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Dominions are not constituted upon a national basis; and Canada, the largest of them, has only a population of 7,200,000. Moreover, it must be remembered that in each case the creation of a federal government has been a constructive measure. It has always meant the union of several states, self-governing in local matters but subject in matters of general policy to a central authority composed of delegates from or representatives of the individual States. What the Federalists propose in the case of the United Kingdom is in many respects a complete reversal of what has taken place in the Overseas Dominions. There is to be the splitting up of a unitary form of government into four self-governing States concurrently with the creation of a Federal Government, having power to deal with taxation, defence, relations with foreign Powers, and other matters of general policy. It practically means the dissolution, as it were, of a great and old-established banking company into four more or less independent self-governing banks of varying size and character; and, as most business men will perhaps be prepared to admit, the problem of such a financial dissolution, with all its attendant questions as to the apportionment of liabilities and assets, would be very much more difficult than the problem of their amalgamation.

It is practically certain that the English State Government would overshadow the Federal Government, and sooner or later would come into violent conflict with it. This fundamental weakness in the application of the federal system to the United Kingdom was recognised by Mr Winston Churchill, who said in the course of his speech at Dundee on September 12, 1912:

"There would be no difficulty in applying the federal system to Scotland or Wales, as well as Ireland, but when they came to England a very real difficulty arose. England was so great and populous that an English Parliament, whatever its functions or limitations might be, could not fail in the nature of things to be almost as powerful as the Imperial Parliament, side by side with which it would have to live; and if there were, as there very easily might be, a divergence of feeling and policy between the English Parliament and the Imperial Parliament, the quarrel between these two tremendously powerful bodies might tear the State in half and bring great evils upon all.'

If it were desired to set up a workable federal system in these islands, Mr Churchill continued, they would have to face the task of dividing England into several great self-governing areas. Some of those areas could be readily discerned. There was, for instance, the great Lancashire area, with a mass of people, all with very similar interests and very much the same kind of conditions of life. Then there was Yorkshire, as large or perhaps larger, and the Midlands-a great group of counties which had distinctively their own contribution to make to the progress of British society and government-and London and Greater London. Mr Churchill further said, 'I am not at all disturbed by the prospect of seeing erected in this country ten or twelve separate legislative bodies for discharging the functions entrusted to them by the Imperial Parliament.'

It is difficult to believe that the people of England would assent to the scheme outlined by Mr Churchill. Scotland, Ireland and Wales, it will be observed, are to have self-government upon a national basis; but England is to be denationalised because the English Government would be too powerful for the Federal Government to deal with successfully in the event of a conflict of views or policy. Even if the people of England were to assent to such a proposition, there would remain an economic difficulty which would be almost incapable of solution. How is the cost of Imperial services to be apportioned? How is the cost of local services to be apportioned? Are there to be twelve quotas, and are they to vary from time to time? Is revenue raised by taxation in Lancashire or the Midlands to be expended on Education, Old Age Pensions, National Insurance or agricultural grants in Cornwall, Norfolk or Ireland?

On the whole, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the financial difficulties and dangers which would be created by the institution of a system of self-government for England, Scotland and Wales on the lines of that proposed to be conferred upon Ireland are so great that they would far outweigh any advantages which might reasonably be expected to accrue from the adoption of such a policy. It would therefore seem inevitable that Great Britain, at least, must retain her present unitary form of government. Mr Herbert Samuel has shown us

how wonderfully our constitution has adapted itself to federal requirements; and it is perhaps to an extension of the powers of local authorities that we must look for a remedy for most of our existing difficulties of government. There is, indeed, another remedy, but it is one to which the British people, proud in the knowledge that the British Parliament has always been the depository of the sovereignty of the British Empire, is as yet disinclined to turn, and that is the institution of an Imperial Federal Council. If the Committee of Imperial Defence were re-constituted on a basis representative of every part of the British Empire, and at the same time given executive and administrative powers in all matters of Imperial Defence, Foreign Relations, etc., the British House of Commons would be relieved of a vast amount of work which it is at present called upon to perform; and, if the majority so desired, it could then devote itself whole-heartedly to those objects which are so dear to the protagonists of Federal Home Rule.

EDGAR CRAMMOND.

PENGE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

( 337 )

Art. 2.-BRITISH INDIA BEFORE PLASSEY.

1. The Early Annals of the English in Bengal. By C. R. Wilson. Two vols. Calcutta: Thacker and Co., 1895, 1900.

2. Bengal in 1756-1757.
by S. C. Hill. Three vols.
3. Old Fort William in Bengal.
by C. R. Wilson. Two vols.
4. The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675–1680. (Ind. Rec.
Series.) Edited by Sir Richard Temple.
London: Murray, 1913.

(Indian Records Series.) Edited
London: Murray, 1905.
(Ind. Rec. Series.) Edited
London: Murray, 1906.

Two vols.

5. Vestiges of Old Madras. By Colonel H. D. Love. Three vols. London: Murray, 1913.

6. The Fall of the Mogul Empire. By Sidney J. Owen. London: Murray, 1912.

'CHARLES II,' wrote Sir William Hunter in his admirable but unfinished history of British India, 'found the Company a trading body; he left it a nascent territorial power.' To one versed only in the older historians, Mill, Auber, Thornton, or even Marshman, such a statement would be barely comprehensible. These with one accord trace the history of Madras from the war with the French, and the history of Bengal from the fall of Siraj-ud-daula. To them the earlier period comprised merely the petty squabblings of the Company's servants with Moghal rulers, trading operations conducted more or less honestly, and the building of fortresses conspicuous for their inability to stand a siege. Until not long ago Bruce's Annals' constituted the highest product of historical scholarship as applied to the earlier history of the East India Company; in other words, the period was unknown, for Bruce is not a luminous historian. But that is not all. Not only did the older historians lack information, but they lacked motive and interest as well. They related facts, they did not investigate causes. Their theories of historical causation were completely satisfied by tracing the French war to the ambition of Dupleix, and the war in Bengal to the infatuation of the young Subahdar. The modern writer is not so easily contented. He is disposed, with Seeley, to resolve history into a series of problems to each of which he expects an answer; he

traces the sequence of events for the sake of the sequence, and is almost as much interested in the beginnings of a great movement as in its more grandiose and developed manifestations.

In full accordance with this modern tendency, a great number of scholars have in recent times devoted themselves to elucidating the earlier history of the British in India. This may be said to have begun in earnest with the labours of the Hakluyt Society and the Calendars of Mr Noel Sainsbury. Though included in the former, Colonel Sir Henry Yule's edition of Hedge's Diary is in itself a landmark, for it displayed in striking form the valuable material which lay hid in the later records of the 17th century. But the form of the work imposed serious limitations upon the author. He was able only to illustrate occasional points, not to tell the whole story of a period. But the work has been taken up more recently by a band of zealous and gifted workers. The series of Calendars now in course of issue by Mr Foster and Miss Sainsbury must be reserved for a later occasion, since they have as yet barely touched the present subject-matter. But, besides them, a number of highly valuable collections of documents have been issued under the wise patronage of the India Office. Mr Hill has collected from every source documents bearing on the revolution of 1757 in Bengal. While he has suffered from the fact that many papers, such as Holwell's letters and others, were published in the 18th century, his collection of these scattered fragments of history is by no means otiose. The student need no longer turn over a score of volumes; the documents themselves gain a new value by their juxtaposition; and above all Mr Hill's diligence has enabled him to publish new documents from French and Dutch sources. The late Mr Wilson, in his collection of papers on the history of Fort William, enjoyed a more open field, for, except in that work and in his 'Early Annals of the English in Bengal,' the history of Calcutta from 1700 to 1748 was a blank. Colonel Love, too, in his 'Vestiges of Old Madras,' has practically had no forerunner. It is true that Mr Wheeler many years ago published a series of extracts from the Madras Records; but the Madras Records have in the earlier period extensive gaps which can only be supplied by the records at the India Office; and Mr

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