Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 446
8. Imperial Federation. The question of greatest interest in connection with the large self-governing colonies of Great Britain is their political future. Their rapidly increasing population and the development of their natural resources throw into a strong light the important position they are destined to hold in the course of the century now opening. The idea of their manifest destiny as independent states, prevalent fifty years ago, has now receded into the background. The new wave of imperialism that has affected public opinion in all the great states of the world has fascinated the national ambitions of all the British subjects with the possibility of the future power of their colossal empire. The smaller destiny of isolated independence is set aside in favor of participating in the plenitude of power possible in union. The combined efforts of Britain and the colonies called forth by the Transvaal War have done much to strengthen this feeling. But with the acceptance of this new point of view, the troubled question of interimperial relations again looms large upon the horizon. The question is almost identical with the great colonial controversy of the eighteenth century already discussed. But the frame of mind in which it is approached on both sides, and the riper political experience now available, remove it to another plane. Yet it does not seem possible that another generation can go by and find Canada and Australia still outside of the imperial councils; it hardly seems possible that the group of ministers who control the foreign policy of the empire can permanently remain the appointees of the electorate of the British Isles, to the exclusion of the British dominions beyond the seas. If independence is no longer to be the future ideal of the colonies, and since geographical reasons forbid a complete amalgamation, it looks as if the manifest destiny of the colonial system must now be sought in imperial federation. The movement that has been made in that direction has enlisted the support of influential men in all parts of the empire; but as yet they are only a minority. It seems, nevertheless, as if the continued growth of the colonies, and the more and more imperative needs of imperial defense, will force the question to the front. The difficulty to be overcome is great. If a federal parliament is formed, it obviously will not exercise authority over the internal affairs of the British Isles. There must therefore be two parliaments in Great Britain itself, the insular parliament and the supreme federal body. It will not therefore be sufficient to admit colonial representatives to the parliament at Westminster, but will be necessary to totally reconstruct the legislative power in the United Kingdom. The dead weight of inertia to be encountered, before such a change can be effected, will be realized by all who are acquainted with the British political temperament.
9. Recent Colonial Expansion of European States. But it is now necessary to turn to the consideration of the colonial expansion in recent times of the other great states of Europe, and the methods they have adopted in the administration of their dependencies. Since the year 1880 the territorial area claimed by the great powers as their dependencies has vastly increased. The available parts of Asia, and the unclaimed islands of the Pacific have fallen into European hands; the largest prey has been found in the continent of Africa, which has practically been parceled out among the great states. France, which had commenced the conquest of Algiers as early as 1830, has extended its possessions in north Africa, and holds not only all Algeria, but Tunis, French West Africa, the Sahara, Wadai, Sénégal, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Dahomey, and French Congo. This territory includes nearly all of the desert, the larger part of the valley of the Niger, and central Africa north of the Congo. The island of Madagascar was seized in 1895. France has also (beginning in 1861) obtained a large part of Indo-China (forming the dependencies of Cochin China, Tonkin, Annam, and Cambodia). The French dependencies now include in all an area of 3,740,000 square miles, and a population of 56,000,000 people. As the larger part of this area is occupied by an uncivilized native population (in Madagascar, for example, there are less than two thousand Frenchmen in a population of two and a quarter millions), it has remained to a great extent either under military government (as in central Africa) or under appointed officials with military support (Madagascar, Indo-China). Where possible, however, in the older colonies of France, self-government is introduced; Martinique and Guadaloupe have each elected councils; so too has New Caledonia in the south Pacific. Algeria is governed as part of France, being divided into departments and represented in the Senate and in the Chamber of Deputies. Nowhere has more thought been directed to the theory of colonial government than in France, the largest part of the theoretical literature of recent times on the subject being French. In spite of the fact that the maintenance of the new colonial system proves a heavy burden on the French exchequer, the dream of a colonial empire persists. It is characteristic of the French people, that while the English still keep their vast colonial possessions unrepresented in the parliament of the mother country, France has already adopted the principle of colonial representation. Cochin China, French India (Pondicherry and four other towns), Guiana, and Sénégal each elect one deputy; Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Réunion each elect two. These last three, as well as French India, are represented by one senator each.
The expansion of Germany, which began in 1884, has taken the form of establishing “protectorates” and “spheres of influence,” rather than colonial establishments in the true sense. The territory thus brought into dependence on the German empire amounts to one million square miles. Most of it is in Africa, and is made up of Togoland, the Cameroons, German Southwest Africa, German East Africa, etc. The administration carried on by imperial governors, commissioners, secretaries, etc., is similar to that of a British crown colony of the primary type. There is scarcely any European population. Italy also has established African dependencies (Eritrea, Italian Somali Land) whose general character and whose administration are similar to those of Germany. The colonial possessions of the Netherlands, though not attributable to the recent European expansion, are of great wealth and importance. Their population outnumbers that of the mother country in the ratio of seven to one, although of the thirty-five million inhabitants less than one hundred thousand are white. The elective principle is nowhere in use. The governor of the Dutch East Indies, the members of his assistant council, and the provincial “residents” and district “controllers” are all appointed officials. The administration of the colony, however, must be in accord with the principles laid down in a Dutch statute of 1854, for the “government of Netherlands India.”
10. The Dependencies of the United States. The most recent chapter in the history of colonial expansion is offered by the acquisition on the part of the United States of a number of dependent territories. The Hawaiian Islands, annexed in 1898, may be passed over; admitted to territorial status (1900) and having a government similar to that of the other territories of the United States, they are not to be looked upon as a dependency. But the case is different with the islands acquired by cession from Spain (1898), as the result of the Spanish-American War (Porto Rico, the Philippines, Guam), and with Tutuila, Manua, etc., in the Samoan group, annexed in 1899 at the request of their inhabitants. Porto Rico is controlled by a governor and an executive council appointed by the President of the United States, and a legislature of which the lower house is elected by the people, while the upper house consists of the executive council. Of this branch of the legislature at least five, out of a total of eleven, must be natives of the island. The principle here adopted of forming a legislative body by using an executive council containing a number of natives, resembles somewhat the system already described as used in the government of British India. The addition of a lower house altogether elected makes the government much more nearly democratic than that of India, and assimilates it very closely with the government of Barbados. The government of the Philippine Islands has not yet passed the constructive stage. For some time after the defeat of Spain, and even after the formal cession of the islands, the administration remained in the hands of the military authorities. This was superseded by civil government (July 1, 1901) vested in a commission of officials nominated by the President. An act of Congress (July, 1902) validated the creation of the civil government thus established, and the exercise of power granted to it by executive order. The commission thus formed consists of a governor with seven commissioners, four being Americans and three Filipinos. The American commissioners are respectively assigned to the departments of commerce and police, finance and justice, public instruction, and the interior. The same act of Congress provides for the future government of the Philippines. Two years after the completion of a census and the pacification of the islands, a new government will be formed in which the commission will remain as the executive, but will in part lose its legislative functions. There will be a bicameral legislature of which the commission will form the upper house, the lower house (Philippine Assembly) to consist of delegates elected from all of the people except the non-Christian tribes.
The acquisition of the above dependencies by the United States has occasioned in recent years a vast amount of discussion. It has been a matter of earnest debate as to whether the acquisition of such distant insular territory as the Philippines, peopled by races altogether alien, in part uncivilized, and in part openly hostile, was either just or profitable. Even the constitutionality of such a proceeding was widely denied. The last question has been set at rest by the interpretation of the courts, and by the overwhelming force of accomplished fact. The plain truth is that at the making of the Constitution, the acquisition of such territory as the Philippines was not considered, either one way or the other. The result is that in reality the Constitution has nothing to say about it. But the convenient doctrine of implied powers has been made to meet the case. The question involving the keenest discussion was that of the tariff. It was held by many that the provision of the Constitution that the tariff must be uniform throughout the United States prevented Congress from making a tariff barrier between the republic and its new dependencies. The Supreme Court, however, in the Insular Cases of 1901, has decided that this is not the case. In consequence the action of Congress in setting up the present tariff is constitutional.
It may be observed in conclusion, that the tendency of the United States in dealing with its dependencies has been to proceed further in the direction of popular government than English experience would warrant. The system contemplated in the Philippines of instituting a lower house elected by the natives, would meet with no approval if suggested for the governance of British India. It has been difficult for Americans, in whose minds the principle of popular government has always assumed a more sharply theoretical form than is current with the English, to reconcile themselves to the “possession” of a dependent community. Common sense has shown the impossibility of governing the Philippine Islands on the same plan as Massachusetts or California. Yet the positive assertion of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” reads a little awkwardly in connection with the government of a group of islands by a commission sent to them from a distant country, and with the exclusion of the unchristian tribes from its future governance. But as usual the brute force of circumstances proves too strong for abstract theory, even when clothed with the historic authority of the Declaration of Independence. The islands have come, by the fortunes of a just war, into the possession of the United States. It has become a moral duty to govern them, and only an infatuated worship of political abstractions could counsel handing them over to the wrangling anarchy of their half-civilized inhabitants.
READINGS SUGGESTED
Egerton, H. E., Short History of British Colonial Policy (1897), bk. ii.
Ridges, E. A., Constitutional Law of England (1905), part vi, chap. ii (The Colonies).
Snow, A. H., The Administration of Dependencies (1902), chapters xxvi, xxvii.
FURTHER AUTHORITIES
Lewis, Sir G. C., Government of Dependencies (1841).
Todd, A., Parliamentary Government in British Colonies (1880).
Payne, E. J., Colonies and Colonial Federations (1905).
Holland, B., Imperium et Libertas (1901).
Zimmermann, A., Die Europäischen Kolonien (4 vols., 1896).
Colonial Administration, U. S. Bureau of Statistics (1901).
Arnold, W. T., Roman System of Provincial Administration (1879).
Cotton, J. S., and Payne, E. J., Colonies and Dependencies (1883).
Bancroft, G., History of the United States (1834-74).
Lodge, H. C., Short History of the English Colonies in America (1881).
Seeley, Sir J. R., Expansion of England (1883).
Pownall, T., Administration of the Colonies (1764).
Reinsch, P. S., Colonial Government (1902).
Leroy-Beaulieu, De la Colonisation chez les Peuples Modernes (1902).
Ireland, A., Tropical Colonisation (1899).
Morris, The History of Colonisation (1902).
Reed, W., Problems of Expansion (1900).
Willoughby, W. F., Territories and Dependencies of the United States (1905).
CHAPTER VII. LOCAL GOVERNMENT
1. LOCAL AND Central Government Distinguished. — 2. Areas of Local Government; the United States, France, England. — 3. Composition and Powers of Local Governing Bodies; the United States. — 4. England. — 5. France. — 6. Prussia. — 7. Local Taxation; the property tax of the United States. — 8. Systems of Local Taxation in Other Countries. — 9. Reform of the American System.
1. Local and Central Government Distinguished. Hitherto, our discussion of the structure of government has been confined to the consideration of those governing bodies whose authority extends over the whole state. But in all but the very smallest communities these are not the sole organs of administration. There exists in addition a number of officials and official bodies, whose functions extend only over a portion of the total territorial area of the state. These bodies, and the duties that they perform, are spoken of under the general designation of local government. Local government, therefore, will refer to the operations of all township and county councils, the governing bodies of municipalities, districts, etc. The common-sense meaning of the term is quite clear, but the definition of local and central government, in exact, precise form, is not so easy. For it is to be observed that not all the governing bodies whose power extends only to a part of the state are to be classed as organs of local government; for otherwise this would include the component parts of a federal state, which is contrary to the evident signification intended. The state authorities of New York or Massachusetts are not organs of local government. Nor does the distinction lie in the extent of territory covered, nor in the number of persons ruled over. The municipal government of New York or Boston, or the county council of Lancashire, exercises its authority over a vastly greater number of people than the state of Nevada; on the other hand in extent of territory, the senates of Hamburg and Bremen, which are not merely local governments, rule over less territory than comes within the sphere of the council-general of a French department. The difference between local and central government is not therefore a matter of area or of population.
The distinction lies partly in their relative constitutional positions, and partly in the respective nature of the public services performed. In regard to the first point, it is true of most independent states that the local government derives its powers from the central government, and holds them at the pleasure of the latter. This is the case, whether or not there is a written constitution. In France and in Italy, each of which has a written constitution, the organization of the local government is entirely under the control of the central parliament. It is for this reason that we do not think of the Swiss cantons or the “states” of the United States as organs of local government; for these component parts of a federal system are, within the sphere of their own competence, quite independent of the central federal authority. But the distinction thus made is not universally true. Though it applies to nearly all independent states, it is not the case with the organs of local government (townships, county, and municipal authorities) in the separate commonwealths of the United States. These certainly are organs of local government, and yet to a great extent they exist by virtue of the state constitution, and could not be put out of existence at the will of the state legislature.
The other point of distinction between local and central government consists in the different nature of the services accomplished. This requires some further explanation. The various functions performed by the agencies of the state for the benefit of the citizens will roughly fall into two classes. Some of them will be in the interest of the community generally, and the benefit thereby effected will not be assignable to any single part of the country. For example, the protection afforded by the army and navy whereby foreign conquest is prevented, is a benefit shared by all the inhabitants alike. The same will be true of all the large class of public works, the advantage and purpose of which may be said to be national. There will also be a number of regulative functions to be performed, — the institution of the criminal law, the control of marriage and divorce, law regulating contracts, sales, etc., all of which, to be effective, must be uniform. The whole class of functions thus indicated will properly fall within the province of the central government. But in addition to these, there are other state activities (for it must be recollected that both local and central government form a part of the organization of the state) of quite a different character. Here the benefit to be conferred only affects a small portion of the community, and is obviously assignable to a particular area. The lighting of a town, the erection of a bridge over a country road, the establishment of a street-car system, are matters of this sort. Here it seems reasonable that the advantage, the cost, and the control of the enterprise should be looked upon as solely the concern of those who are affected by it.
