Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/595

* BRITISH EMPIRE. 51tl BRITISH EMPIRE. BRITISH EMPIRE. Under this designa- tion are included all the territories united under the Crown of Great Britain and subject to the ultimate control of the Imperial rarliament at Westminster. Round the United Kinftdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as a nucleus, arc j>rouped a large number of dependencies in all quarters of. the globe, which maj' be divided into five classes, according to the degree of self-gov- ernment possessed by each. ( 1 ) The first class would comprise those States in America. Austra- lasia, and Africa, which enjoy the fullest meas- ure of autonomy as far as this may be assured by an independent legislature and judiciary, sub- ject only to the limited control which the Crown, as executive, may see fit to exercise through its representatives, the Governors of the separate colonies. Under this head would come Newfound- land, the Bahama Islands. Barbados, and the Bermuda Islands, in the Western Hemisphere; the new-born Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand, in Occanica. and Cape Colony and Natal, in South Africa. In every one of these dependencies the lawmaking power is vested in a ' representative legislature acting in cooperation with an executive appointed by the Crown. In theory the Crown may disallow any law enacted by the colonial Parliaments, but, in accordance with the well-established principles of English policy regarding the relations of the legislature and the executive, the right of veto is practically in abeyance or exercised only in case where evi- dently the interests not merely of a single colony, but of the entire Empire, are at stake. (2) The second class of dependencies embraces the colonies in which the lawmaking power is vested in a Gov- ernor and a single-chambered legislative council, the latter composed, in most cases, partly of nomi- nees of the Crown and partly of representatives elected by the people. This group would include the Channel Islands; Malta and Cyprus, in the Mediterranean Sea ; Ceylon and Mauritius, with its dependencies, in the Indian Ocean ; and, in America, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, and Ouiana. (3) A grade below are those dependen- cies which are ruled by a Governor and a council nominated entirely by the Crown. In these the element of representative government is entirely absent. To this category belongs the richest pos- -session of the British Crown, the Empire of India, which is ruled by a Governor and a nomi- nated legislative council in India, acting under the supervision of the Secretary of State for India and a council appointed by him in (Jreat Britain. Other possessions of the same rank are the Crown colonics of Gibraltar. Aden, and Hong Kong, the .Straits Settlements, the islands of Ascension and .Saint Helena in the South Atlan- tic, and a large number of dependencies in Africa, including the Orange River Colony, the Trans- vaal Colony, Basutoland. Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Lagos, Gambia, and Sierra Leone. In America the list comprises British Honduras, Trinidad, the Windward Islands, and the Falkland Islands. Fiji, in the Pacific Ocean, also belongs in the same class. In each of these colonies the power is vested in a British official, known variously as Governor, High Commissioner, or Administrator, who may or may not be assisted in his functions by an appointed council. Certain of the so- called protectorates are in reality examples of the same type. Such are the East Africa Protec- torate and the Central Africa Protectorate, which are directly ruled by British ofHcials, in the one case by the Consul-General at Zanzibar, in the other by a resident. (4) Rhodesia and British North Borneo are at present the only instances of a type of colony once so important in the im- perial scheme of Great Britain — a dependency, namely, which is administered by a trading cor- poration whose rights are based upon treaty relations with the native chiefs, and which acts under the control of the British Government. Thus in Rhodesia the administrator of the com- pany is assisted in the perfornumce of his duties by the British resident, and in the case of British North Borneo the Governor appointed by the di- rectors of the company must be confirmed by the British Secretary of State for the Colonies. (5) Finally there are the British protectorates, pos- sessions in which, the native government has been left intact, but made merely the machine for the execution of the will of Great Britain. In each case a British otficial is set by the side of the native authorities with ample power to restrain all acts deemed hostile to British interests or the welfare of the community, and. in the last resort, to assume the government himself. To this last class belong the native States of India ; the coun- try of Sikkim, in the Himalayas; the island of Socotra and the Bahrein Islands, in the Persian Gulf ; Zanzibar, the Somali Coast, Bechuanaland Protectorate, and Uganda Protectorate, in Af- rica ; and the Tonga or Friendly Islands, in the Pacific. Owing in great measure to the dispersion of the British territories all over the globe, to the heterogeneous elements of population within them, and to the diversity in the form of govern- ment and the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the various classes of colonies, the name British Empire does not connote as definite an entitj' as does, for instance, the term Russian Empire. In fact, the conception of empire is new to the minds of most Englishmen, who have been used to look upon the colonies as held together more by the ties of race, language, and conunerce than hy a common subservience to a sovereign metrop- olis. In those colonies especially where the Brit- ish race is in the ascendency, as it is in the Commonwealths of Australia and Canada, there has been little disposition on the part of the mother country to obtrude her suzerainty in any obnoxious form; and so loose, indeed, are the Ideas of empire still, that many Englishmen re- gard with complacency the possibility of the establishment of independent States in Canada and Australia, believing that the bonds of com- mon interests would be a sufficient substitute for the loose political ties now existent. Within the last two decades, however, the name British Empire received a new meaning through the activity of the so-called Greater Britain Party, whose efforts to build up in England a consciousness of imperial greatness and of the destiny of the British race have been materially aided by the events connected with the war against the South African republics. The case of Egypt, which, nominally under Turkish suzerainty, is in matters of defense, finance, and to a great extent of foreign rela- tion, controlled by British policy, may serve as an il lust rat iim of the vagueness connected with the appellation British Empire. Though oifi- cially the countrj' is in no way subordinate to Great Britain, and should not for that reason be