History of the British Empire by Charles Payne

Author:Charles Payne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ozymandias Press

THE SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES OF THE SOUTH

THE THIRD QUARTER OF THE nineteenth century found nine self-governing British colonies south of the equator; in the island of Australia were New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland; across a narrow strait to the southeast was Tasmania; twelve hundred miles away were the islands composing New Zealand; and on the southern extremity of Africa there were Cape Colony and Natal. To discuss the growth and prospects of each of these would be quite impossible with the space at our disposal. We shall limit our effort to a study of the development of a peculiarly vigorous socialistic democracy in Australasia, more particularly in New Zealand, and to the territorial expansion of South Africa with its resultant problems. For both of these have had a direct reaction on the Empire and on the world.

It must be remembered that time and again, the world over, the growth of really democratic self-government has been limited and conditioned by the menace of external dangers, the anxieties and burdens of severe internal problems, the pressure of heavy national responsibilities. Every state in Europe has for ages looked across its frontiers at frowning fortresses and malignant bayonets, and has had to subordinate every other consideration to the primary one of defense. Even in the new world of America it has been difficult at any time to approach with an entirely serene mind questions directly bearing on the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. And while it is true that in spite of these handicaps liberty and self-government have steadily spread over the world it is also true that the advance has been slow, halting, and incomplete. Few would assert that the problems of democracy have been solved even in Britain, France and the United States, completely as these countries are committed to the democratic ideal. And the reason is an excellent one, – they have not yet attained either internal harmony or external security, and they are preoccupied with a multitude of questions that must be answered. For after all public safety is more insistent than public liberty.

Other things being equal, then, we might expect that where the preoccupation has been least anxious, the pressure least burdensome, the progress towards an ordered freedom, towards courageous experiments in government by the people, should be most rapid and most marked. England, protected by her seas, Venice, by her lagoons, Switzerland, by her mountains, are all cases in point, but the most notable example in the modern world is that of the South Pacific colonies of Britain. Encircled by the inviolate sea, far from the rivalries and armaments of Europe, with no menacing neighbor and with no temptation to aggression, with a homogeneous population of rugged and freedom-loving stock, Australia and New Zealand might well be expected to lead the world in popular government. They could try experiments from which America and Europe might reasonably shrink, knowing that temporary failure would mean no danger of anarchy, disintegration or foreign attack.

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