Between lies a broad and shifting area, which each may enter, but within which the Imperial authority, in so far as is warranted by the constitution, must be accorded precedence over the authority of a state. "The matters over which the states preserve control," says a great German jurist, "cannot be separated completely from those to which extends the competence of the Empire. The various powers of government are intimately related the one to another. ”

“ For the German, indeed, Empire has meant, in great measure, the strengthening of a loose federal institution by the addition of a common personal superior: to us it means the turning of a loose union of separate states already under a common personal superior—the King—into a federal commonwealth living under some common federal institutions. But the aim is much the same; it is the integration of a people under a single scheme which shall be consistent with a large measure of political autonomy. We speak of imperial federation; and indeed our modern imperialism is closely allied to federalism. ”

“ We must wait, and must be content to wait, without dogmatizing. A formal and complete constitution of the Empire may not come into being for a long time to come. No artificial bonds can satisfy us. We start with a magnificent patrimony, desiring to see a natural development from the present loosely-associated and imperfectly organized collection of self-governing States into a better-jointed, sufficiently flexible, and more efficient union,'—The Hon. Alfred Deakin in his Presidential Address to the Imperial Federation League at Melbourne on June 14, 1905. ”

“ The impossibility of a cluster of thirteen small independent nations maintaining their independence against foreign aggression became immediately apparent, and, to remedy this evil, the thirteen States appointed delegates to form a convention authorized to weld them into one body as respected Imperial powers. This was attempted to be done by the establishment of a central body called a Congress, consisting of delegates from the component States, and invested with all the powers designated above as Imperial and quasi-Imperial powers. ”

“ The constitution of this congress remains indefinite: it is the crucial matter upon which the best thought of the world is working at the present time. But given the prospect of a suitable congress there can be little dispute that the great Imperial Powers among the Allies are now prepared for great and generous limitations of their sovereignty in the matter of armaments, of tropical possessions and of subject peoples, in the common interest of mankind. ”

“ If our foreign policy was going to rest not only on the basis of our Cabinet here, but, finally, on the whole of the British Empire, it would have to be a simpler policy, a more intelligible policy, and a policy which would in the end lead to less friction and greater security. No one would dispute the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. They would always look upon the British Government as the senior partner in the concern. ”

“ In the judgment of many good observers, a dissolution of the empire, so far as the Western colonies are concerned, is inevitable, unless Great Britain, adopting the plan urged by Franklin, becomes an imperial federation, with parliaments distinct and independent, the crown the only bond of union—the crown, and not the English parliament, being the titular and actual sovereign. ”

“ When we add to all this that there are many occasions, which we can here only allude to, on which a Colonial Governor can, and does, act so as to hinder courses of action which conflict with English interests or policy, it becomes clear enough that, as far as constitutional arrangements can secure the reality of sovereignty, the Imperial Parliament maintains its supremacy throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire. ”

“ Every aspect of policy affecting the conduct of the war and the question of peace has been examined by the Prime Ministers of the Empire and other members representative of all its parts.
'These meetings have proved of such value that the Imperial War Cabinet have thought it essential that certain modifications should be made in the existing channels of communication, so as to make consultation between the various Governments of the Empire in regard to Imperial policy as continuous and intimate as possible. ”

“ It has long been apparent that the Imperial Parliament, as at present constituted, is unequal to the double task of managing the affairs of a world-wide Empire while also performing the minor functions which in Federated States are assigned to the individual communities of the Federation. ”

“ Some extra-smart people shout at us: “You talk of imperialism! Nonsense! Where is your Emperor?” Why, what intelligent person does not know that it does not require a personal monarch to make an imperial government? Rome had an imperial government in her Senate long before Cæsar crossed the Rubicon. It may be the rule of a Republic over another people, arbitrary and irresponsible to the governed, and it will be an imperial government in its essence, however you may disguise the fact. ”

“ Among the Allies, the two chief Imperial Powers, measured by the extent of territory they control, are Britain and France, and each of these is more completely prepared to-day than ever it has been before to consider its imperial possessions as a trust for their inhabitants and for mankind, and its position in the more fertile and less settled regions of the world as that of a mandatory and trustee. These admissions involve a plain prospect and promise of the ultimate release and liberation of all the peoples in these great and variegated Empires to complete world-citizenship. ”

“ The restoration of the Imperial power meant the unification of the govern- mental powers, and the unification of the governmental powers meant the sur- render of the powers, rights, privileges, properties, and what-not possessed by the feudatories and Samurai, because, without a complete abdication by the feudal lords and vassals of their prerog- atives, a real unification of the govern- mental powers and the restoration of the Imperial authority was impossible. ”

“ If ever we are to have a Council of the Empire it will certainly have to be conducted more on the principles of the old Councils of the German Confederation, for which even Prince Bismarck—that honest hater of Parliaments—had a good word. ”

“ From the point of view of citizens of the United States we cannot but sympathize with a movement [Pg 438] which may establish a union of independent states into a realm of imperial government, less an emperor. Let there rather be two or three kings in the North, with one solid union government and a common and equal defence in case of war, than two or three foreign ministers with as many different policies and a divided and unequal defence. ”

“ You have to take things as they are, not as you might wish them to be. A Parliamentary Federation of the Empire, by forming an Imperial Parliament, in which all these great British possessions should be represented, I regard as utterly impracticable, because it is in antagonism with the constitution of this country, and also with the constitution of all the autonomous Colonies. ”

“ The more powerful Electors and Princes,Condition of States of the Empire. who wished to establish a strong government, met with the same opposition from their vassals, their cities, and even their peasants, which they themselves offered to the Emperor; their provincial Diets were torn with the same dissensions as those which disturbed the Imperial Diet. Yet here, more surely than in the Empire, the authority of the ruler was asserting itself, based upon that principle of independent territorialism which was eventually to triumph. ”

“ Conversely, if the younger nations wish to obtain support for their own requirements in foreign policy, they must first recognise the case for equality of sacrifice, as between the autonomous States of the Empire. Since the several States are too unequal at present, apart from other obstacles, for federation to be an acceptable solution, there seems to be no alternative except a system of alliance, such as could be put into practice by the machinery of a permanent Imperial Conference. ”