MOTIVES TO IMPERIAL FEDERATION

CAPT. ALFRED T. MAHAN, U. S. N.

Within the last twenty years Great Britain has passed through two crises which should appeal strongly to the attention and intelligence—if not also to the practical sympathy-of Americans. Not only have they an analogy to problems we ourselves have met and solved in the course of our national existence, but the result to which they tend, by confirming the power of the British Empire, will probably strengthen likewise the external policy of the United States during the next generation. Interest, due in any case, is emphasized by the fact that the issue at stake has been the same in both these momentous instances. Under all superficial divergences and misleading appearances, the real question about Ireland and about South Africa has been, "Shall Great Britain exist as an Empire, or shall it fall to pieces by a series of willing or tolerated secessions?" As Joseph said to Pharaoh concerning the two visions of the lean kine and the blasted ears, the dream is one. The impetus given to Imperial Federation by the South African War, the striking root downward and bearing fruit upward of the imperial idea, has doubtless been immense; but the moment really decisive of the Empire's future as an Empire-is to be sought in the period when Mr. Parnell's effort at disruption obtained the support of Mr. Gladstone. That was the critical instant, which determined both that the conception should come to the birth, and that, being born, it should not be strangled in its cradle.

Copyright, 1902, by Frederick A. Richardson

An impressive article, published in 1885, on the eve of the general election which resulted in that disastrous stroke of policy, Mr. Gladstone's Irish Bill, both foretold its coming and, in a spirit of prophecy, perhaps not fully conscious of the scope of its utterance, predicted likewise the inevitable revulsion of the nation from a foreign policy marked by constant feebleness and repeated disgrace, as well as from an economical propaganda which, whatever its possible fitness to a future yet distant, had too far outrun the general sentiment of the people to be practicable. The foreign policy-summed up in the words of Candahar, Majuba, Suakim, Khartoum, and Gordon-was identified by the writer with the name of Mr. Gladstone; the economical programme with that of Mr. Chamberlain. Neither the one nor the other was longer acceptable. The issue indicated, and since fulfilled, was the abatement of interest in internal changes and the concentration of national sentiment upon external policy.

It needed only the announcement of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Bill of 1886 to precipitate the conclusion, for which men's minds were already prepared. The Irish measure, in form a matter of arrangement internal to the United Kingdom, was in essence one of which the gravest bearing was upon external policy; for in principle it involved the dissolution of the Empire. It is to the undying honor and distinction of Mr. Chamberlain that he quickly recognized the issue, and decided without hesitation that the existence of the nation and of the Empire, in undiminished power, involved the interests of every class of the community, and therefore utterly exceeded in immediate importance all projects of social readjustment. Subordinating to the general welfare the objects with which he had been most closely associated, he separated himself from the party of his lifelong allegiance, in which lay the best hope of accomplishing his social programme, and thenceforth has given preeminence to the imperial interests which he saw threatened. This postponement of

political objects involved a sacrifice of personal ambition, to be appreciated only by recalling the conditions of that time. The same astute observer, writing but a year later, when the moment

* * *

ous step had been taken, derided its finality. "Mr. Chamberlain is the obvious successor of Mr. Gladstone in leadership of the democracy. It is idle to suppose he would sacrifice this prospect for the sake of taking a subordinate position in a Conservative or even a Coalition Ministry. Sooner or later the logic of facts must separate him from his present associates. His assistance to Unionists is welcome as long as it lasts. Of its essence, however, it is transitory. Mr. Chamberlain will return to the Liberal fold, probably at no remote date." The logic of one great thought, Imperial Unity, the exclusive leading of the single eye, has falsified these predictions; but it is only fair to accept their measurement of what Mr. Chamberlain surrendered by his act.

It is to be apprehended that the recent striking outburst of blended national and imperial sentiments in Great Britain and her colonies, the display of unified enthusiasm sweeping over the various quarters of the Empire, has been an unpleasant surprise to the world at large. In it has been recognized the strong bond of national feeling, oneness of origin and blood, joined to and inspiring the imperial conviction which involves a fundamental unity of policy. If, in the union of the two, deed answered to word, if success followed upon attempt, a power nothing short of new had arisen in the world. The fluttering conception of twenty years ago had become a reality; incipient, perhaps, but with what a possible future! To this, doubtless, has been due in great part the corresponding unanimity of denunciation on the Continent. An unexpected manifestation of power and resolution has elicited an echoing outcry from disappointed anticipation. It is not quite thirty years (1874) since a foreign naval captain remarked to me that in his belief England was a "colosse à pieds d'argile." This impression was general. The phrase voiced a wish as well as a thought; and it may be said that then there was much to justify the implied prophecy, whether it took the shape of a hope or a fear, prompted by dislike or by affection. The tendency of the great money-getting era of trade and material prosperity, of exclusive devotion to purely commercial ideas,

of the prevalence of strictly national, internal, domestic interests over colonial sympathies and imperial ambitions, was then culminating to its decline; and one looked in vain for the appearance of higher aspirations and broader views, bearing promise of a fresh spring to national life. A down grade seemed at hand.

After the long supremacy of the dollars-and-cents standards of policy, which arose and flourished in the middle of the nineteenth century, to languish and droop with its closing decades, experience is refreshed, and hope stimulated, by the sight of two great peoples, who speak the same tongue and inherit the same tradition, casting aside considerations of mere monetary cost and abandoning themselves to the domination of a lofty ideal. This the United States did in 1861 under the tremendous impetus exerted by the simple words "The Union," which, cherished almost to idolatry by the boyhood of the North during preceding generations, as the writer well remembers,-lifted the nation to its feet as one man, when disruption threatened. The Union was to us a personification, devotion to which probably afforded the nearest approach to personal loyalty that the spirit of our institutions warrants. Again, although to a less degree, in the Philippines matter, where no such commanding motive or long tradition exists to inspire, there is nevertheless to be found, surely disengaging itself from the confused tumult of impressions inevitable upon decisions taken in the heat of pressing action, the deep conviction, widespread among the people, that here is no mere question of gain or loss, of land or money, but one of moral responsibility. Upon us has devolved, by an inevitable sequence of causes, responsibility to our conscience for an assemblage of peoples in moral and political childhood; and responsibility further to the world at large, and to history, the supreme earthly judge of men's actions,-for our course in the emergency thrust upon us. As such, the United States has accepted the burden. Its duties are not to be discharged by throwing them overboard, or by wrapping our political talent in a napkin for our own national security and ease.

The noble record of Great Britain in Egypt during the past

twenty years, justly considered, gives inspiration and direction to our purposes for the Philippines. External conditions are doubtless most diverse; but, if the informing spirit be the same, it will adapt itself to the circumstances, and the good will find the way to manifest itself in the damp lowlands and mountains of the islands as surely as in the dry Nile Valley. Here the example has been set us for encouragement; and to cavilers at the integrity of our purpose, or the advantage of our efforts to a subject people, we have but to cite Egypt, which, like the Philippines, and but a few years before them, is emerging from a long period of oppression, to advance through national childhood to such measure of self-administration as its people may prove fit for.

As regards the question of federal union, the priority of experience is reversed. However great the difference of conditions here presented to the British Empire and to America,and it is at least greater than the diversity between the Philippines and Egypt, the United States has been first to find a solution. The American colonies began their attempt under the difficulty of mutual alienation, due to long standing tradition, and with interests differing probably more radically than those which now exist between the several English-speaking parts of the British Empire. Despite this serious initial obstacle, the thirteen original States, aided later by those afterwards constituted, worked out the problem of union through a prolonged period of perplexity, anxiety, repulsion, and dissension, to final achievement, in the completeness of which the men of today have almost lost the very memory of the antecedent travail, and of the narrow margin by which ruin was more than once escaped. Here, as in Egypt, but with more vital issues, there is the cheering example of success; wrung in this instance out of the jaws of imminent failure. Hence, while the difference of circumstances surrounding the problem of Imperial Federation precludes in great measure any advantage of precedents to be found in the historic path by which the American communities made their way to union, it may safely be argued that, if the informing