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nors) had been successfully terminated before the efforts to obtain tariff and treaty freedom commenced, the author might well have introduced his special subject by so saying, and by giving us the dates of the end of the one and the beginning of the other. But the date-relations are confused, and the year of the conclusion of the earlier contest is very variously stated.

On p. 61 (see also p. 234) it is said (when referring to the British North American provinces) that "Complete success attended the movement for responsible government in 1849. The question was settled when Parliament at Westminster in this year voted down resolutions" &c. This statement is contradicted at p. 93, where it is said that these decades (1846-1873) "were the decades in which the North American provinces were struggling for responsible government." It is contradicted also by the assertion on p. 111 that 1841-1859 was in Upper and Lower Canada "the period during which the contests for responsible government and for fiscal freedom were going on." Again, on p. 223 it is said that "the real contest for responsible government began in 1841. The struggle was over and complete

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in 1854." At still another place (p. 222) it is said that the movement for responsible government "began in Lower and Upper Canada in 1828," whereas in Lower Canada the movement was not for responsible government but for an elective Legislative Council. On p. 250 it is said that responsible government was conceded to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1848, to Prince Edward Island in 1853, and to Newfoundland in 1855; while at p. 268 it is said that "responsible government was established in New South Wales in 1850 and in Victoria and South Australia in 1854."

There can be little objection to fixing 1849 as the end of the struggle for responsible government, although, if a specific year must be mentioned, 1847-the year of Elgin's arrival in Canada as Governor-might be preferable. But the action of the British Parliament in 1849 to which the author refers had no relation to responsible government. The question there was not whether a Governor should follow the advice of his ministry, but whether a statute of the Canadian Parliament should be disallowed by interposition of the Crown. Had the author adhered to the 1849 date, and had he recognized that the struggle for fiscal freedom commenced (substantially) after that year, he would have been saved much of the confusion of Part IV of his book (pp. 213-281), entitled "Responsible Government and Fiscal and Diplomatic Freedom." Of responsible government he need have said little.

Fiscal Freedom. Free trade, as preached by Cobden and Bright, being as much an evangel as an economic principle, British governments, while releasing the colonies from the restrictions of the commercial system and the navigation laws, were unwilling to agree that any of the impediments of the old system should be introduced there-either protection or preferences, either bounties or bonuses.

The story with reference to protection (separated from the rest of the story of colonial political development) is a short one. The Canadian Parliament enacted the Cayley tariff in 1858 and the more important Galt tariff in 1859: in these, duties protective as against British goods were imposed; but the statutes, nevertheless, were permitted to go into operation. And, in consequence, no later colonial protective tariffs, in either the British American or Australasian colonies, were interfered with (p. 224). From his relation of these facts the author omits the extremely noteworthy communication of protest from the Canadian Government. It is one of the most important documents which ever left Canada, and is rarely overlooked.

Canada led the way also with reference to differential or preferential tariffs by providing in 1850 for reciprocal advantages with the other British American colonies (p. 154). Taking warning by this, the British Parliament, in arranging the constitutions of Australian colonies, inserted a clause prohibitive of such departures from the principles of free trade. Efforts for release from the restriction were partially successful in 1873, but completely only in 1895. Mr. Porritt tells the story, but disjointedly (pp. 93, 94, 111, 116, 118-21, 123, 134, 136, 278-9). The subjects of bounties and bonuses are adequately dealt with, but again disjointedly (pp. 85, 87, 99, 111, 114, 128-32, 137, 218).

Dealing with the veto on colonial legislation, the author finds it necessary to speak of statutes other than those of fiscal character. Interference with tariff legislation alone could have been very shortly dealt with. To the larger subject, the author devotes four chapters (pp. 252-281), and from them is omitted much that ought to appear in a general survey, for example, the conflict over the Canadian bill with reference to copyright. In other words, in this connection, as with reference to responsible government, the author has been able neither to separate his subject from the general story of political development, nor, on the other hand, succinctly to indicate the affiliations.

Era of Indifference. In various other respects, the author has fallen into mistake. For example, at p. 283 he says, "The era of indifference to oversea possessions extended from the loss of the North American colonies to the first Jubilee of the reign of Queen Victoria in 1887," and he divides the era into three periods: 1783-1859; 1859-1873; and 1873-1887 (pp. 283-4). Dating British indifference back to 1783 is to make incomprehensible the whole story of the persistent resistance of British statesmen to colonial efforts for responsible government. One effect of the American Revolution was to make clear that such colonies as Canada would some day assert their independence, but the other effect was to induce study of methods by which the arrival of such misfortune might be postponed. On 20 October 1789, the Colonial Secretary sent to Lord Dorchester (Governor in Chief of the British North American Colonies) a memorandum in which was elaborately discussed-"by what means the connection & dependence

of Canada, on this country, may be so preserved, & cultivated, as to be render'd most beneficial to Great Britain, during its continuance, & most permanent in its duration." Eventual independence was unavoidable, “But the real question now to be decided is, what system is best calculated to remove this event to a distant period & to render the connection, in the interval, advantageous to the Mother Country without oppression or injury to the Colony" (Canadian Constitutional Documents, 1789-1791, Part II, p. 982).

Indifference to retention of Canada arose and increased only as her value diminished. While her trade was regulated by the statutes of the British commercial system and by the navigation laws, anxiety, rather than indifference, was the attitude of the Colonial Office. Every exhibition of tendency toward self-government was countered. The Colonial Office was "the office at war with the colonies" (p. 312), and finally drove the Canadas into rebellion against it. The colonies were valuable, and the colonies must be retained. Adoption of the principles of free trade in commodities, and unrestricted access of foreign shipping, was the explanation of the commencement of the era of indifference. The colonies had ceased to be of value, and the colonies might go. That was natural. Termination of the indifference came, not in any particular year, but gradually with the growth of conviction that Canada had once more become valuable,-this time for her fighting capability.

Not recognizing this last mentioned fact, the author explains the end of the era of indifference by British loans for railway and other purposes; by emigrations which "created another link of empire and also stimulated a more widely extended popular interest in Great Britain in the dominions" (p. 403); by the work of the Royal Colonial Institute; by the propaganda of the Imperial Federation League; by the meetings of the Chambers of Commerce of the Empire; by the Colonial Conferences; by "the appearance on the scene of Germany as a new European competitor for oversea possessions" (p. 405). Most of these movements had but the slightest relation to the British change of attitude, and it was the desire to combine the colonies in a war-union (a kriegsverein, to use Lord Salisbury's word) that actuated the Imperial Federation League, and that engaged the attention of the first of the Colonial Conferences. The later meetings have all dealt with the same subject. Very clearly, then, until the adoption of free trade, while Canada was of enormous value to the United Kingdom, there was no British indifference. And after Canada became of military value, there was none. Between these periods, Canada was of no value, and was somewhat unanimously told that she might as well "cut the cords and go." That is as one would have expected.

Treaties. The author's treatment of the treaty-making power of the colonies is complete, if the phraseology employed is somewhat faulty. Commencing with the demand of New Brunswick in 1850 for "full power to treat

with foreign nations on all subjects of trade and shipping" (p. 168), the author proceeds to discussion of "the next definite claim for representation in treaty-making," not observing that representation was not at all what New Brunswick had demanded. Chapter V has in its title "The claim of direct representation in treaty-making conceded" (p. 173); but the only claim was that persons should be permitted "to proceed to Washington in order to confer with the British Minister there, and to afford him information with respect to the interests of the British North American provinces" (p. 178; and see pp. 184-5). That was all that was conceded, and to it the author attaches unmerited significance (p. 186; see note 4 on p. 189). Not until a later year (1884) was the Canadian representative associated with the British and given, in effect, the conduct of the work of negotiation (p. 191). A later Colonial Secretary, Ripon, did not like that situation, and, in his despatch of 28 June 1895, declared that "To give the colonies the power of negotiating treaties for themselves without reference to her Majesty's government would be to give them an international status as separate and sovereign states, and would be equivalent to breaking up the Empire into a number of independent states" (p. 195). He added that nevertheless "it would be desirable, generally, therefore, that he [the British diplomat] should have the assistance, either as a second plenipotentiary or in a subordinate capacity, as her Majesty's government think the circumstances require, of a delegate appointed by the colonial government" (p. 196).

The Ripon limitations were disregarded, and the right of Canada to negotiate her own commercial treaties was recognized in 1907 in connection with the arrangements for the Franco-Canadian treaty of that year. Freedom to negotiate such treaties had thus been achieved (pp. 198-212). But while it is true as the author says that the movement for it " was a direct and immediate outcome of the successful assertion of fiscal freedom" (p. 211), it is not correct to add "in the years from 1850 to 1867 by the British North American provinces." The successful assertion was in 1859—as above stated. It will be observed that Canada was well on the way to freedom to make treaties while the Australian colonies were still under statutory inhibition to grant preferences outside Australia.

Minor Points. Chapter VIII opens with an interesting forecast of "Seven distinct Crises"-of "seven occasions in the period from 1846 to 1907 on which the Colonial Office and Governments in London had to decide whether they would make concessions to demands from the self-governing colonies for larger powers over their fiscal legislation, or over developments growing out of the power which had accrued to them in connection with their fiscal and commercial policies" (p. 154). The first was in 1850, when a Canadian statute providing for differential duties with other British American colonies was allowed to go into operation (pp. 154-5, 278). The second was in 1859, when the Galt statute providing for protective duties was allowed to go into

operation (p. 155). The third, referred to in a later chapter, had reference to Canadian representation during negotiations at Washington (pp. 161–2). After fifty pages of extraneous matter, the fourth crisis is stated to have been the Australian struggle of 1867-73 for the power to enact preferential tariffs (pp. 212, 278, 389). For specification of the remaining three crises the reader is left to his own insight. At p. 14 is the statement that "Revenue derived from the duties imposed by British Possessions Acts was, in accordance with the terms of sections in these acts, covered into the treasuries of the provinces." It was one of the principal grievances of the Opposition leaders in Lower Canada not only that these revenues were not so placed, but that until about 1818 the Governors would give no information as to their amount.

When referring to the opposition of the Colonial Office to the waywardness of the colonies with regard to lapses from free-trade principles, Mr. Porritt frequently mentions "the Government propaganda for a free trade Empire" (pp. 79, 111, 112-117, 194, 389). Of propaganda in the ordinary sense, there was none. Colonial Office interference is not propaganda.

It is far from accurate to say of the Dominions that "all these political civilizations, with their parliaments, cabinets, executive departments of state, and judicial systems, are fashioned to the last detail after English models" (p. 19). The Dominions have no hereditary and ecclesiastical House of Lords. They have no combination of judicial and political functions in a Lord Chancellor and various Law Lords. And their Senators have no appellate jurisdiction over the laws courts. Other differences could easily be mentioned.

In various places the author refers to the Dominions "status of nation within the British Empire" (pp. 19, 43, 64, 408). Being without meaning, the phrase is one into which may be poured any notion one chooses to select. Whatever the author may have intended, it is not true that "Restrictions on fiscal legislation excepted, the colonies in the North American group, the colonies in the Australasian group, and the Cape Colony were, in 1867– 1873, quite near the present status of nation within the Empire” (p. 225). In a footnote to this statement, the author quotes from Mr. Lloyd George: "The British Empire is a League of nations,"-a rhetorical phrase that ought to be left to the platform and the newspapers.

When explaining the meaning of the ever-recurring Canadian phrase "national policy," the author says that it included, "(1) the continuous and wide immigration propaganda for the peopling of the provinces west of the Great Lakes, and (2) the development of the national grain route, by rail, lake, and canal from all the grain-growing provinces to tidewater ports on the Atlantic" (p. 121, note). That is incorrect.

When referring to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's tenure of the Colonial Secretaryship, the author says, "a tenure that is recalled with satisfaction in the capitals of the Dominions from the fact that it was in 1898 that the

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