Outlying territories of some size and population, which are held
as dependencies, that is, which are subject, more or less, to acts
of sovereign power on the part of the paramount country, without being
equally represented (if represented at all) in its legislature, may be
divided into two classes. Some are composed of people of similar
civilisation to the ruling country, capable of, and ripe for,
representative government: such as the British possessions in
America and Australia. Others, like India, are still at a great
distance from that state.
In the case of dependencies of the former class, this country has at
length realised, in rare completeness, the true principle of
government. England has always felt under a certain degree of
obligation to bestow on such of her outlying populations as were of
her own blood and language, and on some who were not, representative
institutions formed in imitation of her own: but until the present
generation, she has been on the same bad level with other countries as
to the amount of self-government which she allowed them to exercise
through the representative institutions that she conceded to them. She
claimed to be the supreme arbiter even of their purely internal
concerns, according to her own, not their, ideas of how those concerns
could be best regulated. This practice was a natural corollary from
the vicious theory of colonial policy- once common to all Europe, and
not yet completely relinquished by any other people- which regarded
colonies as valuable by affording markets for our commodities, that
could be kept entirely to ourselves: a privilege we valued so highly
that we thought it worth purchasing by allowing to the colonies the
same monopoly of our market for their own productions which we claimed
for our commodities in theirs.
Pages:
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364