תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

of the people, who have the sole right of imposing taxes for the support of the colony. To mention a particular instance, by way of illustrating the value of a modern colony, we name that in North America. There is no colony of which the progress has been more satisfactory than that of the English there. There the emigrant found plenty of good land, and liberty to manage his own affairs in his own way, the two chief requisites for the prosperity of all new colonies. The general advantages which Europe has derived from the colonization of the American continent consist, first, in the increase of enjoyments; and, secondly, in the augmentation of its industry. The various products of America imported into Europe furnish the people of this continent with a variety of commodities which they could not otherwise have obtained, and so contributed to increase their enjoyments. The colonisation of America, it will be allowed, has contributed to augment the industry of all those countries which trade with it. The particular advantages which England derives from the colonies which belong to it are of two different natures: first, those common advantages which every empire derives from the provinces subject to its sway; and, secondly, those peculiar advantages which result from provinces of so peculiar a nature as the English colonies in the New World. These latter advantages may be called the trading facilities enjoyed by the mother country with its colonies. These advantages, in the case of the United States of America, are now lost to England, owing to the severance of the connection between the two countries; and the American Congress has lately levied such a high rate of duties on imported goods, as would, if it were not for the anomalous state of affairs existing at the present time, practically exclude business transactions with Europeans. This policy has been adopted to protect the native manufacturer. Canada still belongs to England, and we have no cause to fear its Government pursuing the same mistaken policy, because it knows that Britain would be able to obtain redress.

We have endeavoured to show that the benefits are reciprocal between the old country and her colonies; but the question being raised whether the connection should be a permanent one, we reply in the affirmative, for the following reasons:-First, because most of the arguments which are urged in favour of the original colonization remain in force for ages to come. Secondly, because the only instance on record in modern times (the United States) where a colony has thrown off its allegiance to the British Crown has proved to be no blessing to its people. No one by a stretch of his imagination can conceive of any calamity as likely to have happened to the Americans in consequence of their remaining under the protection of England, like unto that which is now afflicting that unhappy people,-a calamity which will be felt to the last day of its existence as a nation. Were Canada to declare its independence, does any rational man believe it would be able to hold its own against its powerful Southern neighbours ? No; withdrawal from

the protection of England means, with her, absorption into the American republic.

A colony that has been treated with the consideration which Britain shows to those which are attached to it by ties of sympathy and common descent, is not justified in rising in rebellion against its protector. In ancient times it was argued by the Corcyræans, that "a colony ought to respect the mother country as long as the mother country deals justly and kindly by it; but if the colony be injured and wrongly used by the mother country, then the tie is broken, and they become alienated from each other, because colonists are not sent out as subjects, but as free men, to have equal rights with those who remain at home." If it once became a probable eventuality that English colonies would, in the course of time, sever the connection with the metropolis, or mother country, many capitalists would refuse to invest their money in our colonial dependencies, thus greatly increasing the only drawback which now exists to the rapid progress of the colonies. To propose that Great Britain should voluntarily give up authority over her settle ments, would be to propose such a measure as never would be adopted by any nation. Such sacrifices, though they might possibly be agreeable to the interest, are always mortifying to the pride, of every nation. The loss we are now sustaining by the United States no longer belonging to us is too apparent to require dwelling upon. M. H. goes back to the history of ancient colonization by the Greeks and Romans to support the position he takes in this debate; but as their various systems are foreign to the subject in hand, we dismiss his opening article, and await his views on the results of modern colonization. R. R.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

WE closed our first article by a promise to show that a review of the modern colonial policy of Europe will negative the proposition in debate. To redeem our pledge, we have only to glance at the history of the principal colonial powers.

Modern colonization originated with the necessities of Italian commerce. Pisa, Genoa, and Venice established factories in Egypt and the Levant, the same in nature and design as our Anglo-Chinese seaports. The Genoese seized parts of the Crimea, and conducted their mercantile factories on principles that have been much commended; but the Venetian occupation of the Ionian Isles was more military than commercial. The spirit of colonial enterprise could not, however, be evoked while commerce was in swaddling bands, trade confined to land carriage, and navigation to the coasting trade of the Mediterranean Sea. The discovery of the polarity of the magnet transferred traffic from land to water, and the tedious, circuitous, and perilous coasting trade was exchanged for the bolder, safer, and more expeditious voyage on the ocean. The daring spirit of Henry the Navigator, the sagacity of Columbus, the foresight and firmness of our Maiden Queen in disputing the claims of Spain and Portugal to the sovereignty of all discovered lands in both

hemispheres, and the European mania for gold and glory, at last roused the spirit of modern colonization.

Venetian commerce with India, viâ Egypt, was too tempting a monopoly to escape the envy of Europe. To overreach the Italian, the Portuguese sought some other route to the East. Paradoxically enough, Columbus sought to get to the East by sailing to the West. Bartolomeo Diaz discovered the Cape of Storms; Vasco de Gama rounded it, and his king gave it the name of the Cape of Good Hope. Military garrisons dotted the coast, first to protect their trade, and then to subjugate the natives. Such settlements in India grew into an empire, of which Goa became the seat of government. In South America, Brazil was colonized. But the object of Portugal was to enrich herself and extend the dominions of the Papacy. Her heroic and chivalrous enterprise soon sunk into effeminacy under luxury and the enthraldom of an all-grasping priesthood. Subjugated by Spain in Europe, and harassed by the Dutch, who wrested some of her Brazilian provinces, Portugal began to decline as a colonial power. Her system was doubly oppressive politically and spiritually; and at the present time all her most important settlements have, by the assertion of their independence, declared that the permanent connection of the colonies with the mother country is not desirable. The discovery of San Salvador deluged Spain with gold, and America and her islands with blood. In three years Cortez conquered Mexico, and before the year 1535 Pizarro overran Peru, Chili, and Quito. In the course of another twelve months New Grenada and Tierra Firma became parts of the splendid colonial empire of Spain. Having pillaged the natives of all their miserable trinkets, the Spaniards commenced the search for hidden treasures. Commercial towns dotted the coasts, and forts frowned upon the mines in the interior. Spain colonized as she conquered-in defiance of every feeling of humanity. Colonial trade was restricted to Seville, Porto Bello, and Vera Cruz, to enrich the favoured few in the mother state, and to impoverish the many in the settlements. For a time her suicidal policy nurtured Lima, Mexico, and Quito into populous cities; but her short-sighted policy ultimately dismembered her colonial empire. She destroyed more nations than she planted. Her daughters ultimately asserted their independence, and once more history declares that the permanent connection of the colonies with the mother country is not desirable.

A handful of Protestants snatched their land-marshes and sand hills-from the ocean, and their place in the European family of nations from under the sceptre of Spain. For a time, the Dutch were contented with the trade of carriers from Lisbon to other European ports; but refusing the continuance of this lucrative traffic, Holland became a dangerous and successful rival. Her fleets soon absorbed the ocean trade with India. The Dutch East India Company rose out of Spanish and Portuguese desire to make the connection of the colonies with the mother state permanent. The merchants of Antwerp and Amsterdam monopolized the trade

with Japan; and Holland, by the occupation of the Cape of Good Hope, rose into the third great colonial power in Europe. But their love of independence was one-sided. A system of exclusiveness and misrule was the origin of Dutch colonial greatness. That very system of exclusiveness and tyranny was re-established in every Dutch settlement; and Holland has now no colonies of which she can boast. Nowhere was the connection of colonies with the mother state less desirable than between Dutch settlements and Holland. Let the eye rest upon Java, before and after its occupation by the British, under Sir Stamford Raffles, and a solemn negative is given to the question at the head of this article.

The gentlest of slave-masters, and among the most liberal in colonial policy, is France. The least enterprising, and the least successful in colonial schemes, are the French. Her greatest statesman, in this relation, was Colbert. With the usual energies of a Protestant mind, he projected a gigantic scheme of French colonization, to embrace the western half of North America. He succeeded in improving the roads and canals of his country, extended her commerce, and taught her sons to manufacture. He built government docks, created a navy, originated the French census, founded libraries and academies, laid the foundations of some of the finest palaces and boulevards of Paris, constructed the quays on the banks of the Seine, and designed some of the triumphal arches which graced the finest European capital. But not even Colbert could permamently connect colonies with the mother state. St. Domingo revolted from French domination, and Hayti is the only West India island governed by the black races in that archipelago. Buccaneers and smugglers raised her insular possessions into importance; but their connection with France laid them at the mercy of British fleets. Louisiana was abandoned, reclaimed, and then sold to her present owners. New France was turned into British Canada. French Acadia became the British Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Her extensive Indian possessions dwindled down, under our Clives, Hastings, and Wellesleys, into Pondicherry, Karical, and the Isle of Bourbon. Had French colonization been based on the principles of Grecian and Phoenician systems, France would have found strength and wealth where she had only so many vulnerable points for mortal wounds.

Last in the field, and long the least in colonial enterprise, was Britain. The spirit to acquire, conquer, and colonize awoke under Elizabeth, was strengthened under Cromwell, stunned under our Walpoles, Rockinghams, and Norths, revived when general European wars thrust colonies into her hands as fast as battles were won on sea and land. The history of her colonial policy is to be admired only by contrasting it with those of Venice, Portugal, Spain, and Holland. Less illiberal and suicidal than those of others, but illiberal, selfish, and suicidal enough.

The history of Britain, from first to last, is but a history of colonization. Greek and Phoenician settlements on our southern coasts

carry the imagination further back than history can travel. The Saxon chronicles bring the first inhabitants of Britain from Armenia. Maldon, in the reign of Claudius, was the first Roman colony. Under the mild administration of Agricola, the Romans fairly settled down as colonists; and besides the earthen rampart of Adrian, th wall of Severus, they bequeathed some knowledge of law and soci order. But will our friends maintain, in their affirmative articles, that the permanent connection of Britain with Rome was desirable? Desirable or undesirable, the Goths, Huns, and Vandals decided. the question in Italy; and the Picts, Scots, and Saxons in Britain, without waiting for the opinion of the British Controversialist. The blue-eyed and light-haired races of Northern Germany, whom Rome could not conquer, seized our island, which the Roman system of colonization had enslaved, civilized, and rendered effeminate. The Saxon Heptarchy rose into existence, and, because the colonists dissolved the connection between the colony and the mother-state, England began her career of colonization.

The piratical settlements in the Isle of Thanet and in Northumberland, and the short-lived Anglo-Danish monarchy, need not detain us. It is enough, in passing, to note that it was a happy thing for the world that the connection of the colonies with Denmark was not made permanent. The same is the verdict pronounced by the Norman Conquest. The Normans infused a commercial element into the Saxon character; but had Britain been permanently connected with the Frankish empire, when would the British Controversialist have come into existence ?

The English failed, like the Dutch, in opening a way to India through the Arctic seas. The English, like the Portuguese and the Dutch, were successful in rounding the Cape of Storms. In 1591, they unfurled a flag on the coasts of Hindostan which still braves the battle and the breeze. For seventy years, however, the Island of St. Helena, Fort George at Madras, and a few trading establishments on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, were the British possessions required to protect our commerce. After a course of alternate vigour and decline up to the middle of the eighteenth century, the East India Company at length found itself at the head of a great empire, which grew upon the decay of the Mogul power, and the extinction of French influence, under the brilliant achievements of Clive and Hastings.

all

Impelled by a destiny equally unforeseen, England had been laying the foundation-stone of a more glorious empire in the West. In 1606, the London and Plymouth Companies were formed; the former to colonize in South, and the latter in North America. These companies were constituted on the most selfish of principles. To monopolize trade between the settlements and privileged persons at home was their sole aim and result. Their dissolution was necessary to the enjoyment of a constitution suited to the growing wants of peoples and nations that naturally thought of somethi beyond the aggrandizement of a country they had forsaken.

[blocks in formation]
« הקודםהמשך »