Empire Federalism and Imperial Parliamentary Union, 1820-1870

In mid-nineteenth century Britain (and, to some extent, overseas), there was intermittent discussion of the desirability and possibility of the admission to Westminster of MPs to represent the colonies. The persistence of the idea, and the extent to which it was discussed by writers and politicians, had been forgotten until the publication of this article, "Empire Federalism and Imperial Parliamentary Union, 1820-1870" in Historical Journal, xvi (1973), 65-93.

Like most contributions to academic publications, its density does not make it a pleasurable narrative. Nonetheless, it holds a place in my affections as the first major piece of independent research that I undertook, a kind of apprenticeship ritual which produced a detailed analysis that might modify a few sentences in a textbook. To measure its significance, it needs to be set in the historiographical background of two apparently unrelated chunks of the British Empire experience. First, it was well known that the independence of the United States had grown out of the slogan "No taxation without representation!" The emphasis, of course, was on American refusal to pay taxes, but it had produced some discussion in the 1760s and 1770s of admitting American MPs to the House of Commons, a proposal denounced as impracticable by Edmund Burke, but an idea that appealed to commentators as noteworthy as Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith. Second, historians had tended to emphasise the late-nineteenth century movement for Imperial Federation, the dream of ensuring that Britain might maintain parity with the great land empires – such as the United States and Russia – by absorbing its overseas territories to create a global superpower ruled by a Congress that would supersede even the Parliament at Westminster. The origins of this campaign were located in the years from 1868 to 1870 when, it was claimed, the achievement of Canadian Confederation jolted mainstream British opinion out of its previous mood of 'anti-imperialism', marked by hostility to the colonies and impatience at the burden of ruling India.

As a graduate student in the late 1960s, I decided to explore British discussions between 1837 and 1867 about the political destiny of Canada, and the other colonies in North America that had not broken away to form the USA. Eventually, so I argued, elite opinion came to favour a regional union of British North America in some undefined junior partnership with Great Britain that would act as a buffer against the menacing growth of the American Republic. It was, of course, the local politicians of the now self-governing colonies who created the Dominion of Canada, but it undoubtedly helped that metropolitan opinion was well-prepared and supportive when their initiative was launched. For the British, Confederation was infinitely preferable to two likely alternatives. Annexation of the provinces to the already overgrown and frequently hostile USA threatened an irrevocable shift in the transatlantic balance of power. The emergence of an independent Canada, probably as the result of some angry breach with Britain also seemed undesirable, if only as a blow to national prestige. However, it seemed to me that there should have been a fourth option alongside the threesome of Confederation, annexation and independence. Did anyone consider the absorption of the colonies into the British constitutional structure – which was, after all, the solution that the French had applied to relations with their overseas dependencies?

The foundation tomes of British Empire history mostly dated from the era of the Imperial Federation movement. They occasionally mentioned earlier proposals for colonial parliamentary representation, but these were generally presented as voices crying in a little-England wilderness and hence written off as prophets before their time. But as I worked through contemporary magazines and pamphlets, I realised that there had been far more mid-nineteenth century interest in the possibility of admitting MPs from the colonies than the textbooks acknowledged. To find myself not merely on the frontiers of knowledge but pushing into unknown territory was a heady experience (and my life, I should insist, was anything but sad at the time). I can even recall, not exactly sprinting, but dashing from one section of Cambridge University Library to another to follow up clues to speeches and newspaper articles that contributed to the discussion. I discovered a number of notable eccentrics – a point to which I shall return – as might be expected from Victorian pamphlet controversies, but it was surely of importance that two Prime Ministers, the Whig Lord John Russell and the Tory Benjamin Disraeli, had favoured the admission of MPs from the colonies to the House of Commons, while other influential public figures became involved in the debate: for instance, Joseph Hume sought an amendment to the 1831 Reform Bill to make the initiative possible,  while Richard Cobden later condemned any such move. Other names would be crammed into Endnotes 5 to 12 of the article.

My explorations did not merely reveal the breadth and persistence of support for colonial representation, especially between the 1830s and the 1850s, but illustrated how it formed part of a wider range of ideas, to which I gave the inelegant name 'Empire federalism'.  (Until the publication of James Bryce's American Commonwealth in 1888, British commentators – intellectuals, politicians and journalists alike – seem to have been only sketchily informed about the workings of federal governments, an ignorance that seemed to validate my uncouth generalisation.) The idea of admitting MPs from the colonies to the House of Commons – which I termed 'parliamentary federalism' – evidently encountered a host of obstacles, both practical and theoretical. Out of these complications came suggestions of less structured relationships through consultative machinery that would give the overseas Empire a voice in London without either intruding upon Parliament or infringing the emerging autonomy of the larger colonies. This line of thinking I labelled 'extra-parliamentary federalism'.  At the other extreme, by the early 1850s a few of the more fantastical enthusiasts reacted to the impracticability of colonial MPs by dreaming of a new and grandiose structure, crowned by an Imperial Congress would relegate even Westminster to the status of a merely provincial legislature. These schemes I initially identified as 'super-parliamentary'. However, it was pointed out to me (by Ronald Hyam) that, since an Imperial Congress was envisaged as dominating every elected institution in the Empire, the category would be more correctly defined as 'supra-parliamentary'. I made the substitution in a follow-up essay, "The Idea of 'Imperial Federation'", contributed to our jointly written book, Reappraisals in British Imperial History, published in 1975, and I have retrospectively adopted it here.

My threefold classification of Empire federalist thinking not only imposed some sort of order upon the raucous mid-Victorian theorising but it was also of use in illuminating much that had seemed puzzling about late-nineteenth century enthusiasms.  In particular, it had seemed strange that some of the most vocal members of the Imperial Federation League, a campaigning group that existed between 1884 and 1893, were in fact opposed to the supra-parliamentary project. Indeed, the more Empire federalism was seen as an entrenched part of mid-century thinking about the possible evolution of the British Empire, the less important seemed those allegedly conceptual years 1868-70. In earlier decades, the idea of colonial representation had ebbed and flowed, coming to the fore at times of crisis or controversy in British-Canadian relations. If there was an upsurge of interest in the late 1860s, it was essentially a cyclical revival that formed part of a longer-term pattern. At most, those years saw a shift in emphasis within Empire federalism. The establishment of the Dominion of Canada tended to focus discussion upon extra- and supra-parliamentary structures, although the idea of direct representation in the House of Commons by no means disappeared.

In the twenty-first century, Cambridge University has adopted North American terminology, and everyone engaged in teaching is bizarrely styled 'Professor'. By contrast, in the 1960s, Professors were the apex of the academic pyramid. They held named Chairs and presided as godparents (mostly male) over the fields of study entrusted to their sway. It was customary for them to announce a weekly slot at which they were accessible to callers. The consultation hour was usually in the early evening, which allowed the Professor to escape and dine in Hall. The Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History was Nicholas Mansergh, a gentleman in every sense of the word, who was respected both for his scholarship and for his inclusive courtesy. He delivered considered opinions in a measured manner – in fact, in an Anglo-Irish tone of yesteryear – and had the engaging habit of randomly punctuating his sentences with the interjection "ah", a peculiarity that was widely (if usually unsuccessfully) impersonated. Greatly daring, I presented myself at what would perhaps nowadays be termed his surgery where, I suspect, he was mildly surprised to find himself in demand. Boldly, I outlined my contention that a substantial part of accepted Empire historiography was inaccurate and required revision. Professor Mansergh listened attentively, before responding in his habitual supportive manner. He advised that I should present my findings at the Commonwealth History research seminar, which certainly seemed a logical way forward. But then he made a suggestion that took my breath away: I should also think of producing an article on the subject for the Historical – ah – Journal, the research publication of the Cambridge History Faculty. At that time, I was ambivalent about my commitment to, indeed my aptitude for, an academic career. I was not part of any of the high-powered PhD combines in the Cambridge History firmament that were presided over by influential mentors. I had no more thought of publishing in the Historical Journal than I had planned to fly to the Moon. I shall always honour the memory of Nicholas Mansergh, for this article was the eventual outcome of his kindly encouragement.

I did indeed present my research to the Commonwealth History seminar, where the sheer firepower of my material persuaded those present that I was on to something. But I have always believed that seminars should represent something more than a lap of honour at the conclusion of a project. Ideally, they should provide the opportunity to challenge assumptions and discuss contexts, and this service was provided for me by Ronald Robinson. After wartime service with the Royal Air Force (he had won the DFC, but modestly referred to himself as a retired aeroplane driver), he became a Research Officer in the Colonial Office. There he was involved in planning for decolonisation: he once related the dramatic moment when news of the 1949 Accra riots confirmed ministers and bureaucrats in their view that Britain had no option but to withdraw from Africa. With his research partner Jack Gallagher, Robinson had turned the study of British Empire history inside out, notably coining the enduring phrases "the Imperialism of Free Trade" and "the Official Mind of Imperialism". As a duo, Robinson and Gallagher were formidable, admired and popular. "Robbie" was clearly uneasy at my exploration of the obscure byways of mid-Victorian speculation and, in discussion, he homed in on what, to him, was the key issue: where was all of this, he asked, "at the point of decision"? As a former Colonial Office policy-maker, he had of course noted that, while I could score a point by establishing that Russell and Disraeli had both shown interest in colonial parliamentary representation, it was surely far more noteworthy that both had introduced Reform Bills in which no provision was made for MPs from the colonies. It was a fair point, and one that I would acknowledge in the Historical Journal article by admitting that the idea was too much even for the Cambridge Union, a student debating society that, a few years earlier, had not only regretted the dissolution of the monasteries but called for their re-establishment. (The criticism may be underlined by reference to a subsequent article by Robert Saunders on "Lord John Russell and Parliamentary Reform, 1848–67" [English Historical Review, cxx 2005], which alludes to Russell's constitutional fling with the colonies in a brief endnote.)

Fairly enough, Ronald Robinson was coming at my research from a different angle, the perspective of a policy-maker who had worked at the 'point of decision'. No doubt less practically, I aimed to establish a link between mid-Victorian thinking about relations with the colonies and the grandiose dreams of Imperial Federation in later decades. Having already realised that, in academic life, random whimsicality could pass for profound insight, I adopted the practice of explaining the significance of my research on colonial parliamentary representation by likening it to the discovery of Neptune. Not surprisingly, the analogy produced general incomprehension, which enabled me to elaborate. When Uranus was identified as the seventh planet in 1781, astronomers assumed that they had completely mapped the solar system. Uranus was so far away that it took 84 years to go once around the Sun, but its very remoteness seemed to indicate that nothing would disturb its stately orbit. However, over the decades, discrepancies – minor wobbles – were detected, and by the 1840s, two mathematicians (one in Cambridge and one in Paris) independently deduced that there must be yet another planet located even further out, a heavenly body exerting a minuscule but disruptive gravitational pull. In 1846, these calculations led to the discovery (by a German astronomer) of an eighth planet, Neptune. My point was that, in practical terms, it might seem that the existence of Neptune did not matter. It was perfectly possible to study the solar system without knowing anything about this remote world, which – as I understand – remains mysterious today. Its significance lay almost entirely in its effect on the trajectory of Uranus, which could only be comprehended through an awareness of the shadowy entity beyond. Similarly, while the idea of colonial parliamentary representation left no direct mark on the history of the Empire – or, indeed, upon the evolution of parliamentary reform in Britain itself – it did have some role in shaping alternative responses to the question of future of relationships with territories overseas. The subsequent bald ultimatum, "federate or disintegrate", rebounded on its proponents when it became clear that structural incorporation was impossible, hence redefining the relationship issue in terms of the management of divergence. Thus the unreality of parliamentary federalism pointed to the need for extra-parliamentary forms of consultation if some kind of global unity was to be maintained. This was the origin of the Colonial Conference of 1887, a programme of set-piece discussions with representatives of the overseas Empire who had gathered in London to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. The precedent would become an institution, one destined to undergo several name-changes and much broadening of function. It survives today as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, with the brutal acronym CHOGM. I doubt if the Victorian enthusiasts who theorised about Colonial Boards and Imperial Councils would recognise the circus that has evolved from their dreams.

Pinning down the prevalence of an idea is necessarily an amorphous exercise. If the material is handled carefully, it can be legitimate to quote the ruminations of an obscure pamphleteer to flesh out the implications of a few hurried sentences scribbled by a busy politician in a private letter. But there are undoubtedly dangers in the approach. As a reviewer, I once cruelly described the methodology of a book that drew on similarly diverse forms of evidence as akin to drawing up a balance sheet in a combination of American and Zimbabwean dollars. I should have the humility to acknowledge that my conjuring of Empire federalism was – and is – open to the same reproach. Sometimes, when I summoned a dusty publication from the vasty depths of Cambridge University Library, it was necessary to beg the use of the Reading Room paper knife in order to cut the pages. I was exhilarated by these probes into virgin territory but I ought to have asked – and, no doubt, Ronald Robinson would have challenged me to explain – why nobody had bothered to do so in the previous hundred years. Re-reading my article after fifty years, I remain modestly pleased with the depth and detail of its research. However, I am embarrassed to be reminded of two of the sources that I quoted. Sir Richard Broun, "chief of his race in North Britain" and champion of the rights of the Baronets of Nova Scotia, was certainly on the crackpot fringe of my rediscovered intellectual tradition: in Sybil, Disraeli portrayed him as Sir Vavasour Firebrace. And then there is the massive tome of 1850, Britain Redeemed and Canada Preserved, by two Army officers, F.A. Wilson and A.B. Richards, dismissed by one contemporary reviewer as "this vast mass of valueless matter". Their work retains an affectionate place in my memory, as I once made its vagaries the subject of a conference address entitled "The Worst Ever Book on Canada". But, even though their arguments were notable for large leaps in logic, we should pause before scoffing at all their visionary ideas. Wilson and Richards were among the earliest proponents of a transcontinental railway across British North America. At the time when they wrote, of course this was a ludicrous absurdity – but Empire federalists were conjuring the future, and the first train from Montreal would reach the Pacific coast a third of a century later.

A word about changes in publication culture in the half century since the article appeared may be useful. The rediscovery of controversies over colonial representation and the realisation that such proposals were best viewed within a tripartite definition of Empire federalism represented a bonus to my research, but were not central to my main focus on the evolution of British support for Canadian Confederation. The natural outlet for this subsidiary work was the condensation of its findings into a journal article, which would sit on library shelves and be available to others, however few, who might be engaged in specialist research. Similarly, an enquiry into British attitudes to the future of Canada required a focus on the events of 1849, when the House of Commons refused to demand intervention in the controversial legislation passed by the local Assembly, thereby establishing a precedent in favour of colonial self-government. This episode I also distilled into a journal article, which is re-presented on this website as "Gladstone and the limits of Canadian self-government, 1849: the Rebellion Losses Bill in British politics" (https://www.gedmartin.net/martinalia-mainmenu-3/358-gladstone-canada-1849). Both articles were tightly worded and based on much longer drafts. In modern academic culture, the pressure would be to publish the extended version as a monograph, a terrifying term that implies a highly technical analysis produced in a short print-run at an eye-watering price. The key difference between then and now is that, half a century ago, historical research was seen as primarily equipping an academic to become a university teacher. Hence the Historical Journal article, itself unlikely to appeal to the average undergraduate, became the foundation of the thematic essay in Reappraisals in British Imperial History, which was designed to capture the interest of a student seminar. In Britain, at least, government funding models have dictated a split between research and teaching. No doubt this framework works for the sciences, where the implications of theoretical 'pure' research can never be foreseen, but its imposition on the humanities has been much less positive.

What of the impact or influence of "Empire Federalism and Imperial Parliamentary Union, 1820-1870"? Having no access to citation indexes, I offer no statistics, and doubt if they would dazzle. For some years, one of the article's endnotes did have the distinction of an internet fan page, part of the blog of a graduate student in an Australian university who was impressed by the density of information crammed into one obscure corner. That tribute appears to have vanished into the ether. Of the lack of interest in the argument generally, I can only plead that the virtual collapse of political and constitutional history of the British Empire as a subject of study. Not surprisingly, I regret the demise of Imperial History of the kind crafted by Nicholas Mansergh, but not out of any nostalgia for its Whiggish presentation of a broadening stream of disinterested enlightenment that converted colonies into Commonwealth. While I have challenged its mythologies, I do not endorse the blanket tendency to condemn the British Empire in its entirety. Indeed, I believe that those who feel obliged to engage in ethical judgements would benefit from a more sophisticated understanding of the Empire's structures, both in their strengths and their shortcomings, and in the discourse that animated its operation. However, that battle seems largely lost, and I prefer to close this prefatory Note with an anecdote.

It is the nightmare of every PhD student that, after three years – or more – of intensive research, somewhere in the world, something will be published that undermines their assumptions and potentially shatters their findings. At the time when I was working on my Historical Journal article, I knew nothing of a graduate student at the University of Leicester called Michael Burgess, who was completing a dissertation entitled "The Imperial Federation Movement in Great Britain, 1869-1893". To say the least, he was disconcerted by the last-minute appearance of my contention that his topic was both misdated and misnamed. Fortunately, his doctoral examiners took the sensible view that his work should be assessed against the pre-catastrophe body of knowledge of his subject, and perhaps they even adopted the less defensible hypothesis that I might be wrong. Happily, Mike Burgess went on to a Chair at the University of Kent, where he was also Director of the Centre for Federal Studies. I am glad to say that we became friends on the UK's Canadian Studies circuit, to which he was a warm and witty contributor, even forgiving me for the alarm I had unknowingly caused him on the threshold of his career. Mike Burgess died much too young. I do not practise the dedication of academic work, but in re-presenting this article, I remember him with affection, as I also honour and record with appreciation the support and the scrutiny that my youthful efforts received from two contrasting giants of scholarship, Nicholas Mansergh and Ronald Robinson.

EMPIRE FEDERALISM AND IMPERIAL PARLIAMENTARY UNION, 1820-1870 by GED MARTIN  (Australian National University)

The movement for imperial federation has traditionally been regarded as a late-nineteenth century phenomenon, which grew out of a supposed reaction against earlier anti-imperialism". J. E. Tyler set out to trace its growth "from its first beginnings ... in and around 1868".^[1] Historians were aware of the suggestions made before the American War of Independence that the colonies should send MPs to Westminster, but tended to dismiss them as of antiquarian interest rather than possessing any historical interest. A few also noted apparently isolated discussions of some Empire federal connection in the first half of the nineteenth century, but no attempt was made to explore the possibility of a continuous sentiment before 1870. C. A. Bodelsen did no more than list a series of examples he had discovered in the supposed age of anti-imperialism.^[2]  In fact between 1820 and 1870 a debate about the federal nature of the Empire can be traced. Like the movement for imperial federation after 1870, there was only the vaguest unity of aim about the mid-century projects, and before 1870, as after, the idea was never consistently to the fore, but enjoyed short bursts of popularity. It is, however, fair to think of one single movement for a federal Empire throughout the nineteenth century. There is a clear continuity in ideas, in arguments, and in the people involved. Ideas of Empire federalism were influential, not so much for themselves as for their relationship to overall imperial thinking: to ignore the undercurrent of feeling for a united Empire is to distort the attitudes of many leading men. In the mid-nineteenth century general principles of imperial parliamentary union were argued chiefly from the particular case of British North America, the closest colonies to Britain and the most constitutionally advanced. This Canadian emphasis strengthened the analogies with the United States which occurred in any case. The term 'Imperial Federation' is here avoided, as it has come to acquire too precise a meaning, that of a representative council of the Empire with executive powers. In fact the Imperial Federation Leaguers were just as divided as their predecessors, and it is better to use 'Empire federalism' and 'Imperial parliamentary union' as descriptors of a family of ideas about close imperial unity, of which those of Joseph Chamberlain and the Round Tablers were merely one element. The commonest idea was for the colonies to choose representatives to sit in parliament, while retaining their own legislatures, on the lines of Northern Ireland's representation at Westminster from 1922. An extreme point of view argued for a full Act of Union with the colonies and complete integration. While colonial representation was the basic and most popular theme, it had a number of offshoots. One involved colonies selecting agents rather than MPs, and in fact many colonies did have agents in London. One branch of this idea envisaged the agent addressing the Commons from time to time, as Roebuck had done speaking from the bar of the House, in 1838 for the Assembly of Lower Canada, although not an MP at the time. Another branch saw the agents forming part of a Colonial Board, which was designed to replace the evil Colonial Office. From this it was a short step to a Colonial Conference, and then to a Congress and the full machinery normally recognised as imperial federation. Thus there were three main forms of Empire federalism – parliamentary (colonial representation), extra-parliamentary (agents, Boards, Conferences) and supra-parliamentary ('Imperial Federation'). Of these various interrelated schemes, colonial representation in the British parliament has been the most persistent and should be seen as the basic ingredient of Empire federal-ism. First urged for Barbados in 1652, it was revived for Malta in 1955 and was a central issue in the 1969 elections in Gibraltar.^[3] Extra-parliamentary schemes appear to date from the late 1830s, supra-parliamentary versions coming shortly after. It should be made clear that at no time in the mid-nineteenth century was there any serious possibility of members from the colonies being admitted to parliament at Westminster. Even the Cambridge Union found the idea too much to accept.^[4]  The proposal was mainly to be found in specialist pamphlets and periodicals. Only a few scattered references to it appear in parliamentary debates, the press or the correspondence of leading politicians. Yet these references are enough to show a wider familiarity with the idea: Cobden and Disraeli both introduced references to the subject into Commons debates on totally different subjects,^[5] while newspapers similarly referred to it, from 1838 at least, without feeling that their readers needed detailed explanations, and its enthusiasts had largely given up apologising for the novelty of the idea by the late 1840s. That the idea was widespread may be shown by a simple list of those who have left their opinions on record. Colonial representation was supported at one time or another by Russell, Disraeli, Edward Stanley (later fifteenth earl of Derby), the duke of Newcastle, Lord Lyndhurst, Molesworth, Joseph Hume, the marquis of Chandos, and Sir George Murray in England.^[6] John Beverley Robinson, T. C. Haliburton, and Joseph Howe were its leading colonial supporters.^[7] Among public figures of the second rank in Britain can be included Captain Marryat, W. H. Russell of The Times, Robert Gourlay, H. S. Tremenheere of the Poor Law Commission, James Wyld the geographer, and backbench members of parliament like Sir George Staunton, Sir John Malcolm, Sir Charles Forbes, Sir Charles Wetherell, and F. H. Dickinson.^[8] The American W. H. Prescott and John S. Bartlett of the English colony in New York, were also sympathetic.^[9] In addition, Lord Grey, Elgin, C. B. Adderley, Wakefield, R. D. Mangles, a back-bench MP, and Samuel Hinds, later bishop of Norwich, were sympathetic to some kind of extra-parliamentary connection.^[10] Opposed to all forms of Empire federalism were Gladstone, Derby, Althorp, Henry Labouchere (the elder), George Cornewall Lewis, Herman Merivale, Edmund Head, Cobbett, Cobden, John Stuart Mill, and Lyttelton in England, with Francis Hincks and R. B. Sullivan in Canada.^[11] Charles Tupper opposed colonial representation, although he was later to join the Imperial Federation League. Robert Lowe and J. R. Godley were each sympathetic to Empire federalism while living in the colonies. Godley was to become its most devastating critic since Burke.^[12] It will be noted that intellectual weight was against the Empire federalists. The idea, then, was widespread; it was also influential, not on its own account but in relation to other imperial ideas.

Empire federalism was not a consistently popular idea. It appears to have been dormant from the end of the American War until about 1820, as was the larger subject of parliamentary reform. The first stirrings of constitutional disagreement in Canada brought from Robinson and Gourlay proposals for a token representation in parliament.^[13] The loyalist tradition is not difficult to discern here, although it is most prominent later in the Nova Scotian Joseph Howe. His marathon speech in the Assembly in 1854 mixed exuberant demands for colonial MPs with an account of the stories his father had told him of the great New England fleet which had been sent up to capture Louisburgh a century before.^[14] Certainly Empire federalism was always to receive its strongest support in Nova Scotia, the only pre-revolutionary mainland colony left in the Empire, and the older tradition seems to have persisted in the West Indies too.^[15] There is evidence that the British debate was paralleled in newer colonies as well. In Australia, the idea of a united Empire" was as old in Australia as nationalism itself". From Sydney, Robert Lowe's Atlas called for representation in parliament in the early 1840s; and Thomas McCombie voiced a similar demand from Melbourne. In New Zealand, Empire federalism was under discussion – and attack – within two years of the Treaty of Waitangi.^[16] 

The first important proposal for parliamentary union was made by Joseph Hume in 1831. The Reform Bill, by shifting emphasis from virtual to direct representation, strengthened the case for the admission of colonial MPs, although it was later to destroy it altogether. Hume asked for nineteen of the thirty seats which were due to be suppressed, to be re-allocated to the colonies. The motion found a number of supporters, but it was loudly and decisively negatived without a division. A large section of the House regarded the whole matter as a joke, and Hume's suggestion that Australia should have one MP produced uproar.^[17] Hume took no further interest in the subject, though Sir John Malcolm campaigned for a member of parliament for the East India Company until his death in 1833.^[18]

Empire federalism fully re-established itself as an integral theme in imperial thinking in 1837. Even before the outbreak of rebellion, colonial representation was urged "with a view to restore tranquillity in Canada". A London newspaper, the Sun, actually published a favourable outline of the scheme three days before news of the revolt arrived in Britain.^[19] From 1837 until the union of the Canadas in 1840, Empire federalism was regularly urged as an alternative policy, but almost entirely in pamphlets and the press.^[20] It continued to be pressed by enthusiasts through the first half of the 1840s, particularly in the Colonial Gazette and the Colonial Magazine.^[21] Between 1840 and 1846 Empire federalism was simmering. It had gained a status of a subject worthy of a few lines of criticism in the scholarly works of Merivale and Lewis,^[22] but the instability and confusion of the constitutional position of Canada tended to prevent it from coming to the fore. Between 1846 and 1852 it came to the boil, and a case could be made for seeing this period as the zenith of Empire federalism. It began with the era of Free Trade, and a series of influential letters, more cogent than was his wont, by Joseph Howe. Russell, to whom they were addressed, was a convert to colonial representation largely because it would reconcile local self-government with imperial unity.^[23] Elgin and Molesworth were similarly attracted, while Disraeli saw in addition a chance of party advantage. It is in this period that the idea appears not infrequently in the private correspondence of leading men. After 1852, however, Empire federalism was clearly on the wane. Two causes may be suggested for the decline of enthusiasm. One was that by 1852 Canada had won so broad a measure of self-government that it had by-passed the limited solution envisaged by the federalists. "It is a misfortune that at the moment when steam navigation seems to render such a measure possible, the Colonies already occupy such a position that they would seem to lose rather than to gain influences by it," wrote Dickinson in 1853.^[24] The second was that no satisfactory scheme could be framed as part of the Reform Bill of 1852. The essayist W. R. Greg, who attempted to draft a scheme of reform which included colonial representatives, concluded that "[t]heir fitting and far more effectual place would be in the executive, not in the legislative department of the State."^[25] It is no accident that colonial representation begins to give way to other forms of Empire federalism from this time. For the remainder of the 1850s the idea was confined to unimportant enthusiasts. Joseph Howe attempted to revive it in England in 1855, taking advantage of the new sensation of national weakness produced by the Crimean War, and this led to a controversy in the Spectator in which the idea of colonial MPs sitting at Westminster was totally routed by J. R. Godley.^[26] The growth of sectionalism in the United States in the 1850s presumably tended to discredit federalism of all forms: certainly, during the Civil War years there were few structured proposals of imperial union. Not until the late 1860s, when it was safe once again to equate federalism with internal strength, did the tradition reappear. But even then, Merivale and Adderley were writing of Empire federalism as a thing of the past.^[27] The imperial federation movement, so called, of 1870 onwards, was strikingly similar to the Empire federalists of the past. It presented the same confusion of aims, with direct colonial representation only slowly giving way to supra-parliamentary union. It presented the same arguments, and often involved the same men. Furthermore, it went through much the same cycles as its earlier counterpart, periods of popularity being followed by periods of relative quiet. The upsurge of interest in a federal Empire which took place in the late 1860s was not the start of a new movement destined to hold the stage until after 1900, but merely one of the cyclical outbursts traceable both before and after 1870.

Prominent among the Empire federalist arguments were three which derived from the influence of the United States – the analogy of federalism itself, the example of colonial revolt and the rivalry of power.

It is obvious that once any form of local autonomy developed in a dependency, the Empire would become in some sense a 'federal' or 'quasi-federal' system in operation although not in theory. A division between central and local powers, even when the latter are delegated and theoretically revocable, will work in a federal sense and come to be thought of in that way. The British Empire was occasionally spoken of in a loose way as a "great confederacy",^[28] and it was certainly thought of as a form of federation. Both Wakefield and Stephen, who rarely agreed, used the word "federative" to describe the relations they wished to see develop between Britain and her colonies.^[29] Brougham criticised the relationship as "an improper federal union".^[30] One writer even argued that by giving the French Canadians so wide a measure of autonomy at so early a stage, Britain had shown that the connection "was rather in the nature of a confederation, than of a conquest".^[31]  Naturally enough, imagery of this kind suggested the United States. Molesworth pointed to the "striking analogy between the system of government of the United States, and what ought to be the system of government of our colonial empire." Just as "the United States is a system of States clustered round a central Republic", so Britain's colonial empire "ought to be a system of colonies clustered round the hereditary monarchy of England."^[32]  

Molesworth had declared himself in favour of colonial representation in the House of Commons.^[33] Wakefield had already compared his plan for an extra-parliamentary conference of colonial representatives with the American Congress.^[34] The comparison was all the closer because the United States and the British Empire were both steadily growing. The new American states in the West, which received the full privileges of membership of the union, could justifiably be regarded as colonies. "Altho' the American system is not one I should willingly appeal to for our domestic and foreign affairs", wrote Disraeli, "there is, I think, nearly a complete analogy between the two countries as regards their Colonies".^[35] This particular comparison was increased in force by its direct reference to Canada, constitutionally the most advanced colony in the Empire, and always a possible addition to the USA. "If by chances of war, or other circumstances, that dominion should be transferred, could there be a doubt", asked Sir George Staunton in 1831," that it would be immediately allowed to send its due proportion of members to Congress[?]"^[36]  By giving the Canadians representatives in the imperial parliament, a temptation to annexation would be removed. More succinctly, the Spectator in 1838 recommended that the North American colonies should be given the ancient privileges of Massachusetts, and "for federal purposes, let them send members to the British Parliament rather than to the American Congress".^[37] The influence of the American constitution can be seen in a number of places. The Privy Council was proposed by one writer as the arbiter of constitutional problems in the Empire "in strict analogy to a provision in the constitution of the United States, that has been found by experience to work admirably".^[38] Others argued that colonies should be entitled to send MPs to Westminster on reaching a fixed stage of development.^[39] Molesworth pointed to the American constitutions as a successful definition of imperial powers, which should be imitated.^[40]  A pamphleteer went so far as to say that the American constitution was "in its conception so clear and beautiful, that the utmost we can hope to effect after eighty years of consideration and reconsideration, will be but an extension and furtherance of their principle".^[41]

The weakness of the analogy with the American federation was that it was incomplete and therefore forced. The North American colonies were not in the same position as the states of the union. "The Boston boy may become President of the United States", Joseph Howe pointed out in 1846, "the young native of Halifax or Quebec can never be anything but a member of an Executive Council, with some paltry office, paid by a moderate salary".^[42] Eight years later he asked: "Will North Americans long be satisfied with less than every State of the Union claims?"^[43]  "The weakness of the system", concluded another writer, "is that having advanced thus far, it stops short of a complete and satisfactory solution".^[44] Burke had once pointed out that parliament had two functions. The first was simply as the local legislature for Britain. "The other and, I think, her nobler capacity is what I call her Imperial character, in which, as from the throne of Heaven, she superintends all the several inferior legislatures, and guides and controls them all, without annihilating any."^[45] The problem was, as a later writer remarked, that parliament was "Imperial in the extent of its power, and not by virtue of its composition".^[46] There were the elements of a great federation, said a reviewer, not the federation itself.^[47] When the colonies began to chafe, the obvious alternative to independence was to seat them on the throne of Heaven too. The Annual Register for 1838 saw colonial representation as the only way to bring the colonies "within the legitimate action of the constitution".^[48] The overruling of the Jamaica legislature the following year led an island newspaper to describe representation at Westminster as "the only panacea".^[49] Men of the British race, it was held, would not submit for ever to having no voice in their foreign affairs.^[50]

Disraeli's reluctance to appeal to the American example illustrates a major weakness of the argument. Vernon Smith opposed the federal clauses of the Australian Colonies Bill of 1850 because "he was not one of those who wished to see England establishing republican institutions all over the world".^[51] The internal weakness displayed by the United States before the Civil War was no recommendation. Empire federalists could only point to the greater disorganisation of the Empire. The Spectator in 1839 defended the Van Buren administration's handling of the Maine boundary dispute. "Viewing the Imperial system of England as a great federation comprising the Colonies as well as these Islands, which Federal Executive is the less efficient – that of the United States in Maine, or that of England in the rebellious Canadas, and scarcely more manageable colonies of Jamaica and South Africa?"^[52] The Colonial Gazette in 1846 argued for an undefined imperial authority to replace tariff union, arguing that for all the weakness of the United States government, "it is better for the states composing the Union that they should be conjointly subject to this shadow of a Government, than that each should be entirely independent".^[53] A decade later even this mild statement was hard to uphold, and Empire federalists had to insist that there was nothing "in the convulsions and ultimate disunion now hanging over the States" which was inherent in a federal system.^[54] It was not a convincing argument.

A further weakness of the federal analogy was that the demand to 'federate' easily became the argument 'federate or disintegrate'. Statesmen would eventually discover "that they have no choice between this and the loss of the Colonies".^[55] Unfortunately the argument was all too easy to challenge. The Illustrated London News in 1849 doubted whether even colonial representation would hold Canada for two generations "or the great continent of Australia for three".^[56] Commenting on Joseph Hume's motion in 183I, the Morning Chronicle insisted that "the Colonies should be taught that they ought to look for their protection from Local Legislatures alone".^[57] Thus the ultimatum 'federate or disintegrate' was all too likely to rebound: if after closer examination federation proved to be unworkable, then there was no alternative but to accept disintegration. It would certainly be one of Goldwin Smith's most effective arguments.^[58]

The obsession with which British writers argued from the United States as a federal model may be partly explained by guilt feelings about the breach of 1776, which was the second main theme of argument from the American example. The influence of history on events is open to question, but the loss of the American colonies – "a loss we can never cease to deplore"^[59] – was at least a useful debating point in favour of the Empire federalists. According to the Sunday Times in 1849, there was not "a great statesman living who will not tell you that the United States might still have been connected with this empire had the benefits of our representative system been extended to them in time".^[60] Opponents criticised this view. Godley and Merivale, on the other hand, both cited the unwillingness of the American colonies to accept such representation.^[61] William Westgarth, an Australian who was to campaign for the Imperial Federation League in the 1880s, pointed out that the colonies had only used the cry of "no taxation without representation" to escape paying taxes, not to gain seats in parliament.^[62] Most of all, critics relied simply on the testimony of Edmund Burke's "great authority".^[63] This was an argument which could be countered much more easily. In the first place, Burke had been opposed to parliamentary reform of all kinds. Once parliament was in the process of reform, Burke's objections ceased to be relevant, and a counter-claim could be made that Burke would have supported colonial representation in parliament if he had been obliged to accept any reform.^[64] Secondly, Burke's objections were based largely on the difficulty of travelling to and from the colonies. From 1838 onwards the triumph of steam was to figure large in Empire federalist arguments, and G. A. Young in the British and Foreign Review was the first to point out that Burke's argument no longer applied.^[65] The Empire federalists were able to cite Adam Smith as a rival authority.^[66] The Wealth of Nations was after all one of the most influential books in nineteenth century England. It was in the passage in which Smith argued for a legislative union of Britain and the colonies that the phrase "paltry raffle of colony faction" occurs, which was misquoted by Durham in his proposal for union of the Canadas.^[67] A backbench MP in 1831 cited the offer made to the American colonies in 1779, while T. C. Meekins referred to the Regency Crisis of 1788, in which different powers were voted by the British and Irish parliaments, as an example of the evils of co-equal authorities.^[68] The most charming belief was that of an anonymous writer who believed that colonial representation, coupled with an imperial Zollverein, might undo the errors of the past and persuade some or all of the states of America "to rejoin the standard of their race".^[69]

The third influence exercised by the United States example on mid-century Empire federalism is perhaps the most surprising: it is the argument that power must be based on great land empires, and it represents an interesting undercurrent in the prevailing optimism of the Free Trade era. The theme first appears in 1839, in an anonymous pamphlet The Colonies of Great Britain must be incorporated to form one universal and indivisible Empire. It pointed out the steady territorial growth of the European powers and the USA, and warned that a stationary Britain would be overtaken "for we have no immense territory wherein to cherish our accumulating population, nor weak neighbours whom we can rob". But Britain's colonies could provide all the raw materials necessary for a manufacturing economy, and consequently Britain should unite with them in one vast political and tariff union. The idea that nations must grow or perish is strikingly similar to Joseph Chamberlain's premise "that the tendency of the time is to throw all power into the hands of the greater empires, and the minor kingdoms – those which are non-progressive – seem to be destined to fall into a secondary and subordinate place".^[70] In each case the analysis pointed to an economic and political union of the Empire. But the anonymous writer of 1839 would have scorned to be called a federalist. In his opinion the Empire's weakness was precisely that it was a federation: "A federation of governments is like a bundle of sticks bound by a slender ligature – a slight concussion will cause the tie to snap and the government and the sticks alike will fall to pieces. A consolidated government is like the stump of the gnarled oak, which resists the greatest force to rend it asunder."^[71]

Here then is the appeal to power and territorial greatness. It remained a secondary sentiment, but it was there. A writer of 1840 asserted that a trial was taking place between monarchical and republican principles "in the contest now carrying on between the two great powers, Great Britain and America – nations sprung from the same stock". Integration of the colonies with Britain "would cause the scale to turn in favour of the monarchical principle, and consequently of British interests, which we trust are those of mankind".^[72] In commending Joseph Howe's letters in 1846, the Colonial Gazette remarked: "The balance of power in Europe is an old song. The balance of power among the English race is a much more important matter."^[73] As the United States grew in the late 1840s, so too did English fears.^[74] By the time of the Crimean War an unpleasant sensation of threat from the giants of east and west had taken hold.^[75] Empire parliamentary union became attractive at a time when "the English Crown may find its safety secured only by bringing to its aid the support of every English county that it can command".^[76] To C. B. Adderley, Empire federalism was a necessary war measure: "This little island wants not energy, but only territory and basis to extend itself: its sea-girt home would become the citadel of one of the greatest of the empires which seem to foreshadow their approach in this last stage of the world's history."^[77]

From 1854 onward, Joseph Howe not only introduced into his arguments the plea of strength, but made it the principal case for colonial representation. The preface to the English edition of Howe's speech of 1854 drew attention to the "Russian feeling evinced by the Press and People of the United States, contrasted as it has been with the fine spirit displayed by the British Americans throughout the war".^[78] Meekins in 1859 harped on the dangers of war with the USA, at a time when he might more reasonably have referred to France.^[79] But perhaps the most remarkable warning came from the pseudonymous Carfax, who in 1857 put America head of the list of rival giants, and then warned that "Germany is slowly collecting herself for the change which will unite her scattered members more closely together".^[80] Indeed, his final warning against sinking to the level of" a Holland or a Sweden, grasping the skirts of neutrality in the midst of armed leviathans" is so similar to a passage by Froude in 1871 that some connection between the two must be suspected.^[81]

This line of argument was open to criticism. Tupper attacked Howe for wishing to fight the battles of England in all corners of the globe – the colonies had managed to keep out of the Crimean War.^[82] Goldwin Smith ridiculed the "exaggerated estimate of moral grandeur" which Empire federalists derived from the idea of a great land empire, arguing that a world-wide state was as chimerical a project as the restoration of the unity of Christendom.^[83] But Empire federalism, despite its pessimistic undertones when confronted by the growth of rival powers, more often displayed an optimistic face. A frequent theme from 1838 onwards was the triumph of the steamship on the North Atlantic.^[84] Haliburton's conversion to Empire federalism dates from the moment when, becalmed on a sailing ship in mid-Atlantic, he watched the Sirius steaming past on her first west-east voyage. Joseph Howe was a passenger on the same voyage.^[85] As Russell put it, "in point of communication Halifax is now almost as near as Inverness was a century ago".^[86] What is even more striking is the extent to which Empire federalists confidently expected improvements to continue. The transatlantic voyage could be reduced to a week.^[87] Improved steam engines were on the way.^[88] Australia would soon be included – although many did doubt this.^[89] Firm faith was expressed not simply in steamships. "It will at first appear difficult to imagine members coming from distant inland constituencies in Canada and returning each year ... but the magic word 'Railway' again comes to our aid."^[90] In 1857, Robert Fletcher was confidently referring to the telegraph as an additional means of transatlantic communication, well in advance of its successful inauguration. A Central American ship canal would shortly reduce the travelling time to New South Wales.^[91] Some, it is true, were not carried away by technological advance. Adderley concluded with regret that while steam could narrow the gap between Britain and the colonies, it could not abolish the fact that the gap had existed.^[92] But overall the steamship theme recurs so frequently that it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Empire federalists were dazzled by it. Their enthusiasm is excusable, for they lived in an age which tended to believe that all problems could be solved by constitutional innovations or mechanical invention. After all, Tennyson at the same period pictured the earth spinning along railway lines towards "the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World".

The steamship services on the North Atlantic not only brought the North American colonies nearer to London in time, but brought them closer relative to the outlying parts of the United Kingdom. As late as 1847 there was no direct rail communication between London and Scotland or Wales.^[93] An analogy was frequently drawn between the colonies and the provinces, a reminder of how far British attitudes were really London attitudes. Canada was frequently likened to the Orkneys, to Yorkshire, and to Ireland – the last of which was to prove less than helpful.^[94] To the comparison with far-flung areas of the United Kingdom was coupled an insistent psychological argument. The colonist was a second-class citizen, "shut out from all the prizes of the empire",^[95] and "mortified with the notion that he is but the subject of a dependency".^[96] Representation in parliament "would make them feel themselves as parts rather than as dependencies of the Empire",^[97] for they would become "part of that mighty government which sways the destinies of one-fourth of the human race".^[98] They would be "warmed into a British existence" by the "great wings of England's legislation".^[99] This had been the argument of Adam Smith.^[100] To Russell, parliamentary representation would offer "a field open for colonial ambition".^[101] Of a similar plan, Elgin wrote that "it would help to supply some craving which many of the Colonists no doubt feel."^[102] At the same time, however, Elgin suggested that most complaints of this kind came from "persons who have more ambition than success in Colonial public life".^[103] Haliburton, more bluntly, had once characterised it as an appeal to "provincial sycophants"^[104] But it was his Sam Slick who put the point most forcefully. "Every Englishman, from a member of parliament that addresses you by letter, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Upper Canada ... down to Jack Tar, says 'our colonies', and he thinks he is part owner of these possessions.... It shouldn't be England and her colonies, but they should be integral parts of one great whole – all counties of Great Britain ... They should be represented in parliament, help to pass English laws, and show them what laws they wanted themselves. All distinctions should be blotted out for ever. It should no more be a bar to a man's promotion as it is now that he lived beyond seas, than livin' on the other side of the channel: it should be our navy, our army, our nation. That's a great word; but the English keep it to themselves, and colonists have no nationality.… Colonists are the pariahs of the Empire."^[105]

There were objections to this argument. The sympathetic could point out that by sending their best men to London, colonial life would become more, not less, second rate.^[106] The sceptic could claim that the remedy involved equally Utopian alterations "in the laws of time, space and locomotion".^[107]  But the real weakness of the argument was that it was circular and self-defeating. The colonists would never be granted equality of status by a popular mind which regarded them as inferiors, yet the federalists argued that only by such a grant would the British come to accept the colonists as equals.

There can be little doubt that the idea of MPs from the colonies was widely regarded with irritation. Colonial members would be a "nuisance"^[108] and, in Cobbett's phrase, a set of vipers who would side with any tax-eating government.^[109] Labouchere predicted that colonial members would "form a little knot, combining together to carry some particular measures, and totally indifferent about every other".^[110] The instinctive belief that colonial MPs would behave in a base and self-interested manner unknown to their metropolitan counterparts "the best and noblest portion of the British nation"^[111] – reflects a powerful feeling of contempt for all things colonial. Unfortunately, the idea of the "Colonial Swiss" was strengthened by the analogy of the colonies with Ireland. The Annual Register supported colonial representation, despite "the inconvenience which is produced by the presence of some of the Irish members in Parliament".^[112] The Standard in 1831, on the other hand, saw representation as "exactly the most ingenious means that can be contrived to shake the empire to pieces". It predicted that "before three years", cloned versions of Daniel O'Connell would spring up everywhere, forcing "a Clare and Waterford election to every spot of earth that now owns British authority."^[113] The Unionist Dublin University Magazine came at the problem from the other end, supported colonial representation for fear that if the Anglo-Canadian connection were severed, the union of 1801 would be endangered.^[114]

The federalists replied indignantly to such denigration. The main weakness of colonial interests, they insisted, was their inability to combine on any issue because of their diversity and rivalry.^[115]  Joseph Howe, one of the most combative politicians of the Atlantic world, claimed that, far from being mercenary partisans, colonial members "might sometimes be heard above the din of party conflict".^[116] Disraeli entertained a similarly backward looking belief that the colonies might be used to unite the fabric of society and bridge the gap between town and country interests.^[117]  The federalists insisted that the mere presence of a single colonial member would exercise influence. 'It may certainly be said that one vote would not do much, but the testimony he could bear, and his personal acquaintance with the colony, would always bear weight".^[118]  Unfortunately, the more the federalists protested that colonial representatives would not make any difference to British politics, the more they argued themselves into a corner. Critics interpreted their defence as an admission that representation would be an irrelevance at best, while at worst it would reduce the autonomy of the colonies.^[119]

A principal weakness of the representation case was that it argued only for a token connection, preserving the autonomy of the local assembly.^[120]  Attempts were made to justify this in terms of municipal analogies, which were naturally not over-convincing.^[121]  R.B. Sullivan and Edmund Head both asked what would happen if the colonial representative disagreed with the colonial governor and his advisers.^[122] Merivale argued that if colonial assemblies continued to control the power of taxation, then they would be regarded by the imperial government as the voice of the colonies. Relations would be "altogether unaffected by the influence of the little knot of gentlemen who might be sent to enact the visionary part of legislators in London". Lewis, on the other hand, pointed out that if the local assemblies were abolished, sheer distance from Westminster would underline the dependent status of the colonies more than ever.^[123]

The real rock on which the call for token representation foundered was the problem of taxation. Most British observers saw that the colonies would not surrender their fiscal autonomy to parliament, but assumed that colonial members would be able to tax them.^[124] (Until 1853, a similar arrangement freed Ireland from income tax, and it was this which prompted Cobden's attack on colonial representation.^[125]) Staunton argued that since colonial members would be gentlemen of property, there would be nothing to fear.^[126]  But many doubted whether they would be gentlemen of any kind. Francis Hincks foresaw the British reviving and reversing the old cry that taxation without representation was tyranny.^[127]  A few pointed out that colonial members could be deprived of the right to vote on any domestic matter of the United Kingdom, but this idea never caught on.^[128] Tupper, for instance, argued that it would be invidious to sit in the Commons without full voting rights.^[129]

The question of taxation tied in closely with that of Free Trade. Before 1846 Empire federalists had tended to see themselves as the true Free-Traders, with a Zollverein of the British race. "To expect that the principles of free trade can be worked extensively by rival nations, of different races, is to hope too much from man."^[130] After 1846, Tories unambiguously connected representation with protection.^[131] This did not prevent convinced free-traders from supporting the idea, but it scarcely helped its progress. From 1849 to 1851 Disraeli toyed with the idea of linking colonial representation to protection. He attacked the Malt Tax, arguing that if revenue were raised from tariffs and not from excise, colonial representation would no longer face the problem of taxation.^[132] But Lord Derby, of all people, objected to colonial representation because it could not be attempted "without coming into direct collision with the questions of Free Trade".^[133]

There were insurmountable practical problems too. Attempts to allocate members to the colonies only showed how difficult it would be to satisfy them all.^[134]  Who would elect the colonial members – the colonial assembly or the electors at large? Most colonies came close to manhood suffrage, and Derby feared that direct election would introduce into parliament precisely the democratic element the Conservatives wished to keep out.^[135] It was frequently objected that the colonies lacked men who could afford the unpaid task, and proponents of representation came to argue for an exception to be made in favour of colonial members who should be allowed to accept salaries.^[136] Similarly, it was argued that colonial MPs should sit for a fixed term of years, regardless of dissolutions and elections, in order to circumvent the problems which distance would create in the event of a sudden election.^[137]  Anyone who thought this unconstitutional, asserted one writer, did not understand the true nature of the English constitution.^[138]

It can be seen that Empire federalists were engaged in an extended piece of special pleading – innovations being necessary to make innovations work. The slightest knowledge of the fate of parliamentary reform in the mid-nineteenth century is sufficient to demonstrate how unlikely would be the success of any such move. "It is hard enough to get the smallest and most necessary constitutional changes carried in this country", wrote Godley in 1854, "and I am inclined to think that if a Minister were to come down to the House with a proposal for abolishing Parliament and issuing writs for a Federal Congress, the result would simply be his immediate consignment to Bedlam".^[139]

Although as late as 1858 colonial representation could be confidently predicted as part of a forthcoming Reform Bill,^[140] the precedent of 1831 was clearly for separate Reform Bills for each of the home countries. When Hume brought forward his motion for a committee to examine colonial representation, it was well understood that such a measure would involve a further bill, a fourth process of argument and struggle, and this time with all the advantage on the side of the entrenched interests.^[141] It is not surprising that no such bill appeared, and it is more than symbolic that after rejecting Hume's motion the House should have proceeded to discuss whether the Isle of Wight should form a separate constituency from Hampshire.^[142]  Edward Stanley considered piecemeal disfranchisement of corrupt boroughs as a possible means of bringing in the colonies. However, he rejected the idea, partly because it was uncertain in operation and partly because it would raise false hopes. "From the hour that you admit the right of Canada to be represented, every delay in carrying out the plan is felt there as a grievance: and if the promise of 1850 were not performed until ten years afterwards, instead of thanks for the favour we should get reproaches for the delay."^[143]

As the movement for renewed parliamentary reform gathered ground, the chances of colonial representation further declined. In 1831 the case for the colonies had been argued from ambiguous premises. Hume saw them as geographical communities with a right to a voice in their affairs. Most of his supporters saw them as an interest group.^[144] Opponents certainly found this the easiest argument to attack, Althorp asserting that special treatment for the colonies would lead to a flood of similar claims while Labouchere argued that the banking interest had a better claim than the colonial.^[145] From 1837, when the main stream of the representation case rested on Canada, the ambiguity apparently disappeared in favour of the more up-to-date territorial interpretation. It did not, however, change as fast as theories of representation in Britain. It was the inequality of representation which reformers found easiest to attack in the 1832 settlement. As reformers demanded constituencies of equal size in Britain, the case for a token block of colonial members became once again one on behalf of an interest group. Even so, the tendency towards representation by population was not yet decisive. The 1867 Reform Act did not create equal constituencies, while it did give representation to a new interest group, London University. As late as 1866 Disraeli could still defend the smaller boroughs as a means by which Indian and colonial interests could be represented in parliament.^[146] But the introduction of a token block of colonial members would have required the complete reversal of the tendency towards equality of representation.

W. R. Greg's conclusion that, all in all, it would be more fitting to have the colonies represented at executive rather than at legislative level in the Empire, was the logical conclusion that would be drawn by others: Russell and Disraeli both talked in the 1870s of the need for an imperial council.^[147]  Both had earlier supported direct representation. The extra-parliamentary forms of Empire federalism already had a respectable basis from which to work. It was part of the imperial tradition that colonies could appoint agents to act on their behalf in London. Burke had been agent for New York. Henry Bliss represented New Brunswick for twenty-five years, and acted unofficially for the Legislative Council of Lower Canada when Roebuck spoke for the Assembly.^[148] The Colonial Gazette urged all colonies to set up agencies in London, arguing that it "might help to anticipate for them some of the advantages of Parliamentary representation".^[149] From proposals for the selection of agents for individual colonies, it was a short step to the idea of a conference of colonial representatives. The Morning Herald saw even an unofficial Congress, projected as part of a campaigning league which was never formed, as a partial replacement for colonial representation.^[150] The most popular plan was for a colonial board, on the lines of the administration of the East India Company, which would replace the unpopular Colonial Office. Colonists and British ministers would sit side-by-side administering the colonies in some unspecified spirit of liberalism.^[151] An alternative plan was for a Council of the Indies, originated by Mangles and taken up by Adderley.^[152] The title was borrowed from Spain, but the idea failed to translate as easily as the name. The Examiner suggested that it would be "about as effective as a council of wig blocks".^[153] Eventually W. H. Prescott, the Harvard historian, tactfully informed Adderley that he had no idea what he was talking about, and the colourful notion went into abeyance.^[154]

The schemes for colonial agents and colonial councils were parallel to colonial representation plans, and usually defended as more convenient to operate. There was also a large measure of overlap. Some argued both for a colonial board and for colonial representation in parliament. Others envisaged the board itself having spokesmen in the Commons, selected from its colonial members.^[155] Elgin and Grey were attracted to the idea that the colonies should appoint chargés d'affaires in London, who would have access to parliament. They derived the idea from H. S. Tremenheere, who saw it as an alternative to colonial representation in parliament, but it seems to have originated with an Australian, Thomas McCombie, who wavered between advocating representation in parliament and quasi-diplomatic representation.^[156] Simmonds, for a time editor of the Colonial Magazine, took up McCombie's idea and suggested that colonies should select as their agents men who were already members of parliament. Francis Scott, MP for Roxburgh, had been designated agent for New South Wales shortly before.^[157] Unfortunately Stanley vetoed the appointment, on the grounds that every MP had a double duty, to his constituents and to the Empire at large, and that it would be improper for him to speak for a third, regional interest.^[158] This was a considerable setback, and Simmonds not surprisingly declared his support for the introduction of colonial MPs.^[159]

These extra-parliamentary forms of federalism did have the advantage of greater plausibility. In the long run they pointed to the imperial conferences, and the system of High Commissioners. Their failure to displace the plea for colonial MPs must be attributed largely to the strong psychological arguments for the latter. A colonial agent was a distinctly less glamorous person than an MP. It is interesting to note that the leading advocate of a "federative" system of agents was Wakefield – a man whose own career effectively ruled out any chance of election to parliament.^[160]

The proposals for extra-parliamentary conferences or boards of colonial delegates were ambiguous about the status of the proposed bodies. One writer insisted that parliament would never dare to defy the unanimous voice of a colonial board.^[161] This, however, was wishful thinking and certainly promised no guaranteed powers. Dickinson pointed out that colonial leaders could hardly be asked to come half way round the world merely to make recommendations which parliament might simply overrule.^[162] Thus extra-parliamentary federalism led to the supra-parliamentary federalism usually thought of as "Imperial Federation". The first use of the term came from a Wesleyan clergyman, the Rev. William Arthur, in 1853. Arthur envisaged a third house of parliament, an imperial senate, acting as guardian of a code of organic laws which no legislature might infringe.^[163] The first detailed proposal for an imperial legislature completely independent of, and superior to, parliament was that of 'Carfax' in 1857.^[164] These are the earliest proposals for an Imperial Federation, as distinct from a parliamentary union, to be backed by specific arguments. However, they are not quite the earliest examples of the idea in outline. The connection between Empire federalism and Irish Repeal had been established a decade earlier, and proposals for "Home Rule All Round" were made in 1844 and 1849.^[165]

The overall significance of the Empire federalist debate of the mid-nineteenth century can best be seen by relating it to the later movement for imperial federation. In fact, it is fairer to speak of a single intellectual tradition, and to abandon the notion that the years 1868-70 saw a new departure. The post-1870 movement underwent the same cycles of fortune as its predecessor. Nor was it by any means a monolithic movement for an imperial congress, but the same disparate coalition of parliamentary, extra-parliamentary and supra-parliamentary federalists. Colonial representation – the parliamentary form of federalism – remained popular in the 1870s. Jehu Mathews, who has been regarded as a typical exponent of the movement, argued in 1872 that the idea of colonial MPs sitting at Westminster had some advantages over supra-parliamentary schemes. Lord Grey, in 1879 as in 1849, still felt it necessary to state that the plan was" open to insurmountable objections". Gradually proposals for direct representation declined, presumably because the larger colonies were too advanced to be thought of as overseas counties. "The old project of giving the Colonies representatives in the Imperial Parliament appears to have been laid aside", wrote Goldwin Smith in 1891. E. A. Freeman observed the following year that representation at Westminster was possible in theory "but not really worth discussing in practice". Nonetheless, it retained some support in the Imperial Federation League.^[166]

As parliamentary federal schemes declined, extra-parliamentary projects gained in popularity. Russell, who had favoured the admission of colonial members to parliament in 1849, was by 1870 an advocate of an annual colonial council. At his 1872 Crystal Palace speech, Disraeli expressed regret that responsible government had been introduced without the creation of an imperial council in London. This was no new element in his thinking, for he had expressed the same regret to Adderley in 1862. In the fitting atmosphere of the Crystal Palace, Disraeli was simply reviving, in a new form, the ideas which had so much attracted him in the year of the Great Exhibition. Schemes for colonial councils had the merit of satisfying the federal urge by giving the colonies a consultative voice without challenging the authority of parliament. They were to find their culmination in the colonial and imperial conferences which began in 1887. Indeed, in 1889, Rosebery, the second President of the Imperial Federation League, flatly insisted that the conference of 1887 had in fact inaugurated Imperial Federation. "If that was not imperial federation, I don't know what is." Even Joseph Chamberlain was prepared to admit that an imperial council to co-ordinate defence "would be little, if at all, distinguished from a real federation of the Empire".^[167]

These examples of the continuity of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary federalism illustrate the essential unity of the nineteenth-century intellectual tradition. They also help to show why the title of the Imperial Federation League has always been widely regarded as a misnomer.^[168] It may be more useful to suggest that all adherents of the movement, both before and after 1870, should be designated "Empire federalists", leaving the traditional term "Imperial Federation" solely for supra-parliamentary schemes. This would make it easier to understand why so many members of the League spent so much time opposing schemes which logically they should have supported.

The essential relationship between the mid- and late-nineteenth century Empire federalists can be shown too by the continuity of the debate. Every major argument for or against closer union advanced in the late-nineteenth century had appeared in the earlier decades.^[169] Jehu Mathews cited and criticised the attacks made in the 1860s by John Stuart Mill and Goldwin Smith, regarding them as attacks on his ideas. Although the Imperial Federation Leaguers were unaware of the extent of their own tradition, they accepted as their own as much of it as they came across.^[170] 

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of continuity is to be seen in the advocates involved. C.B. Adderley, who had been reluctantly convinced of the futility of most schemes in 1855, remained a federalist in sentiment and lived to dedicate a book on imperial unity to Joseph Chamberlain in 1903. Grey, who had been prepared to allow colonial agents to address the House of Commons in 1852, was by 1879 arguing that they should sit on a special Committee of the Privy Council to advise on imperial problems. Continuity can be seen too in Russell and Disraeli. Sir Charles Tupper, although a prominent member of the League, denounced in 1893 those whose plans of imperial union were designed mainly to tax the colonies in support of the British fleet, just as he had denounced Joseph Howe in 1866 for wishing to fight Britain's wars all over the globe. He had expressed his opposition to colonial representation in 1860 and remained an extra-parliamentary federalist opposed to more formal schemes. William Westgarth, an Australian colonist, had argued against colonial representation in parliament in 1848, and continued to do so in 1886. He was, nonetheless, a member of the Imperial Federation League and supported colonial representation in the British cabinet. A particularly interesting example was P. S. Hamilton of Nova Scotia. In 1855 he published an appeal for British North American Union, and referred to future membership of a confederation of the British Empire. Thirty-four years later, Hamilton publicly claimed that he had begun working for colonial union before 1850 "as but a step towards the union of the British Empire as a whole". The idea of a federal Empire, he explained, had been kept in the background because British North American Union was considered quite visionary enough. "It was feared that the grander scheme – the Consolidation of the Empire project – would be regarded as so hopelessly visionary that its advocacy would imperil the success of the Canadian idea, of which it was merely an expansion." Two powerful critics appear both before and after 1870. Goldwin Smith denounced the idea of an imperial congress as forcefully in 1902 as he had in 1862. Gladstone had apparently been aware of proposals for colonial representation in parliament as early as 1838. In 1855, he expressed his agreement with Godley's attack on the idea of an imperial congress, and he was to be a powerful opponent of the Imperial Federation League.^[171] 

It seems, therefore, reasonable to argue that there was throughout the nineteenth century a consistent movement, or sentiment, for some form of federal Empire. The upsurge of interest around 1868 represented not a movement, but the revival of an idea which had gone into temporary decline during the American Civil War, but had again become plausible after the Northern victory and the Confederation of Canada. Some were not aware that they were witnessing a new departure. Froude in 1868 admitted that his dream of an imperial parliament would never be realised. Adderley in 1869 admitted that he had accepted the impracticability of creating an imperial congress fourteen years earlier. Merivale in 1870 wrote of colonial representation: "No plan of a great public reform has ever been more thoroughly ventilated than this has by the discussions of a century, since the time of Burke. The result of these discussions, as yet, has been to bring more and more into light the insoluble nature of the difficulties which impede its adoption."^[172] Certainly the discussions after 1868 should not be seen as a new departure. In 1924 C. A. Bodelsen argued that the years around 1870 marked the end of "anti-imperialism", the beginning of imperialist expansion, and of the desire for a federal Empire. In recent years strong attacks have been launched on the first two of these propositions.^[173]  These attacks stand independent of each other, and they in no way predicate an attack on the third proposition. They are referred to here not to strengthen the argument of continuity in the ideas of Empire federalism, but to show how it may be related to other themes of imperial history. It is, in fact, possible to argue that the idea of a federal Empire was not simply a late nineteenth century aberration but an integral, if always a minor, aspect of imperial thought.

ENDNOTES I am obliged to Andrew Jones for his comments.

^[1] J. E. Tyler, The Struggle for Imperial Unity 1868-1895 (London, 1938), vii.

^[2] F. P. de Labilliere, in Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, xxiv(1892-3), 99 – 100; de Labilliere, Federal Britain; or, the Unity and Federation of the Empire (London, 1894), 6-14; A. L. Burt, Imperial Architects, being an account of proposals in the direction of closer imperial union made previous to the opening of the first Colonial Conference of 1887 (Oxford, 1913), 103-14; C. A. Bodelsen, Studies in Mid-Victorian Imperialism (Copenhagen and London, 1924), 532-4.

^[3] A. L. Burt, Imperial Architects, 14-15; Dennis Austin, "Britain, Europe and Some Malta", Round Table, no. 240 (Nov. 1970), 397-404; The Annual Register: World Events in 1969, 120. Joseph Hume had proposed that Malta and Gibraltar should send MPs to Westminster in 1831 (Hansard, 3rd ser., vi, 16 Aug. 1831, cols 110-24). For another early discussion, see J. Oldmixon, The British Empire in America (2 vols, London, 1708), i, xxxiv-xxxv.

^[4] Cambridge Union Society, Minute Book no. 16, is Nov. 1856. The motion" That the Colonies should be represented in the Imperial Parliament" was defeated by 38 votes to 12, a relatively well-attended debate.

^[5]  Hansard, 3rd ser., cxxii (5 July 1850), cols 1040-1 (Disraeli); ibid., cxxvi (28 Apr. 1853), cols 694-5 (Cobden). Cobden's speech is given in John Bright and James E. Thorold Rogers, eds, Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, by Richard Cobden, MP (2 vols., London, 1870), 555-75. The debates were on the Malt Tax and the Budget.

^[6] University of Durham, Grey Papers, Russell to Grey, Pembroke Lodge, 19 Aug. 1849 (copy in Public Record Office, Russell Papers P.R.O. 30/22/8A, fos 89-91); Grey Papers, Russell to Grey, P(embroke) L(odge), 13 Oct. 1849; Disraeli to Stanley, Hughenden, 28 Dec. 1849; Disraeli to Derby, confidential, Hatfield, 9 Dec. 1851, in W. F. Monypenny and G. E. Buckle, Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (6 vols, London, 1910-20), iii,  237, 333-5; Hughenden Papers, Box 111, B/XX/S/538, Edward Stanley to Disraeli, Madrid, 13 Nov. 1850;British Library, Gladstone Papers, Add. MS 44262, Newcastle to Gladstone, Clumber, 26 Aug. 1852, fos 125-30; Disraeli to Derby, confidential, Hatfield, 9 Dec. 1851, in Monypenny and Buckle, Life of Benjamin Disraeli, iii, 333-5 (for Lyndhurst); speech by Molesworth on the Australian Colonies Bill, 8 Feb. 1850, in H. E. Egerton, ed., Selected Speeches of Sir William Molesworth, Bart. P.C. MP on questions relating to colonial policy (London, 1903), 314-15; Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 110-24 (for Hume); ibid. col. 124 (for Chandos); ibid. cols. 141-2 (for Murray).

^[7] Robinson to R. W. Horton, n.d. [1822], in H. E. Egerton and W. L. Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development shown by selected speeches and despatches (London, 1907),  147-8; [T. C. Haliburton], The Attaché; or Sam Slick in England (2 vols, London, 1843), ii, 86-8, 99-101, 175; [T. C. Haliburton], Sam Slick's Wise Saws and Modern Instances; or what he said, did or invented (2 vols, London, 1853), II, 221-3; Letters to Lord John Russell, in J. A. Chisholm, ed., The Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe (2 vols, Halifax, 1909), i, 609-31.

^[8] Captain Marryat, A Diary in America with remarks on its institutions, part second (3 vols, London, 1839), iii 184-5; W. H. Russell sympathetically quoted Joseph Howe's plea for colonial representation, W. H. Russell, Canada; Its Defences, Condition and Resources. Being a third and concluding volume of 'My Diary, North and South' (London, 1865),  191-9; Robert Gourlay, General introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada, compiled with a view to a grand system of Emigration in connexion with a reform of the Poor Laws (London, 1822),  cccxlii-cccxliii; H. S. Tremenheere, Notes on Public subjects made during a tour of the United States and Canada (London, 1852),  288-92; Hansard, 3rd ser., cvii (18 Feb. 1850), col. 1019 (Wyld); Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 130-1 (Staunton); ibid. cols. 128-30 (Malcolm); ibid. cols. 540-1 (Forbes); ibid. cols. 131-8 (Wetherell). The identification of F. H. Dickinson is less certain. A letter in the Spectator, no. 1368 (16 Sept. 1854), 978, is signed "J. H. D., Kingweston": J. Dickinson lived at Kingweston in Somerset and J.H.D. was probably a mistranscription. There is a similar proposal for colonial representation in The Colonial Church Chronicle and Missionary Journal, vi (Feb. 1853), 286-90, signed 'F. H. D'. For Dickinson, see J. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt. ii, vol. ii, 295. [He had inherited estates in Jamaica.]

^[9] Prescott to Adderley, 4 Nov. 1854, in Extracts from Letters of John Robert Godley to C. B. Adderley (ed. Adderley) (London, 1863),  229-32; for Bartlett, see the prospectus of the projected Colonial Advocate (1849) in P.R.O., C.O. 42/562, fo. 234.

^[10] Grey was opposed to direct colonial representation, but sympathetic to the idea of a colonial agent who might address the House of Commons. Public Record Office, Russell Papers, P.R.O. 30/22/8A, Grey to Russell, Howick, 23 Aug. 1849, fos 99-101; P.R.O. 30/22/8B, Grey to Russell, C.O., 21 Nov. 1849, fo. 578; A. G. Doughty, ed., Elgin-Grey Papers (4 vols, Ottawa, 1937), Grey to Elgin (copy), 6 Feb. 1852, iii, 989. Elgin was prepared to consider any form of closer union. Doughty, ed., Elgin-Grey Papers, Elgin to Grey, private, Montreal, 23 May 1848, Elgin to Grey, private, Montreal, 6 June 1848, Elgin to Grey, private, Toronto, 23 Mar. 1850, i, 177-9, 181-2, ii, 608-13; Public Archives of Canada [now Library and Archives Canada, LAC], Elgin Papers, microfilm A-396, Elgin to Grey (copy), 27 Feb. 1852; Elgin to Tremenheere, Quebec, 27 Feb. 1852, in E. L. and O. P. Edmonds, I Was There. Memoirs of H. S. Tremenheere (Windsor, 1965), 93-5; Spectator, no. 1364, 19 Aug. 1854, p. 878; C. B. Adderley, Review of the Colonial Policy of Lord J. Russell's Administration by Earl Grey 1853 and of subsequent colonial history (London, 1869), 12; [E. G. Wakefield], A View of the Art of Colonization (London, 1849),  309-52; Hansard, 3rd ser., c (26 July 1848), col. 877 (for Mangles); Hinds to Durham, n.p., 19 Jan. 1838, calendared in A. G. Doughty, Report of the Public Archives for the year 1923 (Ottawa, 1924), 165.

^[11] Godley to Adderley, 19 June 1854 in Extracts from Letters of John Robert Godley to C. B. Adderley, 213; Paul Knaplund, Gladstone and Britain's Imperial Policy (London, 1927),  80-1; Hughenden Papers, Box 109, B/XX/S/9, Stanley to Disraeli, Knowsley, 8 Jan. I850, B/XX/S/41, Derby to Disraeli, Knowsley, 11 Dec. 1851; Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 127-8 (for Althorp); ibid., cols. 124-6 (for Labouchere); G. C. Lewis, An Essay on the Government of Dependencies (London, 1842),  296-9; H. Merivale, Lectures on Colonies and Colonization (2 vols, London, 1842), ii, 290; University of Durham, Grey Papers, Head to Grey, private, Government House, Fredericton, New Brunswick, 28 Feb. 1852; Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, lxxiii, no. 8 (20 Aug. 1831),  483-4; Hansard, 3rd ser., cxxvi (28 Apr. 2853), cols. 694-5 (for Cobden); John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, ed. R. B. McCallum (Oxford, 1946),  310; Lord Lyttelton, The Colonial Empire of Great Britain in its religious aspect (London and Stourbridge [1850]), 35; Hincks to Adderley, 4 Sept. 1854, in Extracts from the Letters of John Robert Godley to C. B. Adderley,  220; Francis Hincks, Reply to the Speech of the Hon. Joseph Howe of Nova Scotia on the Union of the North American Provinces, and on the Right of British Colonists to Representation in the British Parliament (London, 1855),  3-23; Charles R. Sanderson, ed., The Arthur Papers (3 vols, Toronto, 1957-9), i, no. 187, 182-3, Memorandum by R. B. Sullivan to Arthur, Crown Lands Office, Toronto, 16 July 1838.

^[12] Lecture at Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1860, C. Tupper, Recollections of Sixty Years (London, 1914), 265; letter in (Halifax) British Colonist, 13 Dec. 1866, in E. M. Saunders, ed., Life and Letters of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Tupper (2 vols, London, 1916), i, 139-40; Tyler, Struggle for Imperial Unity,  507-8; A. P. Martin, Australia and the Empire (Edinburgh, 1889),  6-7, 13-14 (for Lowe); J. E. Fitzgerald, A Selection from the Writings and Speeches of John Robert Godley (Christchurch, New Zealand, 1863), 140; Spectator, no. 1357 (1 July 1854), 702.

^[13] Robinson to Horton, n.d. [1822], in Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development, 547-8; Gourlay, General introduction to Statistical Account of Upper Canada, cccxlii–cccxliii.

^[14] Chisholm, Joseph Howe, ii, 268-95.

^[15] The main overseas branch of the Imperial Federation League was at Halifax (Tyler, op. cit., 153). For the strength of Empire federalism in the West Indies, Colonial Magazine (Aug.–Dec. 1842), i, 305-10. The Colonial Magazine is cited here in its short title. Full titles were: 1840-2, Colonial Magazine and Commercial Maritime Journal; 1843-5, Fisher's Colonial Magazine and Commercial Maritime Journal; 1844-9, Simmonds Colonial Magazine and Foreign Miscellany; 1849-52, Colonial Magazine and East India Review.

^[16] Charles S. Blackton, "Australian Nationality and Nationalism: the Imperial Federationist Interlude, 1885-1901", Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand, vii (1955), 1; Martin, Australia and the Empire,  13-14; Colonial Magazine, vii (Mar. 1846), 268-70, letter of Thomas McCombie, dated Port Phillip, 20 Aug. 1845; Nelson Examiner, n.d., quoted in Colonial Gazette, no. 222 (22 Feb. 1843),  114-15. (After contemporary usage, McCombie spelt his name M'Combie. As this form is now obsolete I have modernised the spelling.) For a hostile Australian view, see J. D. Lang, Freedom and Independence for the Golden Lands of Australia (London, 1852), 35-7.

^[17] Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 110-43.

^[18] Hansard, 3rd ser., vii (19 Sept. 1831), cols. 179-91; Sir John Malcolm, The Government of India (London, 1833), 269, 274-6; J. W. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm (2 vols, London, 1856), ii, 605-6.  

^[19] Sun, 19 Dec. 1837.

^[20] Hints on the case of Canada, for the consideration of Members of Parliament (London, 1838), 9-10; [M.N.O.], The Canadian Crisis and Lord Durham's Mission to the North American Colonies (London, 1838), 42-4; Annual Register for 1838, 337-8; Spectator, no. 498 (13 Jan. 1838), 36; Standard, 10 Oct. 1838; British  and Foreign Review, viii (Jan. 1839), 328, reprinted as G. A. Young, The Canadian Question (London, 1839), 73-4; Marryat, Diary in America, iii, 184-5; The Colonies of Great Britain must be incorporated to form one unIversal and indivisible empire (London, 1839); Colonial Gazette, no. 29 (15 June 1839), 457; Canadian, British American, and West Indian Magazine, i (Nov. 1839), 434-48.

^[21] In the Colonial Gazette, I have noticed eight discussions of Empire federalism between 1840 and 1846, and a further five in the Colonial Magazine.

^[22] Lewis, Government of Dependencies, 296-9; Merivale, Lectures on Colonies, ii, 290.

^[23] Howe's letters to Russell are in J. A. Chisholm, op. cit., i, 609-31. For their influence, see University of Durham, Grey Papers, Russell to Grey, Pembroke Lodge, 19 Aug. 1849, and Dublin University Magazine, xxv (Feb. 1850), 151-68.

^[24] Colonial Church Chronicle and Missionary Journal, vi (Feb. 1853), 287.

^[25] Edinburgh Review, xcvi (Oct. 1852), 500.

^[26] Speech of the Honorable Joseph Howe on the Union of the North American Provinces and on the Right of British Colonists to Representation in the Imperial Parliament, and to Participation in the Public Employments and Distinctions of the Empire (London, 1855);  Spectator, no. 1356 (24 June 1854),  666-7; ibid. no. 2357 (1 July 1854),  702;  ibid. no. 1359 (15 July 1854), 754;  ibid. no. 1364 (19 Aug. 1854), 878;  ibid. no. 1368 (16 Sept. 1854), 978.

^[27] Merivale, Fortnightly Review (Feb. 1870), 164-5; Adderley, Review of Grey's 'Colonial Policy', 11-12, 421.

^[28] e.g. by Robert Lowe, who spoke of "one mighty confederacy" in 1844, Martin, Australia and the Empire,  6-7, and by P. L. Simmonds in the Colonial Magazine, x (Jan. 1847), v.

^[29] University of Durham, Grey Papers, Stephen to Howick, Kensington Gore, 28 Dec. 1837; Stephen to Cunningham, 20 Mar. 1850, in C. E. Stephen, Sir James Stephen Letters with Biographical Notes (Gloucester, 1906), 143-4; Wakefield, op. cit., 312.

^[30] Hansard, 3rd ser., cvi (15 June 1849), col. 452.

^[31] Alexander Malet, The Canadas: the onerous nature of their existing connexion with Great Britain Stated, the discontents of these Colonies discussed, and A Remedy Proposed, in a Letter to Lord Viscount Howick, Under Secretary for the Colonial Department (London, 1831), 19. (Malet's remedy was the creation of a Canadian monarchy.)

^[32] Speech on the Australian Colonies Bill, 6 May 1850, in Egerton, ed., Molesworth Speeches, 391.

^[33] Speech of 8 Feb. 1850, ibid., 303.

^[34] Wakefield, op. cit.  309-12.

^[35] Disraeli to Derby, confidential, Hatfield, 9 Dec. 1851, in Monypenny and Buckle, Life of Disraeli, ii, 334. For other examples of the analogy, Colonial Magazine, iii (Sept. 1840), 46, and W. H. Prescott to C. B. Adderley, 4 Nov. 1854, in Extracts from the Letters of John Robert Godley, 229-32.

^[36] Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 130–I; see also James F. W. Johnston, Notes on North America, Agricultural, Economical, and Social (2 vols, London, 1851), 347-51.

^[37] Spectator, no. 498 (13 Jan. 1838), 36.

^[38] Colonial Magazine, xxi (Jan.–June 1851), 365.

^[39] Colonial Magazine, iii (Sept. 1840), 46. This article, "Representation of the Colonies in the Imperial Parliament", by "B", 41-9, appears to have formed the basis of a pamphlet called Britain and her Colonial Dependencies; and their right to be represented in Parliament, published in 1844 by J. Hatchard & Son of London. I have been unable to trace the pamphlet, but it was quoted by the Colonial Gazette, no. 345 (12 July 1845), 430, and by the Eclectic Review, xxv–xxvi (Apr. 1849), 763-5. The proposal in this case was for representation after twenty years. For representation at a fixed population, London Quarterly Review, i (Dec. 1853), 551.

^[40] Speech of 8 Feb. 1850, in Egerton, ed., op. cit., 303.

^[41] Carfax (pseudonym), An Essay on the Constitutional Integrity of the British Empire (London, 1857), 29.

^[42] Chisholm, op. cit., i, 623.

^[43] Ibid. ii, 272.

^[44] Carfax, Essay, 10.

^[45] Edmund Burke, The History of American Taxation (Dublin, 1775), 52-3.

^[46] T. C. M. Meekins, Parliamentary Reform, Should the Colonies be Represented? (London, 1859), 4.

^[47] British Quarterly Review, x (1849), 502.

^[48] Annual Register for 1838, 337-8.

^[49] Canadian, British American, and West Indian Magazine, i (Nov. 1839), 434-8, quoting from (Jamaica) Royal Gazette, n.d.

^[50] e.g. The Times, 18 Sept. 1844:" How else are we to give our colonies that voice both in their internal affairs, and also in the general concerns of the empire, which is the inalienable birthright of British blood, and without which it has never flowed in quietness?" Joseph Howe in 1854 criticised those British statesmen who "still go on dreaming that they can keep continents filled with freemen, without making any provision for their incorporation into the Realm, or for securing to them any control over their foreign relations". (Chisholm, op. cit., ii, 275.)

^[51] Hansard, 3rd ser., cvii (18 Feb. 1850), col. 1014.

^[52] Spectator, no. 560 (23 Mar. 1839), 278. 

^[53] Colonial Gazette, no. 385 (18 Apr. 1846), 237.

^[54] Carfax, op. cit.  36-7.

^[55] Sunday Times, 27 May 1849.

^[56] Illustrated London News, xv, no. 397 (3 Nov. 1849), 295.

^[57] Morning Chronicle, 17 Aug. 1831.

^[58] e.g. Goldwin Smith, The Empire, a Series of Letters published in 'The Daily News' 1862-1863 (Oxford, 1863),  85-6, 118, 200-1. Perhaps the influence of the United States federal example on imperial thinking can best be illustrated by the apparent lack of reference to France, which granted representation to her overseas territories after the revolution of 1848. The French case was much closer to Britain than that of the United States, and supporters of colonial parliamentary representation might be expected to have examined the French experiment in some detail. The only mid-century writer who mentioned the admission of colonial representatives to the French Assembly did so apparently as an afterthought to his American discussions, and could say no more than "we are not aware that this measure has been opposed by any of the parties of that country". Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 167.

^[59] Colonial Gazette, no. 24 (11 May 1839), 376-7.

^[60] Sunday Times, 4 Nov. 1849; see also T. Spicer's preface to H. Clinton, Suggestions towards the Organisation of the British Empire by realising the Parliamentary Representation of all Home and Colonial Interests (2nd ed., London, 1856), 5.

^[61] Godley to Adderley, 17 Dec. 1854, in Extracts from Letters of John Robert Godley, 235-7; Merivale, Fortnightly Review, n.s., vii (Feb. 1870), 164-5.

^[62] Colonial Magazine, xvi (Jan. 1849), 2.

^[63] Labouchere's phrase in Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 124-6.

^[64] Ibid. cols. 131-8.

^[65] British and Foreign Review, viii (Jan. 1839), 328.

^[66] Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 256-7; Weekly Chronicle, 10 & 11 Nov. 1849 (letter from New York correspondent, 23 Oct. 1849); T. C. Meekins, Parliamentary Reform, 20.

^[67] Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of the Nations (London, 1776), book iv, ch. vii, pt. iii,  231-2, misquoted in Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America, ed. C. P. Lucas (3 vols, Oxford, 1912), II, 312. Durham himself had briefly considered colonial representation, (ed. Sanderson), The Arthur Papers, i, no. 316, 274, Durham to Robinson, Castle of St Lewis, 16 Sept. 1838.

^[68] Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 238-40 (by Burge); Meekins, op. cit., 61. 

^[69] Colonial Magazine, iii (Sept. 1840), 47.

^[70] Speech at the Royal Colonial Institute Dinner, 31 Mar. 1897, in C. W. Boyd, ed., Mr Chamberlain's Speeches (2 vols, London, 1914), ii, 5.

^[71] The colonies of Great Britain must be incorporated and form one unIversal and indivisible Empire (London, 1839), 12, 29, 45, 47-8. Chamberlain also used the "bundle of sticks" image. J. Amery, The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, iv (London, 1951), 424.

^[72] Colonial Magazine, iii (Sept. 1840), 47.

^[73] Colonial Gazette, no. 421 (26 Dec. 1846), 813-14.

^[74] e.g. Public Archives of Canada, Elgin Papers, microfilm A-397, Grey to Elgin, Datchet, 6 Sept. 1848; B.M., Aberdeen Papers, Add. MS 43070, memorandum from Gladstone, n.d., fos 183-4, enclosing Bartlett to Gladstone, private, New York, 30 May 1846, fos 185-6.

^[75] e.g. Kenneth Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815-1908 (London, 1967), 182-3; Godley to Adderley, 25 Aug. 1854, in Extracts from the Letters of John Robert Godley, 214-16.

^[76] Spectator, no. 1356 (24 June 1854), 666-7.

^[77] Ibid. no. 1364 (19 Aug. 1854), 878.

^[78] Howe's reply to Hincks is in Chisholm, op. cit.,ii, 320-7. His 1866 paper, The Organisation of the Empire is in ibid., ii, 492-505; Speech of the Honourable Joseph Howe, 3.

^[79] T. C. Meekins, op. cit., 6.

^[80] Carfax, op. cit.,  36-7.

^[81] Ibid., 37 and J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, second series (London, 1871), 176n.

^[82] E. M. Saunders, ed., Life of Tupper, i, 139-40.

^[83] Goldwin Smith, The Empire, 86.

^[84] e.g. [M.N.O.], The Canadian Crisis, 43-4; Annual Register for 1838,  337-8; Sun, 19 Dec. 1837; G. A. Young, The Canadian Question, 73-4; Colonial Gazette, no. 345 (12 July 1845), 430; Shall We Keep the Canadas? (London, 1849), 23-4; F. A. Wilson and A. B. Richards, Britain Redeemed and Canada Preserved (London, 1850), 474; Dublin University Magazine, xxv (Feb. 1850), 167-8; Colonial Church Chronicle, vi (Feb. 1853), 287.

^[85] V. L. O. Chittick, Thomas Chandler Haliburton ("Sam Slick"), A Study in Provincial Toryism (New York, 1924), 218-19.

^[86] University of Durham, Grey Papers, Russell to Grey, Pembroke Lodge, 19 Aug.  1849.

^[87] The Colonies of Great Britain must be incorporated, 45-6. Joseph Howe put it at ten days (Letters to Lord John Russell, 1839, in Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development, 203)

^[88] [M.N.O.], The Canadian Crisis, 43n.

^[89] Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 157-9. A less optimistic view was taken by Edward Stanley (Hughenden Papers, Box 111, B/XX/S/538, E. Stanley to Disraeli, Madrid, 13 Nov. 1850).

^[90] Wilson and Richards, Britain Redeemed and Canada Preserved, 489.

^[91] Robert Fletcher, England and her Colonies, or progress in unity; a plea for individual rights and imperial duties (London, 1857), 196-7; Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 159.

^[92] Spectator, no. 1364 (19 Aug. 1854), 878.

^[93] See Map No. 2 in endpapers of E. L. Woodward, Age of Reform, 1815-1870 (Oxford, 1938).

^[94] e.g. G. A. Young, op. cit., 73-4; C. P. Lucas, ed., Lord Durham's Report on the affairs of British North America, ii, 317n, quoting iii, 237, and ibid. ii, 202-3, quoting address of the House of Assembly of Newfoundland (Parliamentary Papers 1839, xvii, Report on the Affairs of British North America from the Earl of Durham, Appendix A, 52); Howe's letters to Russell, 1839, in Egerton and Grant, op. cit., 203; [M.N.O.] The Canadian Crisis, 43-4; The Colonies of England must be incorporated, 45-6; H. Merivale, Lectures on Colonies, ii, 290; T. C. Haliburton, The Attaché, ii, 86-7; Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 157-9; Shall we keep the Canadas?,  23-4; University of Durham, Grey Papers, Russell to Grey, Pembroke Lodge, 19 Aug. 1849, Wilson and Richards, op. cit., 474.

^[95] Shall we keep the Canadas?, 21.

^[96] Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 155-6.

^[97] Robinson to Horton [1822] in Egerton and Grant, op. cit., 47.

^[98] Sunday Times, 4 Nov. 1849.

^[99] Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, lxvi (Oct. 1849), 481-2.

^[100] Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 231-4.

^[101] University of Durham, Grey Papers, Russell to Grey, Pembroke Lodge, 19 Aug. 1849.

^[102] Public Archives of Canada [now, 2025, Library and Archives Canada], Elgin Papers, A-396, Elgin to Grey (copy), Quebec, 27 Feb. 1852.

^[103] Elgin to Tremenheere, Quebec, 27 Feb. 1852, in E. L. and O. P. Edmonds, I Was There, 93-5.

^[104] T. C. Haliburton, Bubbles of Canada, 322-3.

^[105]  T. C. Haliburton, Sam Slick's Wise Saws, 221–2. Haliburton pungently compared colonists to the free Black population in Nova Scotia – "emancipated, but they haven't the same social position as the whites".

What is striking about these arguments is the considerable influence which even a token representation was expected to have on the communities represented. Some of the proponents of colonial parliamentary representation were also prepared to include non-European territories and voters. This appears to have been the intention of Joseph Hume, and directly elected Indian MPs were called for in an article in the Asiatic and Colonial Journal in 1847. A scornful riposte followed, asserting that East India Company directors already in parliament were "far better and more extensively acquainted with the wants and requirements of their people, than any native can possibly be". Nonetheless, T. C. Meekins, "with the utmost diffidence", revived the idea after the Mutiny, arguing that half a dozen Indian members – "natives, who could speak the English language" – with a few Indian princes in the House of Lords, might help to anglicise India. Not all agreed. Edward Stanley ruled out Ceylon as "exclusively native" and most proposals for Indian parliamentary representation were for election by Europeans. Even so, eventual Indian electorates were not ruled out, even if not expected in the near future. Certainly it was easier to fit Indian representation more easily into parliament than any other scheme of a federal Empire. The Rev. William Arthur hoped that non-European territories might eventually take an equal part in the "Imperial Federation" that he proposed in 1853, "though the distance seems all but endless". This problem was to recur later in the nineteenth century and was never satisfactorily solved. That representation at Westminster was the only remotely workable solution was shown by G. K. Gokhale's request for the creation of six Indian seats in the House of Commons in 1895. (Hansard, 3rd ser., vi, 16 Aug. 1831, cols. 110-24; Asiatic and Colonial Journal, i (1847-8), 5-7, 221-5; T. C. Meekins, op. cit,. 12; Hughenden Papers, Box 111, B/XX/S/538, Edward Stanley to Disraeli, Madrid, 13 Nov. 1850; Morning Star, 10 Sept. 1858; Sir John Malcolm, The Government of India, 269; London Quarterly Review, i (Dec. 1853), 551; R. J. Moore, Liberalism and Indian Politics 1872-1922 (London, 1966), 73.) For a discussion of the problem in a later period, S. R. Mehrotra," Imperial Federation and India, 1868-1917", Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, i (1961), 29-40. 

^[106] R. Fletcher, op. cit., 123.

^[107] The Times, 31 Oct. 1849.

^[108] Morning Chronicle, 17 Aug. 1831.

^[109] Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, lxxiii, no. 8 (20 Aug. 1831), 483-4.

^[110] Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), col. 125.

^[111] Labouchere's phrase, ibid. Suggestions that colonial members would prove a nuisance are also found in Colonial Gazette, no. 44 (25 Sept. 1839), 689-90; G. C. Lewis, op. cit., 286-9. Other assumptions that colonial members would be open to bribery can be found in Hansard, 3rd ser., cxxvi (28 Apr. 1853), cols. 694-5, by Cobden, and Colonial Gazette, no. 345 (12 July 1845), 430.

^[112] Annual Register for 1838, 337-8.

^[113] Standard, 17 Aug. 1831. [The allusion was the contests in Waterford in 1826 and Clare in 1828 in which tenant voters had been mobilised to candidates pledged to Catholic Emancipation, including (in Clare) O'Connell himself.]

^[114] Dublin University Magazine, xxxiv (Sept. 1849), 316.

^[115] e.g. The Asiatic Journal, n,s., vi (Sept. 1831), 4-5.

^[116] Chisholm, op. cit., i, 630.

^[117] Disraeli to Derby, Hatfield, 28 Dec. 1851 in Monypenny and Buckle, op. cit., iii, 333-5.

^[118] Letter of "Mandeville" in The Times, 28 July 1848.

^[119] e.g. Colonial Gazette, no. 44 (25 Sept. 1839),  689-9; G. C. Lewis, op. cit., 296-9; H. Merivale, Lectures on Colonies, ii, 290–1; Colonial Church Chronicle, vi (Feb. 1853), 287; Francis Hincks, Reply to the Speech of the Hon. Joseph Howe,  8-9; Globe London), 7 Nov. 1849.

^[120] e.g. Chisholm, op. cit., i, 628.

^[121] e.g. Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 161.

^[122] Charles R. Sanderson, ed., The Arthur Papers, i, no. 187, 132-87, Memorandum by Sullivan to Arthur, Crown Lands Office, Toronto, 16 July 1838, esp. 182-3; University of Durham, Grey Papers, Head to Grey, private, Government House, Fredericton, New Brunswick, 28 Feb. 1852.

^[123] H. Merivale, Lectures on Colonies, ii, 290-1; G. C. Lewis, op. cit., 296-9.

^[124] e.g. William Westgarth in Colonial Magazine, xiii (1848), 103; J. R. Godley in Spectator, no. 1357 (1 July 1854), 702; Dublin University Magazine, xxv (Feb. 1850), 167-8.

^[125] Hansard, 3rd ser., cxxvi (28 Apr. 1853), cols. 694-5.

^[126] Hansard, vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 130-1.

^[127] Francis Hincks, op. cit., 8-9.

^[128] e.g. Colonial Gazette, no. 161 (22 Dec. 1841), 801-2.

^[129] C. Tupper, Recollections of Sixty Years, 26, quoting a lecture delivered at Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1860.

^[130] Colonial Magazine, iii (Sept. 1840), 47.

^[131] e.g. Morning Post, 28 May 1849; Shall we keep the Canadas?, 19.

^[132] Hansard, 3rd ser., cxxi (5 July 1850), cols. 1040–1.

^[133] Hughenden Papers, Box 109, B/XX/S/41, Derby to Disraeli, Knowsley, 11 Dec. 1851.

^[134] It would almost certainly have proved impossible to allocate members to the colonies without leaving them dissatisfied. In 1831 Joseph Hume had asked for 19 seats. By 1852 the Colonial and Asiatic Magazine was dividing up thirty. Hume proposed to give British North America four seats. Joseph Howe thought "a moderate degree of moral and intellectual communication between North America and the Imperial Parliament" would require ten members. Hume assigned one seat to Jamaica; Jamaican planters spoke of six or nine. Constituencies would have been impossibly large, and the problem of distance – manageable in the case of the Atlantic colonies – was insurmountable for those in the Antipodes, as Edward Stanley was obliged to admit. Indeed, the very attempt to draw up a scheme of representation seems to have persuaded him of the impossibility of the scheme. In 1884 he privately confessed that he had never seen a plan for imperial federation which would bear argument. (Hansard, 3rd ser., vi, 16 Aug. 1831, cols. 110-24; Colonial and Asiatic Review, i, 93-107; Chisholm, op. cit., i, 628; Canadian, British American, and West Indian Magazine, i (Nov. 1839), 434-48; Hughenden Papers, Box 111, B/XX/S/538, Edward Stanley to Disraeli, Madrid, 13 Nov. 1850; Public Archives of Canada, Derby Papers, microfilm A-31, Derby to Lansdowne (copy), private, Colonial Office, 20 Nov. 1884.)

The arrangement of constituencies suggested was: Hume, 1831 British North America and Bermuda 3, West Indies 5, British India and Singapore  4, Ceylon 1, Australia 1, Cape 1, Mauritius 1, Malta 1, Gibraltar 1, Channel Islands 1; Stanley, 1850 British North America 6, West Indies 4, Cape 1, Mauritius 1, Malta 1, Heligoland 1; Colonial and Asiatic Review (1852) British North America 6, West Indies 4, India and China settlements 10, Ceylon 1, Australia 5, New Zealand 1, Cape 2, Mauritius 1. A marked lack of agreement about the territories to be represented illustrates the impracticability of the scheme.

^[135] Hughenden Papers, Box 109, B/XX/S/41, Derby to Disraeli, Knowsley, 11 Dec. 1851. Most proposals were for indirect election by the local legislature, where the mode of election was made specific at all, e.g. Colonial Magazine, xvi (Mar. 1849), 166; Colonial Gazette, no. 204 (19 Oct. 1842), 659.

^[136] e.g. Colonial Gazette, no. 204 (19 Oct. 1842), 659.

^[137] Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 110-24; Colonial Magazine, iii (Sept. 1840), 47; ibid. xvi (Mar. 1849), 166.

^[138] Colonial Magazine, iii (Sept. 1840), 47.

^[139] Spectator, no. 1357 (1 July 1854), 702. Also Colonial Gazette, no. 44 (25 Sept. 1839), 689.

^[140] Morning Star, 10 Sept. 1858.

^[141] Spectator, no. 164 (20 Aug. 1831), 793; Morning Herald, 17 Aug. 1831; Asiatic Journal, n.s, vi (Sept. 1831), 4.

^[142] Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), cols. 143ff.

^[143] Hughenden Papers, Box 111, B/XX/S/538, Edward Stanley to Disraeli, Madrid, 13 Nov. 1850.

^[144] Hughenden Papers, Box 111, B/XX/S/538, Edward Stanley to Disraeli, Madrid, 13 Nov. 1850. 144 Cf. Sir George Staunton's address to the Freeholders of the County of Southampton, 24 Apr. 1831 (newspaper clipping in the Staunton papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, North Carolina).

^[145] Hansard, 3rd ser., vi (16 Aug. 1831), col. 124 (Althorp), cols. 124-6 (Labouchere).

^[146] Hansard, 3rd ser., clxxxiii (14 May 1866), cols. 877-88.

^[147] Earl Russell, Selections from the Speeches of Earl Russell, 1817-1841 and from Despatches 1859-1865 (2 vols, London, 1870), i, 152-3; Monypenny and Buckle, op. cit., v, 194-5.

^[148] Articles giving information about colonial agents were published in the Colonial Magazine, ix (Sept.–Dec. 1846), 303-19, and ibid. xiii (Feb. 1848), 131-7. For Henry Bliss, see The Times, 20 Jan. 1838.

^[149] Colonial Gazette, no. 105 (25 Nov. 1840), 778.

^[150] Morning Herald, 26 Jan. 1849.

^[151] Samuel Hinds to Durham, 19 Jan. 1838, in the Calendar of Durham Papers, A. G. Doughty, Report of the Public Archives for 1923, 165; Colonial Gazette, no. 25 (18 May 1839), 392-3; ibid. no. 44 (25 Sept. 1839), 689-90; Morning Herald, 25 May 1849; Manchester Courier, 30 May 1849, 342.

^[152] Hansard, 3rd ser., civ (16 Apr. 1849), col. 363; Weekly Chronicle, 26 May 1849; Spectator, no. 1364 (19 Aug. 1854), 878. As an ennobled octogenarian, Adderley was still attracted to the idea of a "Council of the Indies": Lord Norton, Imperial Fellowship of Self-Governed British Colonies (London, 1903), 54. The book was dedicated to Joseph Chamberlain, a striking example of continuity in Imperial thought.

^[153] Examiner, no. 2151 (21 Apr. 1849), 241.

^[154] Prescott to Adderley, 4 Nov. 1854, in Extracts from the Letters of John Robert Godley, 229-32.

^[155] Shall we keep the Canadas?, 22-3; Manchester Courier, 30 May 1849, 342; Colonial and Asiatic Review, i (Aug. 1852), 505-7.

^[156] Cf. McCombie's letter in Colonial Magazine, vii (Mar. 1846), 268-70, dated from Port Phillip, 20 Aug. 1845 and his Essays in Colonization (London and Aberdeen, 1850), 33.

^[157] Colonial Magazine, vi (Mar. 1846), 269n.

^[158] Colonial Magazine, ix (Sept.–Dec. 1846), 303-59. Stanley's dispatch to Sir George Gipps is printed at 310-11.

^[159] Colonial Magazine, x (Jan.–Apr. 1847), preface, v.

^[160] Wakefield, op. cit., 309-12. But Wakefield had earlier considered direct representation. See A Letter from Sydney, the principal town of Australasia, ed. R. Gouger (London, 1829), 198. 

^[161] Colonial Gazette, no. 45 (25 Sept. 1839), 689-90.

^[162] Spectator, no. 1368 (16 Sept. 1854), 978.

^[163] London Quarterly Review, i (Dec. 1853), 550. A. L. Burt, Imperial Architects, 103-14, attributed this article to Arthur.

^[164] Carfax, op. cit.  20-4.

^[165] The Times, 18 Sept. 1844; Morning Post, 30 May 1849, quoting speech of Sir Richard Broun to the Committee of the Baronets of Scotland. For a discussion of the relationship between Irish separatism and a federal Empire, see J. E. Kendle, "The Round Table Movement and 'Home Rule All Round'", The Historical Journal, xi (1968), 332-53.

^[166] Tyler, op. cit., 101; Jehu Mathews, A Colonist on the Colonial Question (London, 1872),  95-100; Earl Grey, "How Shall We Retain the Colonies?", Nineteenth Century, v (1879), 952; Public Record Office, Russell Papers, P.R.O. 3o/22/8A, Grey to Russell, Howick, 23 Aug. 1849, fos 99–101; Goldwin Smith, Canada and the Canadian Question (London, 1891), 266; Edward Freeman, "The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity", in A. S. Wright, ed., Britannic Confederation (London, 1892), 44; Imperial Federation, viii (1893), 572-3, letter from J. Van Sommer, Toronto, 3 July 1893. See also The Integration of the British Empire from an American standpoint (London, 1875), esp. 19.

^[167] University of Durham, Grey Papers, Russell to Grey, Pembroke Lodge, 19 Aug. 1849; Earl Russell, Selection from the Speeches of Earl Russell, i, 172-3; Monypenny and Buckle, op. cit., iii, 333-5, iv, 329, v, 194-5; Tyler, op. cit., 184; C. W. Boyd, ed., Mr. Chamberlain's Speeches, 367-8.

^[168] Tyler, op. cit., 109-10, 203-8; J. E. Kendle, The Colonial and Imperial Conferences, 1887-1911 (London, 1967), 6n.

^[169] Cf. S. C.-Y. Cheng, Schemes for the Federation of the British Empire (New York, 1931), 183-251, for an analysis of late-nineteenth century arguments for and against a federation of the Empire.

^[170] Jehu Mathews, A Colonist on the Colonial Question, 70-3; Imperial Federation, i (1886), 94; de Labilliere, Federal Britain, 6-14; F. B. Crofton, "Thomas Chandler Haliburton", Atlantic Monthly, lxix (1892), 355-63; Imperial Federation, i (1886), 142, 274-5; iv (1889), 28-9; vii (1892), 227. 

^[171] C. B. Adderley, Review of Grey's Colonial Policy", 11-12; Lord Norton [C. B. Adderley], Imperial Fellowship of Self-Governed British Colonies; Doughty, ed., Elgin-Grey Papers, Grey to Elgin (copy), (6 Feb. 1852), iii, 952; Earl Grey, "How Shall We Retain the Colonies?", in Nineteenth Century, v (1879), 953-4; E. M. Saunders, op. cit., ii, 170, Tupper to Casimir Dickson, 10 Feb. 1893; ibid., i, 139-40, quoting letter in Halifax British Colonist, 13 Dec. 1866; C. Tupper, op. cit., 26, quoting lecture at Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1860; W. Westgarth, "The Administration of the Colonies", Colonial Magazine, xiii (Jan. 1848), 94-101; W. Westgarth, "Our Colonial Relations", Colonial Magazine, xvi (Jan. 1849), 1-12; W. Westgarth, "The Federation of the Empire", Imperial Federation, i (1886), 272-3; other contributions by Westgarth are at ibid.. ii (1887), 47; iii  (1888), 114, 138 and see obituary at ibid., iv (1889), 289; P. S. Hamilton, Observations upon a Union of the Colonies of British North America (Halifax, 1855), 51; Imperial Federation, iv (1889), 77, letter from P. S. Hamilton, Halifax, N.S., 26 Feb. 1889, titled "A Progenitor of Imperial Federation"; Goldwin Smith, Commonwealth or Empire (New York, 1902), 63-4; Goldwin Smith, The Empire, esp. letter X, New Zealand, 13 Sept. 1862, 147; on 17 Jan. 1838 Gladstone had read Hints on the Case of Canada for the Consideration of Members of Parliament, which proposed colonial representation in parliament at  9-10 (M. R. D. Foot, ed., The Gladstone Diaries, ii, 366); Extracts from Letters of John Robert Godley, Godley to Adderley, 19 July 1854, 213; Paul Knaplund, Gladstone and Britain's Imperial Policy,  80-1, summarising Gladstone to Lyttelton, 22 Oct. 1854; Tyler, op. cit.,  203-8.

^[172] Duke University, William R. Perkins Library, Helps Papers, Froude to Arthur Helps, Dereen, Kenmare, Ireland, 3 Oct. [1868]; C. B. Adderley, Review of Grey's "Colonial Policy", 11-12; Herman Merivale, "The Colonial Question", Fortnightly Review, vii (1870), 164-5.

^[173] J. S. Galbraith, "Myths of the Little England Era", American Historical Review, lxvii (1961), 34-48; J. Gallagher and R. E. Robinson, "The Imperialism of Free Trade", Economic History Review, 2nd ser., vi (1953), 1-15. These criticisms were partly foreshadowed by D. G. Creighton in his article," The Victorians and the Empire", Canadian Historical Review, xix (1938), 138-53.