This inequality is, of
course, as far as it goes, a disadvantage to the dependencies, which
have no voice in foreign policy, but are bound by the decisions of the
superior country. They are compelled to join England in war, without
being in any way consulted previous to engaging in it.
Those (now happily not a few) who think that justice is as binding
on communities as it is on individuals, and that men are not warranted
in doing to other countries, for the supposed benefit of their own
country, what they would not be justified in doing to other men for
their own benefit- feel even this limited amount of constitutional
subordination on the part of the colonies to be a violation of
principle, and have often occupied themselves in looking out for means
by which it may be avoided. With this view it has been proposed by
some that the colonies should return representatives to the British
legislature; and by others, that the powers of our own, as well as
of their Parliaments, should be confined to internal policy, and
that there should be another representative body for foreign and
imperial concerns, in which last the dependencies of Great Britain
should be represented in the same manner, and with the same
completeness, as Great Britain itself. On this system there would be
perfectly equal federation between the mother country and her
colonies, then no longer dependencies.
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