in the colonial government that their view ought to be given effect to, and every impediment be thrown in the way of the United States fishermen, and if these representatives, having the purse-strings, should insist on keeping them tight until the home government should agree to remove the fishermen of the United States from the banks of Newfoundland, even at the risk of going to war with that power, how could such a dilemma be got out of? It may be said that the fishermen are too unimportant a body in the colony of Newfoundland to be likely to produce such crises, especially if their fellow-colonists should concur in Lord Grey's view, that they rather gain than suffer by the bounty. But there are other bodies still involved in the discussion, and these are the fish-curers and fish-merchants of Newfoundland. Even Lord Grey does not deny that those persons are injured by the Americans carrying off the fish to be cured in the States, and be consumed there, or exported thence. Considering the prodigious export of Newfoundland cod to the Catholic countries of Europe and Asia, the amount of capital invested in this trade by the colonists of Newfoundland must be very great, and as agriculture within the colony seems to have been comparatively neglected, and there is no other local trade, the probability is that "the fishing interest," if not the • Grey's Colonial Policy, vol. 1, p. 301. 336 ADMINISTRATION OF BRITISH COLONIES. most important interest in the colony, may be made so by the addition of the fishermen. If the fish-curers and traders, backed by the fishermen, were to prevail on the local parliament to pursue the course with the home government which has been suggested, must the dilemma be got out of by suspending the constitution in this colony also, and bringing the "sovereign and supreme legislative power of the imperial parliament" to bear upon the colony? That might be done once, and successfully, as in Canada; but will once be sufficient? While fishing continues, the cause of complaint may endure, and with it successive attempts to force redress. The constitution may have to be suspended once, and again, and again. Surely, a body politic cannot be either in a sound or a safe state, where such a violent and dangerous remedy has so frequently to be had recourse to. CHAPTER XII. CAUSE OF THE EMBARRASSMENT WHICH OCCURRED IN THE GOVERNMENT OF SUCH OF OUR PRESENT COLONIES AS WERE FOUNDED PREVIOUS TO THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. The cursory specimen of the rule of our North American colonies, given in the preceding pages, shows that the recognition, contained in the constitutions of these colonies, of the right of Englishmen to liberal institutions has not worked more harmoniously in these colonies, than it has done in the West India colonies. In both sets of these colonies there has been a struggle for independence. The difference has been only in the result of that struggle. The West Indians thought to gain their point by passive resistance to the home government, and failed. The North Americans chose active resistance, and failed also. But the danger of the contest was too great to allow of its being repeated, and the home government has yielded everything that the colonists have demanded which has stopped short of independence. When that also is asked, it will be difficult to refuse it. It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that giving our West Indian and North American colonies constitutions, having some analogy to the Z constitution of Great Britain, has led the successive governments of the mother country into all the difficulties which they have had to encounter in the administration of these colonies. The unavoidable tendency of constitutions of so liberal a nature, if they are worked out to their legitimate results, must be to produce ultimate independence of the mother country, as the short summary which has been given of the administration of Canada shows. If the minister were prepared to assist in this if he foresaw rather an advantage, than a disadvantage, to the mother country in her colonies standing upon their own strength, instead of being dependent upon her, at all events, the people of Great Britain were very far from being in a disposition to concur in such a view. So long as the British nation thought that its navigation laws and its system of differential duties were the main foundations of its naval and commercial supremacy, it would have been hopeless for any British minister, however far in advance of his age, to have hinted at anything like independence being conceded to the colonies. It was not until 1848, that the nation became sufficiently enlightened to see, and acknowledge, and allow its rulers to act upon the fallacy of these notions, by abrogating the navigation laws, and introducing freedom in trade, whether with our colonies or with foreign nations. Accordingly, the administration of those of our colonies which already possessed constitutions based upon a recognition of popular rights could not well have been other than it has been. It has not repudiated these constitutions, indeed, but, on the other hand, it has not heartily acknowledged them and been forward to perfect them by practical application. Each successive colonial minister has seen no other course open to him, without stultifying himself before the nation, than to give effect, as much as possible, to the monarchical instead of the constitutional principle. |