d and
the Colony could not last a month. The policy, in short, of Colonial
independence is, like most of our constitutional arrangements, based on
the assumption that the parties to it are willing to act towards one
another in a spirit of compromise and good-will, and though at the
present moment the pride of England in her Colonial empire, and the
appreciation on the part of our colonies of the benefits, moral and
material, of the supremacy of Great Britain, keep our scheme of Colonial
government in working order, it is well to realize that this system is
not so invariably successful as might be inferred from the optimism
which naturally colours official utterances. The names of Sir Charles
Darling and Sir George Bowen recall transactions which show that a
community as loyal as Victoria may adopt a course of policy which meets
with the disapproval of English statesmen. The recent and deliberate
refusal of the citizens of Melbourne to endure the landing on their
shores of informers whose evidence had procured the punishment of an
outrageous crime, combined with the fact that the populace of Melbourne
were abetted in a gross, indubitable, patent breach of law by Colonial
Ministers who were after all, technically speaking, servants of the
Crown, gives rise to serious reflection, and suggests that, even under
favourable circumstances, Colonial independence is hardly consistent
with that enforcement throughout the Crown's dominions of due respect
for law which is the main justification for the existence of the British
Empire.[44] A student, moreover, who turns his eyes towards dependencies
less favourably situated than Victoria soon perceives how great may at
any moment become the difficulty of working an artificial and
complicated system of double sovereignty. In Jamaica the hostility of
the whites and blacks led to riot on the part of the blacks, followed by
lawless suppression of riot on the part of the Governor, who represented
the feelings of the whites, and the restoration of peace and order
ultimately entailed the abolition of representative government. At the
Cape the pressure of war at once exposed the weak part of the
constitutional machine. The pretensions of the Cape Ministry to snatch
from the hands of the Governor the control of the armed forces met with
successful resistance; but the question then raised as to the proper
relation between the Colonial Ministry and the army, though for a time
evaded, is certain