subordinate to the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament.
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Rule 3
The Imperial Parliament now admits and acts upon the admission, that any one of the Dominions has acquired a moral right to as much independence, at any rate in regard to matters occurring within the territory of such Dominion, as can from the nature of things be conceded to any country which still forms part of the British Empire.
Take the following illustration of the extent of such internal independence:
Parliament does not (except at the wish of a Dominion) legislate with respect to matters which merely concern the internal interests of such Dominion, e.g. New Zealand.31
The legislature of any Dominion has within the territorial limits of such Dominion power to legislate in regard to any matter which solely concerns the internal interest of such Dominion.
The power of the Crown, i.e. of the British ministry, to veto or disallow in any way32 any Bill passed by the legislature of a Dominion, e.g. New Zealand, is now most sparingly exercised, and will hardly be used unless the Bill directly interferes with Imperial interests or is as regards the colonial legislature ultra vires. Thus the Crown, or in other words a British ministry, will now not veto or disallow any Bill passed by the legislature of a Dominion on the ground that such Bill is indirectly opposed to the interests of the United Kingdom, or contradicts legal principles generally upheld in England, e.g. the principle of free trade.
The British Government will not interfere with the executive action of the Government (e.g. of New Zealand) in the giving or the withholding of pardon for crime, in regard to transactions taking place wholly within the territory of New Zealand.33
Any Dominion has now a full and admitted right to raise military or naval forces for its own defence. And the policy of England is in the main to withdraw the English Army from the Dominions and to encourage any Dominion to provide for its own defence and to raise
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for itself a Navy, and thereby contribute to the defensive power of the British Empire.
The Imperial Government is now ready at the wish of a Dominion to exclude from its constitution, either partially or wholly, the right of appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court of such Dominion to the Privy Council.34
The Imperial Government also is now ready at the wish of a Dominion to grant to such Dominion the power to amend by law the constitution thereof though created under an Act of the Imperial Parliament.35
Rule 4
The habit has now grown up that conferences should be held from time to time in England, at which shall be present the Premier of England and the Premier of each Dominion, for consultation and discussion on all matters concerning the interest and the policy of the Empire, and that such conferences should be from time to time held may now, it is submitted, be considered a moral right of each Dominion.
These conferences, which were quite unthought of thirty years ago, and which did not receive their present form until the year 1907, mark in a very striking manner a gradual and therefore the more important change in the relations between England and the self-governing colonies.
The answer then to the question before us36 as to the difference between the relation of England (or in strictness of the Imperial Parliament) to the self-governing colonies37 in 1884 and her relation to the Dominions in 1914 can thus be summed up: At the former period England conceded to the self-governing colonies as much of independence as was necessary to give to such colonies the real management in their internal or local affairs. But English statesmen at that
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date did intend to retain for the Imperial Parliament, and the Imperial Government as representing such Parliament, a real and effective control over the action of the ministry and the legislature of each self-governing colony in so far as that control was not palpably inconsistent with independence as regards the management of strictly local affairs. In 1914 the colonial policy of England is to grant to every Dominion absolute, unfettered, complete local autonomy,38 in so far as such perfect self-government by a Dominion does not clearly interfere with loyalty of the Dominion to the Empire. The two relations of England to the self-governing colonies—now called Dominions—are, it may be objected, simply one and the same relation described in somewhat different language. The objection is plausible, but not sound. My effort has been to describe two different ways of looking at one and the same relation, and the results of this difference of view are of practical consequence. In 1884 it was admitted, as it is to-day, that the self-governing colonies must have rights of self-government. But in 1884 the exercise of self-government on the part of any colony was regarded as subordinate to real control by the English Parliament and Crown of colonial legislation which might be opposed to English interests or to English ideals of political prudence. In 1914 the self-government, e.g., of New Zealand means absolute, unfettered, complete autonomy, without consulting English ideas of expediency or even of moral duty. The one limit to this complete independence in regard to local government is that it is confined to really local matters and does not trench upon loyalty to the Empire. The independence of the Dominion, in short, means nowadays as much of independence as is compatible with each Dominion remaining part of the Empire.
Second Question
What are the changes of opinion which have led up to the altered relation between England and the Dominions?39
In the early Victorian era [and even in the mid-Victorian era] there were two rough-and-ready solutions for what was regarded, with some impatience,
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by the British statesmen of that day as the “Colonial problem.” The one was centralisation—the government, that is, except in relatively trivial matters, of all the outlying parts of the Empire from an office in Downing Street. The other was disintegration—the acquiescence in, perhaps the encouragement of, a process of successive “hivings off” by which, without the hazards or embitterments of coercion, each community, as it grew to political manhood, would follow the example of the American Colonies, and start an independent and sovereign existence of its own. After 70 years’ experience of Imperial evolution, it may be said with confidence that neither of these theories commands the faintest support to-day, either at home or in any part of our self-governing Empire. We were saved from their adoption—some people would say by the favour of Providence—or (to adopt a more flattering hypothesis) by the political instinct of our race. And just in proportion as centralisation was seen to be increasingly absurd, so has disintegration been felt to be increasingly impossible. Whether in the United Kingdom, or in any one of the great communities which you represent, we each of us are, and we each of us intend to remain, master in our own household. This is, here at home and throughout the Dominions, the life-blood of our polity. It is the articulus stantis aut cadentis Imperii.40
These words are a true statement of patent facts, but it will on examination be found that the change during recent years in English opinion, and also in colonial opinion, with regard to the relation between England and the Dominions presents rather more comlexity than at first sight may be apparent41 to a casual reader of Mr. Asquith’s address. Up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and even as late as 1884, many Englishmen, including a considerable number of our older statemen, held that the solution of the colonial problem was to be found wholly in the willingness of England to permit and even to promote the separation from the Empire of any
