m

By6 65

ON SOME ASPECTS OP THE TEACHING
OP IMPERIAL HI^ORY.

BY

HUGH E. 'MGEfiTOtJ.

[^Reprinted from the Report of the Imperial Edneation-
Conference, 1911.]

ON SOME ASPECTS OP THE TEACHING
OP IMPERIAL HISTORY.

BY

HUGH E. EGERTON.

[Reprinted from the Report of the Imperial Education
Conference, 1911.J

On some Aspects op the Teaching oe Imperial
History.
By Hugh E. Egerton.
It is with extreme diffidence that I am speaking to
you to-day, especially after one so admirably versed, in
the teaching, no less than in the principles, of geography
as is Mr. Mackinder. Appointed to a chair of history at
an age when the intellectual muscles are growing stiff,
and less responsive to new influences ; having taught
myself the little history that I know, I should be sorry
indeed to dogmatise before experts about its teaching.
If I cannot say of myself as one, who was not merely an
Oxford professor, but a great man, used to say, that he
had never examined others or himself passed an exami
nation, I am none the less at sea, when considering
the details of systematised and co-ordinated education.
Nevertheless when I was invited to read a paper at
this Conference, on the ground, I presume, that the
chair which I occupy at Oxford represents almost
the first formal recognition of the importance of the
imperial aspects of our history, I felt that it would be
disloyal to refuse.
Taking into consideration w^hat I have said as to my
own limitations, I trust that I may be forgiven if I deal
somewhat generally with my subject rather than with
the details of its practical working. It is hardly neces
sary at this time of day to labour the point that in the
study of history, as in other things, we all want to think
imperially. (Some of us may regret that the word
Empire, which suggests such a different meaning, should
have to be used for the amalgam of states and relations
which go to make up the present British Empire. But,
after all, names matter little if we are clear regarding the
meaning to be conveyed.) In no respect is the contrast
more striking between the historian ol; the first half of
the 19th century and the historian of to-day than in his
treatment of the imperial aspects of the history of
England. Especially is this true of that first English
Empire which was lost by the winning of American
independence. Consider the scanty mention of colonial
questions by Macaulay ; a subject which one might have
expected would have especially appealed to him. A more

3
recent historian, Goldwiu Smith, in spite of the fact that
he had for years been living in North America, was so
strongly under mid-Victorian influences that you will find
very little in his history of England regarding th(;
American colonies before the culminating ev(^nts con
nected A\'ith their loss. You may search in vain through
the pages of such an excellent book (except indeed in
one appendix) as Christie's Life of the first Lord
Shaftesbury, without realising that his most permanent
title to fame was that he -w^as a great colonial minister
and empire-builder. It is to the newer school of American
historians that we owe the better understanding of our
I7th century history ; but in any case we have entered
into the heritage of their labours.
But if w^e shall all be agreed that in historical work
at any rate the tone and temper of the Httle Englander
must be a thing of the past, it is by no means so easy
to put our pious aspirations into practical effect. There
are two ways in which we may endeavour to deal with
the history of the Empire. We may elect to divide it
into so many water-tight compartments and deal with
the various portions as so many separate countries in the
manner of an encyclopaedia or Whitaker's Almanac.
To a certain extent this method is inevitable. As
Canadians, Australians, or South Africans, or even as
Englishmen, and Scottish or Irish, we have need to know
the facts with regard to our own particular portion of the
Empire. At the same time I am convinced that it is
extremely difficult to make such details living to those
who are not familiar with the physical and moral environ
ment in which they took their rise. In this connection
I may call attention to a modest little book by Professor
Edgar, of the South African College, Cape Town, The
Expansion of Unrope, ivith special reference to South
Africa, which aims at including only so much of European
history as may make intelligible the subsequent history
of South Africa.
Great is the Diana of the examination system ! and, if
she affirms that certain facts are to be knov^m, known they
wdll be, for the time, by the compliant youth of the
Empire ; though how long that knowledge will be retained
Heaven forbid that we should enquire. I have myself
lectured on the early history of the Carolinas, and all I can
say is that I should be sorry to be asked a question on
it by any Rosa Dartle of my audien(;e.
a (11)8976. Wt. 787'J~A. 2292. 125. 6/11. E. & S. ^2

But if the intellectual limitations of mankind forbid,
to most of us, a complete knowledge of the details of the
history of the Empire, past and present, may we not, by
grouping our selected facts round certain main principles,
obtain a dignity and a harmony in our imperial history
otherwise lacking ? I will illustrate what I mean by a
concrete example. You are aware that the enlightened
munificence of the late Mr. Louis Spitzel furnished funds
for the production of text-books of imperial history ; and
many of you are no doubt familiar with the work on The
British Empire which was the first result. I should be
the last to say a word in criticism of a book for which I
have the greatest admiration, and of the editorial committee
of which I ^ as myself a member. At the same time, when
the form of the book was first considered, I ventured to
submit that, considering the excellence of the text-books
which already existed concerning the separate colonies,
what was wanted was rather a history of the British
Empire from the point of view of its expansion, physical,
economic, and constitutional, giving detailed chapter and
verse for the pregnant suggestions of Seeley, and carrying
the work into new fields which were hardly ripe for treat
ment when Seeley wrote. The complete answer to my
proposal was that Mr. Spitzel desired the treatment of
the subject which has prevailed. Against the sic volo sic
juheo of the donor there is nothing to be said ; and very
probably, for teaching purposes, the volume as issued is
more viseful than would have been one which fulfilled
my ideal.
Be this as it may, in the remaining minutes allotted
to me I shall venture to lay stress on three subjects con
nected with imperial history, interest in which need not,
I think, depend upon conditions of time and space. One
of the subjects is mainly connected with the Empire
which is a thing of the past. The other two belong to
the self-governing Empire of to-day ; the one concerned
with a constitutional victory, won and assured ; the other
with the evolution of a principle, the full consequences
of which are yet on the knees of the gods. These three
subjects are " The mercantile system," " The evolution of
colonial self-government," and " The development of the
federal principle." These are subjects which transcend
the boundaries of any one country or colony. There is
nothing parochial or particularist about them ; and yet
I venture to say that if anyone knew at first hand the
colonial history connected with these questions, he would

know a great deal about the more permanently important
aspects of imperial history, and would be worthy of taking
his place as a citizen of the most marvellous State ever
conceived by the mind of man.
Possibly a cold shudder may have passed through the
British portion of my audience at the mention of my first
subject, " The mercantile system." Is this to be tariff
reform under another name ? and are our historical
studies to be made interesting by providing copy for our
political prejudices ? If I thought that there were even
a possibility of this result, I for one would most assuredly
not make this suggestion. I can imagine no greater
betrayal of trust than for the historian or the teacher to
play the r61e of the pamphleteer or advocate. Every man
has of course a right to his own political opinions ; but
he must be singularly presumptuous or singularly mala
droit if he cannot avoid protruding them on occasions
when they are not called for. In sober truth the mercantile
system, though its raison d'etre may have depended upon
arguments wdiich appeal to the modern tariff reformer,
was at work in such a different kind of empire from that
of to-day that it is most difficult to draw from it practical
lessons for present needs. Indeed the most generally
accepted lesson to be drawn from the facts of its history
is that it wrecked the then empire, by subordinating the
interests of the colonists to those of the English merchants
and manufacturers. But, after all, this is not the main
question. The main question is that, round this principle
of the mercantile system, you can form a coherent and
systematic idea of the English Empire of the l7th and
18th centuries, in a way which otherwise is impossible.
The ideal of a self-sufficing empire — naval stores no
longer to be obtained from European countries, possibly
hostile — the development of English fisheries and the
maximum of employment for English ships and seamen
— the mediaeval practice of staple towns for certain pro
ducts to be adopted and developed and England to be the
staple for the resources of the Empire — the colonies to
be the producers of raw products, which should furnish
materials for English manufactures — it was on ideas such
as these that the English colonial empire, as indeed the
colonial empires of other European States, took its rise
and found its natural justification. But, in studying the
facts connected with the working of the mercantile
system, you are naturally confronted with the facts which
threatened, from the first, its ascendancy. The mercantile

6
system assumed colonies to be plantations, colonies
cV exploitation; what was to happen when they proved
colonies de peuplement, settlements of men ? The idea of
a self-sufficing empire postulated the existence of a
general controlling Parliament; what was to happen
when this Parliament represented the selfish interests of
one particular portion of the Empire? The mercantile
system and the Empire which was its outcome were based
on the view that trade considerations dominated the minds
of men; what was to happen when the dissidence of
dissent called forth a new type of colony, and reminded
statesmen and Parliaments that man does not live by
bread alone ?
Thus, round the single principle of the mercantile
system you have grouped all the causes which led to the
development of the first English colonial Empire, and all
the causes which, in the end, led to its dissolution.
Guided by this clue, which connects us with the main
currents of European economic thought, we may pass
through the labyrinth of difficult details, which else might
end for us in an impasse of tedium and disgust. In
considering such questions as the causes which led to the
loss of the American colonies, we are travelling, though
in no garb of political partisanship, a road which may
still have its lessons to the thoughtful citizen.
Concerning my second subject, " The evolution of
colonial self-government," there will, I presume, be no
difference of opinion. We all shall admit its importance
and its value as, on a smaller scale and with simpler
material, bringing out the underlying principles of the
British Constitution. In Great Britain matters were so
complicated by the non-representative character of the
popular branch of the legislature, and by the indirect
methods of influence possessed by ministers and the
monarch, that it is difficult to mark the exact moment
when the people reaUy attained to self-government. Some
would say that only now is the democracy really beginning
to be conscious of its power. But, on the colonial stage,
things were very different. There the absence of a terri
torial aristocracy and the poor figure cut by a temporary
governor, compared with the august glamour of the
hereditary king, brought about that the assemblies were
representatives of the people in a manner unknown in
Great Britain till long after the passing of the first Reform
Bill. In the colonies the struggle for responsible govern
ment, i.e., government by the accredited representatives of

the people acting through a majority of the dominant
house of the legislature, was short and shai-]) ; and each
stage in the contest can easily be noted and recorded.
In the Honoiu' School of Modern History at Oxford it is
expected that candidates should take up one of some ten
prescribed special subjects, which they must study
through the reading of contemporary documents. Among
these special subjects is now " the evolution of Canadian
self-government." Why we chose the evolution of
Canadian rather than of Australian self-government was
that the material with which to deal was more ready at
hand, and that the background, from which one starts,
was in the case of Canada more picturesque and interest
ing. The admirable series of Constitutional Documents
between 1769 and 1791, edited by Mr. Adam Shortt,
whose loss to the University of Kingston has been the
gain of the Canadian Civil Service, and Dr. Arthur
Doughty, the indefatigable Canadian archivist, who is
making of his office at Ottawa the Mecca of all who value
the scholarly treatment of documentary material, gave us
a starting point, to which it was only necessary to add
Lord Durham's memorable Report, the Acts of Parliament
relating to Canadian Constitutional questions, from the
Quebec Act of 1774 to the British North America Act of
1867, a volume of constitutional documents, to fill in the
gaps between the statutes, edited by Professor W. L. Grant,
of the University of Kingston, and myself, and lastly some
speeches from Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. The
period dealt with is little more than a hundred years ;
and yet what a record it unfolds of constitutional evolution ;
not revolution ! We start with a conquered province.
Quebec, that has carried on, against heavy odds of numbers
and wdtli little help from the Mother Country, the half-
century of conflict against the American colonies and Great
Britain, lies prone and exhausted beneath the feet of the
conqueror. Most wisely Great Britain decides to use her
giant's strength with wisdom and moderation ; and from
the first, the Erench Canadians are promised the benefits
and privileges of British subjects. On the surface a jarring
note seems to be struck by the British Procdamation of
1763 ; which, whilst it holds out the hopes of a popular
Assembly, seems to abolish with one stroke Canadian laws,
customs and forms of judicature, a thing (according to
Lord Mansfield) "never to be attempted or wished."
An American scholar, however. Professor Alvord, of the
University of Ilhnois, has given good reasons for holding
that the Proclamation of 1763 was drafted in a hurry.

wdth special view to the Indian peril; and in any case
the policy which it seemed to adumbrate, that of obtain
ing an Anglo-Saxon population for the French province,
proved whoUy impracticable ; so that the British Govern
ment returned to its original aim of concentrating its
attention upon the conciliation of the French. The
Quebec Act, as you doubtless know, gave formal sanction
to the French law^s and customs, and put on a legal
footing the payment of tithes to the Roman Catholic
Church. In passing we may note the very different
character of George III.'s attitude towards the Catholic
Church in Canada and in Ireland, and the political con
sequences in both countries which followed thereupon.
Considering the feudal past of Canada, the absence of
education or of training in local self-government, the
decision under the Quebec Act, not to establish a repre
sentative Assembly, was, for the time, doubtless wise ;
though we must note the reaction upon British policy
elsewhere occasioned by the troubles already arising in
the American colonies. The doings of these American
provinces more directly affect the history of Canada ; when,
upon the coming to birth of the United States, the cruel
treatment accorded to the loyalist minority caused thou
sands of these loyalists to shake the dust off their feet of
their old homes, and to find a refuge in the North under
the British flag. But these Americans, loyal as they
might be to the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain,
had inherited the old colonial birthright of representative
institutions, and could not for any length of time be
cabined or confined within the four corners of a paternal
autocracy. The Constitutional Act of 1791, which recog
nises facts by constituting the Western portion of Quebec,
whither the united Empire loyalists had in great numbers
resorted, a new province, and by granting to both pro
vinces a representative Assembly, is the direct outcome of
the loss of the American provinces. The old English
American Empire in its death throes has strength to give
birth to a child, which in the fulness of time is to be no
mean rival to its once alienated kinsfolk. Henceforth
the old standing difficulty between an Assembly that was
given power, by means of the power of the purse, but
denied responsil3ihty, and a government that was loaded
mth all the responsibility, but often possessed only the
shadow^ of power, was bound to recur. Racial antagonisms,
as in Lower Canada, sectarian differences as in Upper
Canada over the question of the clergy Reserves, exacer
bated the strife ; but Lord Durham was doubtless right

9
when he declared that in the very system of British
colonial governnn^nt there were the seeds of inevitable
disimion. But responsible government was by no means
the easy thing to introduce that it appeared to the haughty
self-complacency of Lord Durham ; and the short period
of Lord Sydenham's administration is full of suggestion
with regard to the difficulties in the way and the manner
in which they might, tentatively, be surmounted. The
passing of the Act of Union of 1840 was the partial
adoption of Durham's policy of trusting to an Anglo-
Saxon majority to prevent the possibility of mischief from
a possibly disaffected French population being entrusted
with the management of their own affairs. The rebellion
in Lower Canada of 1837 and 1838 from a military point
of view was despicable enough, and even politically it was
feeble, because resting under the ban of the church. But
it showed plainly that French- Canadian sympathies were
not with the Government ; and if responsible government
was to be given, the union of the two Canadas was a
condition precedent, unless the separation of French
Canada was to come within the range of practical politics,
a conclusion unthinkable to imperialists of the type of
Lord Durham. But the union as effected by the Act of
1840 proved no real union in the sense of being a fusion
of the two races. An unfortunate provision in the Act,
which gave equal representation in the House of Assembly
to the British minority of the Upper Province, emphasised
the permanence of lines of separation; and became, in
time, the cause of an inverted grievance, when the British
in Upper Canada had grown into a great majority and
still found themselves represented by only half the
numbers of the Lower House. The political history of
Canada under the Union is the story of the breakdown
of party government, where the main issue really lay not
between rival parties but between rival races. The union
was in fact an unwritten and clumsy federation, and every
ministry w^as an inevitable coalition, w^herein each portion
of the Province was represented by its leading minister.
But what was agony for Canadian public men is admirable
material for students of constitutional history ; and there
can be, in its way, no more instructive reading than to
compare the remarks in Lord Grey's Colonial administ7^a-
tion of Lord John Russell with the actual experience of
Canadian governments.
Our period closes wdth the British North America Act,
not so much from the point of view of attempting to do
justice to it as an embodiment of the federal principle.

10
as from the point of view of regarding it as the complete
fulfilment of the ideals of Canadian self-government.
If I have wearied you with the repetition of facts
probably as familiar to you as they are to myself, my
excuse must be that the moral to be drawn from them
is not so generally accepted as it might be wdth advantage
to all. Instead of colonial constitutional history being
considered as a subject apart, to be studied only by those
who show a special interest in colonial questions, why
should it not be read, in the upper forms of English
pubhc schools and elsewhere, side by side with the
English constitutional history which it illustrates and
makes much more intelligible ? In the times that are
before us questions such as the possibility of the
preservation of the party system of government, with
the evolution of powerful groups representing separate
distinct interests, will perhaps become more and more
prominent. Is it a small matter that men should
approach their consideration assisted by the light and
by the leading that comes from the study of such
questions on the smaller and less crowded stage of
colonial experience, where the existence of the colonial
status causes the historian to be less diverted to the
pomp and panoply of military undertakings, and where,
in the sharp lights of a clear and crisp atmosphere, issues
can be more clearly discerned than they can ever be
amidst the immemorial mists and shadow^s, haunted by
the hardly yet disembodied ghosts of old ideas and old
associations, which make for the American and for the
colonist the w^onder and the charm of old England ?
But if the evolution of colonial self-government is
a subject for which we can claim approval from the man
in the street on the ground of its utility for the practical
purposes of civic education, with still better reason can
this claim be made for my last subject, "The develop
ment of the federal principle." Whether we like it or
not, we are living at a time when institutions which we
have taken as a matter of course are being submitted to
the ordeal of fierce hostile criticism. The Constitution,
which seemed in the first half of the 19th century the
envy of continental Europe, is in the melting pot, and
he would be a bold man who should predict the form
in which it will ultimately emerge. There is general
agreement that somehow or other a more systematic
organism must be found for the disjointed portions of
the British Empire, if they are not sooner or later to

u
fall away from each other. It is idle to (!xpect that, if
the Dominions continue to develop as they iive developing
to-day, this little island, and even its capital, London, can
continue to be the centre and the heart of the Empire in
the manner that they have been in the past and still
are. In this state of things there are difficult problems,
problems connected with the organisation of Great Britain
and Ireland, problems connected with the wider organisa
tion of the British Empire as a whole, which the next
generation may have to solve. Surely for such an
undertaking there can be no better preparation than
careful study of what has been done by our kinsfolk
in the past. The achievement of Canadian or Australian
federation may have been child's play compared with the
accomplishment of a federal Greater Britain, and I
confess that the growth of the national idea in the
various oversea Dominions makes the task to be done
different from any for which there are past precedents ;
still, the manner in which Canadian and Australian
statesmen Avorked for their common goal, affords a lesson
which is of good augury for future efforts, whilst the
details of the Constitutions which issued from the
intellectual blows and counterblows of men of our stock,
are full of suggestion to those who may be called upon,
at least by approval or disapproval, to play their part in
adapting a venerable Constitution to new needs.
Special circumstances may be very different ; but it
can never be without a lesson for us to recall the action
of the stalwart Canadian liberal, George Brown, who,
out of the nettle of the breakdown of party government,
plucked the flower of a Greater Canada; or of John
A. Macdonald, by the testimony of his opponents the
greatest of Canadian statesmen, whose work it ' was, as
closely as circumstances would allow, to build Canadian
Confederation on the lines of the old British models
which he so loyally revered. Read the powerful argu
ments with which in the Canadian Parliament in 1865
Mr. Dunkin and Mr. Antoine Dorion opposed Confedera
tion, and you will realise how, if dowered with all other
qualities, we lack faith, the mountains of constitutional
difficulties will not remove themselves before us. In
undergoing the excellent gymnastic of reading the 91st
and 92nd sections of the British North America Act,
which allot their respective functions to the central and
provincial legislatures, together with the cases that have
been decided on these sections, we learn, as hardly any-

ll'
thing else could teach u^, how obvious must be the
statemant of the legislator's intentions, if he is to cope
with the subtleties of judicial decisions. In the British
North America Act of 1867, we see the attempt to found
another federation on American soil, taking after the
United States Constitution, so far as the federal principle
is concerned ; but otherwise, in the granting of residuary
powers to the central legislature, in the repudiation of
the principle of a non-parliamentary executive, and in
other Avays, representing a deliberate reaction from
American ideals. In what history can you follow so well
the powers of science in arresting the natural tendencies
of physical conformation as in the story of the Canadian
Dominion, it being no exaggeration to say that the
building of the Canadian Pacific Railway gave life and
being to the idea of union between West and East,
hitherto existing merely on paper ? Nowhere more clearly
than in modern Canadian history can you follow the
coexistence of a genuine nationalist spirit with a vigorous
and rather aggressive provincial patriotism, a fact of
excellent omen to those who desire to make imperial
citizenship a greater reality, without impairing the force
of any other tie. We shall not study colonial institutions
with the predetermination always to approve, and some
of us may think that the Canadian Senate is no great
improvement upon our own House of Lords. But what
ever our opinion on this or that detail, we cannot study
these great Constitutions without going much more to
the root of things than most of us, in England at least,
have been accustomed to go.
In some ways the Australian Constitution is still more
instructive, because it was the issue of longer and more
closely ' reasoned discussions, and because, whereas the
Quebec Conference was held with closed doors, the
numerous volumes which record the elaborate delibera
tions which preceded the Commonw^ealth Act of 1900 are
a mine of intellectual wealth to all interested in the
working of the federal principle. I am bound to add
that, if the subsequent history of the Commonwealth has
been interesting, its main interest has, I think, depended
rather on the measures taken in the field of economics
than on the light thrown on the working of the federal
principle. Thus the questions referred this month to
the decision of the Australian people, the effect of which
is to enlarge the powders of the central legislature in
industrial matters, though indirectly they tend to the

1,",
diminution oC the powers of the States, hiivv, Uunr rationale
in the struggle between labour and capital, and not in
any deliberate idea to exalt the central authority.
Lastly there is the South African Union, of tlie
working of which it is too soon to speak. But, in soino
ways, its establishment is of still happier augury than
was the establishment of the Canadian or Australian
federation. The dullest of us was thrilled witli a new
sense of the power of centripetal tendencies when he
saw men, lately the antagonists in a deadly war, working
shoulder to shoulder for the common benefit of South
African political and economic interests. Here at least
we may all recognise that under our separate conditions
the cry comes home, " Go thou and do likewise."
In the foregoing pages the point Avhich I have
endeavoured to bring out is that however much we,
who are interested in the teaching of imperial history,
may desire that that teaching should be as general as
possible, we are conditioned by the stress and competition
of other studies, and that therefore we must recognise
some principle of selection. I have sought to show that
that selection may well be made on the principle that
the details chosen for study should admit of general
applicability, and be such as may be of real use for the
practical work of imperial citizenship. For this purpose
I have put before you three subjects. No doubt other
subjects wiU occur to other people. It does not matter
what the subject is, so long as it is not tarred Avith the
brush of mere local particularism. There is one subject
which I should Avish to have included ; but, unfortunately,
the material is, for the most part, AA^anting. The story of
colonial expansion, of the steady march of the unknown
millions, filling and replenishing the earth, still aAvaits its
historian, Avho shall do for it Avhat Walt Whitman claimed
to do in the field of poetry for the average, common
place man. But the material on which the historian or
historians (for it would require hundreds of them) must
work is, for the most part, lacking; and no carefully
prepared statistics or Parliamentary Reports can take the
place of the diaries or letters of unknown forgotten
empire-builders in their Avar with the Avilderness. Let
us at least never forget that the long struggle for the
expansion of Greater Britain has been in the main a war
carried on by the private soldier; and .that, amidst our
tributes to the empire-builders of the past, a special cairn
must celebrate the unknoAA^n dead.

14
Nor, in thus assuming a practical direction to our
studies, are we arrogating to ourseh^es or those connected
Avith our Avork the actual business of legislation. We
may be far removed from the seat of government. We
may have nothing to do AA'ith the actual framing of laws.
But we can, and we must, all of us, whatever our
position, influence in some degree the spirit in which
they are made, and still more the spirit in which they
are carried out. It was a school inspector, MatthcAV
Arnold, who first used the expression " sweet reasonable
ness " as the quality especially required in the England
of his day ; let our modest thankoffering for the splendid
inheritance of our imperial history be a reasonable and
impartial mind, to draw conclusions from evidence, before
wdiich the rhetoric and bluster of the mere partisan will
wither and efface itself, like the snake-woman before the
cold gaze of the Greek philosopher.

YALE UNIVERSITY

a39002 002927367b

S
7// "
:'<'it)l
pIkHs