Introduction
American historian D. H. Montgomery lays out the background to the establishment of Empire Day in 1904. He describes a global Empire which had discovered ever closer union not by more centralisation but by less, a Britain that was no longer a colonial power but the mother of a federation of independent states.
UNDER Edward VII the Crown became the center of a great movement for more complete Imperial Unity. The process of forming a federation of Great Britain and her widely scattered colonies had made good progress under Victoria.* She had seen the creation of the Dominion of Canada (1867), the Dominion of New Zealand (1875), the consolidation of the six Australian colonies into the Commonwealth of Australia (1901). Nine years later (1910) the four states which had been the scene of the Boer War were consolidated in like manner and received the name of the Union of South Africa. The Commonwealth of Australia and the Union of South Africa (with the Dominion of New Zealand) mark the southern limit of the Imperial Federation. The Dominion of Canada marks its northern limit.
All these British possessions enjoy a degree of self-government which falls but little short of entire independence. In fact, commercially they are independent, for while England maintains free trade, her colonies still keep up a strict protective tariff and impose duties even on British imports.
Montgomery cited with approval Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) of the US Navy, who believed that the British Empire had at last overcome her internal contradictions and become an imperial federation held together by common language and liberties, thus catching up with the USA. Mahan himself was particularly impressed with Sir Henry Parkes’s vision of Australia, ‘sharing on equal terms in all the glory of the Empire’. See ‘Retrospect and Prospect’ (1902) by A. T. Mahan.
If you like what I’m doing here on Clay Lane, from time to time you could buy me a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.
