"\ ■-■'■■;■ ■'■'■' The Claims of the Study of Colonial History upon the attention of the University of Oxford AN INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED ON APRIL 28, 1906 BY H. E. EGERTON, M.A. FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE BEIT PROFESSOR OF COLONIAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1906 Price One Shilling net The Claims of the Study of Colonial History upon the attention of the .University of Oxford HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH NEW YORK AND TORONTO The Claims of the Study of Colonial History upon the attention of the University of Oxford AN INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED ON APRIL 28, 1906 BY H. E. EGERTON, MA. FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE BEIT PROFESSOR OF COLONIAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD • . • .• OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1906 ^> o OXFORD PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY THE CLAIMS OF THE STUDY OF COLONIAL HISTORY UPON THE ATTENTION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD The occupant of the new chair, which the prescient generosity of Mr. Beit has founded at this University, cannot but enter upon his task with a most serious sense of responsibility. Were the success of the new departure to depend upon the capacities of the holder of the chair the prospect would be disquieting; but the invitation and the opportunities afforded by Oxford for special study may well foster into life the seeds of even defective teaching. It is true, of course, that the Oxford curriculum has in the past recognized to some extent the subject of Colonial history, but I understand that such attention has been intermittent and directed to decisive events, such as the struggle between Mont- calm and Wolfe; and that the details of the general history have not been, for the most part, much con- sidered. Teaching of necessity follows to some extent the bent of the teacher; and none of the eminent history tutors, who are conferring distinction on modern Oxford, has, I believe, chosen as his special preserve this subject. It so happened that by a tragic coincidence, not long before the announcement of this foundation, a brilliant Oxford historian was cut down in the prime of life, who might have conferred special distinction on this chair. 296917 ? ? T.. ; 1 ^AUQURAL LECTURE •No i o1nfe*t!aiTha^e*i , ^ad the suggestive colonial chapters contributed by Mr. Edward John Payne to The Cam- bridge Modern History, or the singularly attractive little volume on colonies and colonial federations, pub- lished not very long before his death, without recog- nizing that Mr. Payne possessed the priceless gift of seeing things as a whole in broad and simple outline, and of compelling the reader to see them from the writer's standpoint, which is the secret of successful teaching. The pages of the little book on the colonies glow with a passionate patriotism, which is none the less noticeable because it is of necessity held under control. As I understand, this foundation has two main objects in view. It is desired on the one hand to spread farther the dry light of knowledge, and on the other hand to kindle a beacon, which shall attract young men, the trustees of the next generation. It will not be expected that I should enter upon the discussion how far the Oxford school of history can teach research. It is obvious that a child must learn to walk before he can run, and it may be some time before much can be done in the way of research by students of Colonial history ; although I believe 4 that something in this direction has been already begun. At the same time, it is a humili- ating reflection that hitherto we have had to depend for the most part upon American scholars for researches into the early history of the British American Colonies ; although the volumes of Mr. Doyle on The English in America have become as much a standard authority in the United States as in England. One other piece of excellent work English scholarship can also boast in this connexion. The Colonial Series of the Calendar INAUGURAL LECTURE 7 of State Papers, edited first by Mr. Sainsbury and since his death by Mr. John Fortescue, have brought to the light of day an immense mass of information with regard to the history of the colonies, from the earliest times to almost the beginning of the eighteenth century. The series is invaluable, from the large scale on which its summaries are planned. A comparison between these and the brief notes contained in Brymner's valuable reports on the Canadian archives will bring out the full merits of the English publication. Moreover the volumes are preceded by introductions, which are most stimu- lating to the student of Colonial history. Much, how- ever, remains to be done in bringing to fuller knowledge transactions, which exigencies of space forbid to be dealt with adequately in a summary. Mr. Sainsbury, in one of his introductions, himself called attention to a need, which in time Oxford might do something to supply. How many forgotten worthies are there in English history, who, in their day, were most loyal workers in the building of Great Britain? Is it too much to hope, that, late in time, some recognition may be made of the work of such men? We know the limits within which such a series as the one on the Builders of Greater Britain, edited by my friend Mr. H. F. Wilson, or the more recent series on the Makers of Canada, is of necessity confined. Financial considerations and reasons of convenience have inevit- ably the deciding voice. It is difficult for a writer to break virgin soil in a short volume, which is intended for popular reading. On such grounds the lives of men, who have already received adequate treatment, are again and again dealt with, while other great men stalk majestic through the shades of history neglected and 8 INAUGURAL LECTURE unrecorded. For example, Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe was a very able and conscientious official, to whose labours Ontario will always be grateful; but it seems curious that he should be commemorated by at least two biographies, whereas his superior, Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, remains without any record of his life. Every student of Canadian history will, I think, admit that Carleton was amongst the most eminent architects of British Canada. His fame has been neglected not because of disbelief in his greatness, but because the materials for dealing with his life lay in obscure places, and the handling of them would have involved much labour and time. It should be the aim of an endowed school of historical research to take care that work of this kind should receive its proper encouragement. But while the aims of this foundation will not have been fulfilled, unless and until it has done something to promote research into the past, it has a more practical part ready to hand. We have to justify the teaching ol Colonial history as a branch of study making for prac- tical edification. It has been said, I believe, that the trade of the politician is the only one for which no practical training is required. But surely the day is past when, even here, we can trust to the self-confi- dent optimism of the amateur. The study of history may not supply ready-made examples which can be blindly followed; but at least it helps to create the habits of mind which will generally lead to just judgements. But while the study of history can be supported from a practical standpoint, there are clear reasons why the study of Colonial history seems especially desirable. INAUGURAL LECTURE 9 Shut off for the most part from the field of foreign politics, the questions with which it mainly is concerned are precisely those constitutional and economic questions which bulk large in the public life of to-day. But that this study may be useful, there is one caveat which must be entered. At present the Oxford curri- culum, I understand, deals with English history only as far as the accession of Queen Victoria. What value there is in this rule, as far as English history by itself is concerned, I am not competent to say. I presume that the object is to keep clear of the field of party politics. But in fact party prejudices are the product of temperament, and the temperament, which makes the party man, can find food as much in the struggles of Cavalier and Roundhead, and of Whig and Tory, as in the issues of to-day. You know that in the early days of the Second Empire, when the press censorship was severe, brilliant writers managed to expound their views on current politics in disquisitions apparently intended for very different objects. You can only trust to the honour and good sense of a teacher that he will not unfairly bias his pupil in a party direction. It is not the thing taught but the manner of the teaching which matters, and I cannot imagine the somewhat critical attitude of Oxford intellectual life permitting that this tendency should here find much encourage- ment. But whatever be thought as to this, it is at least clear that the year 1837 is an impossible date in Colonial history. It leads you in Canada to the brink of the rebellion, and then closes the book just when the denouement is beginning, to which the history of the immediately preceding years had been the some- io INAUGURAL LECTURE what dreary and squalid prologue. Assuredly, unless you are prepared to follow the procession of Canadian history, through the rebellion, Lord Durham's mission, his epoch-making report, the attainment of responsible government, to the incidents which led to confederation, and the accomplishment of the Dominion, for practical purposes Canadian history may be better left alone ; for the sufficient reason that it will leave no clear impression on the reader's mind. Or take the case of Australasia. What rhyme or reason is there to deal with the foundation of Western and South Australia and stop abruptly before the colonization of New Zea- land ? What profit is there in dealing with the feeble beginnings of constitutional government in Australia, unless we can continue the story of the development of representative institutions and their culmination in full responsible government? What lesson is there in the melancholy history of transportation, unless we can go on to the better day ; which perhaps it rendered possible? The same moral holds good in the case of South Africa. It is surely ludicrous to close the page with the trek of the Dutch farmers, and ignore the large results both to Great Britain and to world-history which sprang from these small beginnings. Or if you are interested in the history of systematic colonization, the year 1837 cuts your subject by an unmeaning line. It includes the instructions issued by Lord Goderich with regard to the granting of Colonial lands and the House of Commons' Report of 1836, while it excludes the subsequent development of the same policy. That policy is represented by the name of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, but in his life 1837 is a meaningless date. Similarly, it is idle to follow the break up of the mer- INAUGURAL LECTURE n cantile system, through Huskisson's policy of mutual preferences, unless you are prepared to follow the story to the triumph of free trade in Great Britain, and the establishment of national tariffs in the various colonies. In the West Indies alone the date 1837 may be deemed important, following closely as it does the Act for the emancipation of slaves ; but even here it is necessary to go farther and inquire into the economic results of such emancipation. From one point of view it may be said that the year 1837 marks the starting-point of the self-governing British Empire of to-day. Without the triumphs of modern science it would be impossible for vast areas like British North America or Australia to come together under a common government. But at the time of the accession of Queen Victoria those triumphs had not begun. At that time there was not a single railway in Canada and no line of steam shipping. At the present moment there are over twenty thousand miles of railway in the Dominion ; and before very long there will be other lines, besides the Canadian Pacific, spanning the continent from East to West. Mr. Payne in another connexion has already quoted the striking passage from Seneca, which was much in the minds and mouths of the men of the renaissance : — Venient annis saecula seris Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos detegat orbes, Nee sit terris ultima Thule. But with what literal truth could the words be applied to the state of things to-day ? Granting, however, that we have the full field of 12 INAUGURAL LECTURE Colonial history to range over, its practical importance, I think, hardly admits of argument. You have in it the same directness and simplicity that you find in Greek history. The elements of economics and politics can, I suppose, be best learnt in Aristotle, because, in theory, the point aimed at is nearer than in the complex thought of modern life, and because, in practice, the existence of slavery and the political division into small town communities simplified, for the time being, the solution of problems. But in modern colonies there was much the same simplicity and directness. Compare the history of England with that of the American colonies. In the one case the present is the product and the inheritor of a remote past. Surroundings take their colour from the atmosphere of that past. Take such an institution as the Established Church. How difficult is it to reason with regard to it on a purely utilitarian basis, when we know that in fact the Church preceded in history the State, and that its roots sink deep into the ground soil of a distant past. The English colonies, on the other hand, started in comparatively modern times. The emigrants went to a country where there was no pre-existent civilization, and though of course they carried with them English institutions and pre- judices, still, starting on a new ground, they were able to work out problems in a more direct and simpler fashion. Take, as an example, the complete introduc- tion of self-government in England and in her colonies. Who can say at what exact moment of time complete self-government was attained in England? William III believed that his ministers were in fact as well as name his servants, and would never have tolerated the view that made them responsible to the whims of a mere INAUGURAL LECTURE 13 majority of the House of Commons. The German sympathies of George I and George II gave oppor- tunity to a strong minister to throw off the royal yoke, but, when George III tried to revive the power of the crown, the attempt appeared by no means hopeless, and it was not till the ministry of the younger Pitt that ministerial responsibility to the will of the nation, as expressed in a parliamentary majority, was finally established; and even then the battle was not fully won, as shown by the successful resistance of George III to Catholic emancipation ; though probably in this case the real sympathies of the people were with the king. In these difficult matters of constitutional evolution there is little available material ready to hand. The greatest ministers did not venture to oppose their monarchs in elaborate State papers. The humble attitude assumed by the great Chatham in the presence of the monarch was but the exaggeration of the pre- vailing attitude. Kings, on the other hand, supported their claims by other means than paper arguments. But if you turn to Colonial history, you will find ample material for the study of what was practically the same question. From about 1830 the expression ■ responsible government ' is continually found in the public papers of the day. It gave the most striking paragraphs to Lord Durham's report. It was the Sphinx of subse- quent Canadian politics, till Lord Elgin proved its Oedipus. In Lord Sydenham's life and in Lord Elgin's letters and dispatches the subject can be closely followed. There was, it is true, a complica- tion in colonial politics which was not present in England. Sydenham's objection to the full recognition of responsible government arose from the fact that i 4 INAUGURAL LECTURE he himself was a minister responsible to the home Government, and that, as he could not rid himself of this responsibility, he could not transfer it to his Council. 'Either the Governor is the Sovereign or the Minister. If the first, he may have ministers, but he cannot be responsible to the Government at home, and all colonial government becomes im- possible. He must therefore be the Minister, in which case he cannot be under the control of men in the colonies/ The answer to Sydenham's dilemma was that the Governor is both a sovereign and a minister, a sove- reign so far as the internal affairs of the Colony are concerned, the emissary of the Crown where imperial issues are at stake. This is not the place to pursue the subject, but no better introduction to the study of constitutional questions could be suggested than a con- sideration of the triumph of responsible government in the British colonies. Moreover, present events are giving an added im- portance to the past history. We have here nothing to do with party politics, yet we may note that the course to be pursued in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony is expressly put forward on the ground of the experience of past history. In this state of things, with what conscious right can those speak who are really familiar with what has gone before? It must be remembered, however, that the circumstances of each particular case differ so materially that his- torical precedents need to be severely tested by the light of surrounding circumstances before they can be accepted. It is, however, a welcome sign of the times that all parties are agreed in appealing to past history. INAUGURAL LECTURE 15 On other subjects of great practical importance the study of Colonial history affords a valuable guide. The history of modern Australia and of New Zealand, so far as it possesses general interest, is the history of experiments in social legislation, boldly put in force. We may not say that even if an experiment succeeds there it will succeed at home, because the whole economic life in Australasia, owing to circumstances of position, is less subject to the fierce stress of com- petition. For instance, the absence of the pressure of population in the competition of economic life alters materially the conditions of the problem. We may not even confidently assert that these experiments have met with success even on congenial soil, but this we may say, that whoever will study the subject of com- pulsory arbitration, a legal minimum wage, and other planks in the platform of the State socialist, cannot approach the question from a better standpoint than that of Australasian experience. It is with unfeigned trepidation that I approach the still flaming furnace of the fierce controversy which has been raging over Chinese labour; but perhaps it is permissible to say, that whoever has carefully studied the history of the past, whether he approves or dis- approves of Chinese labour, will not treat the subject with the complacent certainty which characterizes the utterances of many of its opponents. That in colonies there is nearly always a labour problem, to be met and to be solved, is a fact written large on the page of history. That slavery, the corvee, ' indentured ' labour, transportation, and coolie immigration are, from the economic standpoint, one and all halting-places along the same road, which leads to the equation of supply 16 INAUGURAL LECTURE and demand in the colonial labour market, cannot, I think, be doubted by serious students. It does not follow that the use of such means is necessarily justi- fiable on moral grounds. The point is that their employ- ment does not spring from the superfluous naughti- ness of human nature. Different minds will arrive at different conclusions. The distinguished French economist and writer on colonial subjects, M. Paul Leroy Beaulieu, distinctly condemns the general system of coolie immigration in the West Indies as unnatural and dangerous. Other observers, no less high-minded, have seen in the importation of these labourers a bene- ficial measure of State-aided colonization. A knowledge of the past will not of necessity lead to any foregone conclusion ; but it will tend to free us from those harsh judgements of men and of measures which are greatly the outcome of ignorance. There is another subject of importance which can be fitly studied in Colonial history. The presence of distinct races under a common government affords a political problem, which in the process of time appears to become increasingly difficult. There was a time when component nationalities consented to be merged for the creation of a vigorous common stock. Thus Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Normans became fused in the English race, and similar processes went on in France, Germany, and other nations of Europe. As late as 1839 a robust Liberal of the type of Lord Durham could look forward with hope to the decay of the French Canadian nationality. But with the middle of the nineteenth century the spirit of individual nationalism was born again. Racial patriotism became a factor to be reckoned with in the working of politics. INAUGURAL LECTURE 17 Such patriotism may take various forms. It may remain purely sentimental and not intrude into the field of politics, as has been hitherto the case with Scottish race feeling ; or it may be frankly used as a piece in the game of political opposition, as has happened in Ireland. But whatever form it takes it deserves careful study, and nowhere perhaps can the subject be more profitably studied than in the con- sideration of French and English in Canada, and of Boer and Briton in South Africa. The relations of the French Canadians to their British neighbours and to Great Britain is a subject which lends itself to facile generalizations, but on which detailed knowledge in this country is not great. We know that the existence of a powerful democratic republic to the south, with compulsory secular schools, in any case serves to secure the loyalty of French Canadians to the British communion, but we in this country do not know how far the system of government under confederation has been successful in allaying racial animosities. We are told that the work accomplished in Canada can be repeated in South Africa, but we desire to know a little more of its accomplishment in Canada. With regard to South Africa the facts are patent enough. It is when we attempt to apply our knowledge that the difficulties begin. In any case the study of the various races who owe allegiance to the British flag is of im- portance to the student of imperial politics. And when we confront a yet more formidable wave, can it be denied that a study of the past history of our colonial system affords the best introduction to the con- sideration of the vexata quaestio of the fiscal controversy ? The youngest and therefore the most infallible of tariff B 18 INAUGURAL LECTURE reformers, the most stalwart and convinced free-trader, and the most subtle of philosophic doubters can, at least, agree in this. What fiscal policy best suits present conditions is a practical question only to be answered by a study in detail of present facts, but the investigation of past problems will often throw side- lights on present tendencies. The study of the old mercantile system, from one point of view, belongs to economics, but it is so closely wrapped up with the facts of Colonial history that it cannot be profitably considered apart from that history. ' The act of Navi- gation/ in Burke's words, 'attended the colonies from their infancy, grew with their growth, and strengthened with their strength. They scarcely had remembered a time when they were not subject to such restraint/ The mercantile system thus becomes the pivot round which revolves the whole early history. It is easy now to recognize the fundamental fallacy of that system. It overlooked the broad distinction between what have been defined as colonies de peuplement and colonies Sex- ploitation, and, by treating the former as if their one business was the promotion of English trade and manufactures, in effect violated the promise that the English beyond the seas should have equal rights with their countrymen at home. Nevertheless the system prevailed throughout the European countries which held colonies. It afforded an ample screen behind which England was able to establish her maritime supremacy. Even as regards the colonies it had great compensations. It gave them the use of English capital, by which means they were able to develop their fisheries, agriculture, and shipbuilding in a manner which would have been otherwise impossible. Its harshness was INAUGURAL LECTURE 19 greatly mitigated by an elaborate system of bounties and rebates, and by the difficulties which lay in the way of its full enforcement. In any case a system, which dictated the policy of Europe for more than a hundred years, and which showed such vigorous vitality that its long lingering death lasted till nearly the middle of the next century — such a system cannot be too minutely studied. Considering its past importance, it is strange that no one English book should have been devoted exclusively to its history. There is the famous chapter in Adam Smith, and much may be found in the brilliant pages of Dr. Cunningham's Growth of British Industry and Commerce and in Essays by Mr. Ashley. Nevertheless the mercantile system still awaits its his- torian. Perhaps some Rhodes Scholar of to-day may prove its vates sacer. But if that system deserves attentive study, the historical student will find a more puzzling, if possibly a more suggestive, quarry in the complicated scheme of colonial preferences, which sprang up between the granting of American independence and the full triumph of Free Trade. The consideration of such preferences should be possible in the dry light of Science, and outside the heated atmosphere of party politics, and the conclusions thus obtained should be of real service to the practical life of to-day. On no subject are opinions more freely expressed than on questions of colonial policy, and on none is it more necessary that we should have the knowledge to weigh such opinions. For instance, in a thoughtful article on the causes of the late Liberal victory published in the Times, the writer incidentally stated that the cause of the loss of the American colonies was the b 2 20 INAUGURAL LECTURE refusal to grant Home Rule. Turn to Burke and you find the very opposite expressly asserted. America ' had/ he said, in the famous speech on American taxa- tion, ' except the commercial restraint, every character- istic mark of a free people in all her internal concerns. She had the image of the British constitution. She had the substance. She was taxed by her own repre- sentatives. She chose most of her own magistrates. She paid them all. She had in effect the sole disposal of her whole internal government. This whole state of commercial servitude and civil liberty, taken together, is certainly not civil freedom; but comparing it with the ordinary circumstances of human nature, it was a happy and liberal condition/ Whoever has had occasion to follow the dealings of the American legisla- tures, and to note how, by the power of the purse, they were able to reduce to impotence the English governors, will, I think, be inclined to agree with Burke and not with the writer of the article. Again, the opposite statement was for many years generally made that the colonies had flourished under salutary neglect, and that it was the sudden interference of British statesmen which precipitated the crisis. But whatever may have occasioned the final breach, it cannot be now seriously contended that the English authorities were at any time disposed to leave the colonies to work out their own salvation in their own way. On the contrary, the records prove the most constant and annoying interferences, even in questions of purely local concern. It is true that such interference generally ended in failure, but it none the less disproved the original assertion. For the purpose of practical politics it is of urgent INAUGURAL LECTURE 21 necessity that we should understand colonial precedents. For instance, you take up a newspaper and read that the writer of a letter (a distinguished friend by the way of Oxford and especially of the Bodleian Library) speaks of Home Rule for Ireland ' after the Canadian model\ What then is the Canadian model? It is a federal government under which the separate provinces have each their separate Lieutenant-Governor and their separate ministries. The Lieutenant-Governors are appointed by the Governor-General in Council, that is in effect by the Prime Minister for the time being, who has been held to have also the power of dismissal. Home Rule after the Canadian model would thus mean, besides an Irish Executive and Parliament, separate provincial legislatures for Ulster, Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, the Provincial Governor of Ulster being subject to appointment and dismissal by the Irish Prime Minister. Such a scheme may or may not be desirable, but it is not I think often in the minds of those who talk of the Canadian model. What they mean is merely a separate Parliament and executive, as obtains in any colony possessing responsible govern- ment. I have noted a few directions in which it appears that practical guidance may be obtained from a study of Colonial history, and on more general grounds we may maintain that the time has come when the history of England should become identified with the history of the English Empire. I suppose that the intention of this foundation is to bring out the unity in diversity, which is the characteristic of that Empire. The day is perhaps past when, like the great historian of thirty years ago, we can speak of the expansion of England, 22 INAUGURAL LECTURE as meaning that there need be no greater difference between the members of the scattered portions of the Empire than between a Devonian and a Yorkshireman. For many purposes separate nationalities have been built up, and the ideal, at which we aim, is rather a collection of allied nations under a common crown than a fusion of nationalities into a single type. Never- theless we are the more imperatively bound to keep tight hold of whatever links are now left, and among such links few are more precious than those supplied by a common history. It is most pleasing to note the remarkable friendliness to England and English ways displayed by those American scholars who have made a close study of the times when the American States were English provinces. Is it fanciful to claim that such a frame of mind has been largely fostered by the particular studies over which they were occupied ? But, if the link of common history be so strong, in spite of the wrench caused by civil war and the sense of injury and resentment, what ought it to be in the case of those who have suffered no wrong from each other, and who, so far as they have drifted apart, have only done so by moving in different hemispheres? If a common study of our common history can in any way help imperial unity, there is a motive which may well prompt imperial patriots. So far the argument applies to all Englishmen, but there are special reasons why we at Oxford should devote time and trouble to Colonial history. The large conception of a great man has planned that Oxford should, so far as he could make it possible, become the o/m^aAo? of the Anglo-Saxon race, a meeting- place for the great Teutonic peoples throughout the INAUGURAL LECTURE 23 world. We cannot but feel that in the face of this friendly invasion Oxford itself is, in a sense, upon its trial. It is indeed most valuable that opportunities should be given for mutual intercourse and understand- ing. It is ignorance which plays the main part in keeping nations as well as individuals apart. How little men know of each other! Ask the American or Canadian Westerner what he thinks of England, and I understand you will find that he thinks of our land as a played-out island, chiefly inhabited by the unemployed and by decaying industries. A visit to Glasgow or Sheffield would furnish him with a new mental horizon. Doubtless our own judgements are often no less crude and hasty. For these symptoms there is no remedy like mutual intercourse. It may be that the Rhodes Scheme may not prove the last word on the subject, and that (as has been suggested by the late American Ambassador) it would be much to be desired that there should be return visits of English scholars to American and Canadian Universities. Assuredly Oxford would be the last to claim that she has nothing to learn from other schools of learning. But meanwhile, so long as Oxford alone holds the field in this new departure, it behoves our University to be careful that full provision be made for every form of intellectual taste. It may not be the case that Rhodes Scholars from our colonies will care to study their own history in this country. Certainly so far as Canadian history is concerned, and probably in the case of the history of the other colonies, such history for some time may be better learnt at home, and the Scholars may prefer to engage in studies wherein their own Universities may not be able to compete with Oxford. But whether the 24 INAUGURAL LECTURE guests be few or many, it is surely a common act of courtesy that the table be spread ready for such as care to partake. The colonist, who comes to England, must at first be somewhat puzzled at the apparent indifference he finds around him. We certainly do not as a rule err from Chauvinism. Perhaps we sometimes carry the opposite temper to a dangerous extreme. I am under the im- pression that in this august University the subject of the Hudson's Bay Company was allowed for an essay dealing with a question of foreign history, on the ground that there were French claims to Hudson's Bay. You remember the story by Mr. Rudyard Kipling of the M.P., who came down to lecture to public schoolboys and waved the Union Jack, and the feelings aroused in the audience. It is a good thing to keep our deepest feelings under control, and to cultivate ' the depth and not the tumult of the soul ', but there is the opposite risk that our feelings may be so deep that they are practically non-existent. But though allowance must be made for difference of temperament, there can be no excuse for inviting a guest and then neglecting to acquaint oneself with his past history. The Beit foundation seems the logical complement to the scheme of the Rhodes Trustees. But there are other and more sentimental grounds on which the study of Colonial history deserves special recognition at this ancient University. It was by an Oxford man that the torch of English colonization was first lighted, which has spread its glow throughout the world. Inspired by the words of the prophet, ' They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters ; these see the works of the Lord, and His INAUGURAL LECTURE 25 wonders in the deep/ and by the discourse of a cousin, on whose table were found lying open certain books of cosmography and a universal map, Richard Hakluyt constantly resolved, when a Westminster Scholar, that, if ever he were preferred to the University, he would by God's assistance promote that knowledge and kind of literature, the doors whereof (after a sort) had been so happily opened before him. 'According to which my resolutions/ Hakluyt continues in the dedication to Sir Francis Walsingham of his General Collection of Voyages and Travels, 'when not long after I was re- moved to Christ Church in Oxford, my exercises of duty first performed, I fell to my intended course, and by degrees read over whatsoever printed or written discoveries and voyages I found extant, either in the Greeke, Latine, Italian, Spanish, Portugall, French or English languages, and in my public lectures was the first that produced and shewed both the olde and im- perfectly composed and the new lately reformed mappes, globes, spheares and other instruments of this art for demonstration in the common schooles to the singular pleasure and generall contentment of my auditory/ It has been supposed that these lectures were delivered at Oxford, but in the silence of Anthony a Wood this inference seems hardly probable. According, however, to a letter addressed by Hakluyt to Walsingham (which was published by Mr. Payne Collier, without mention of where he found the original), Hakluyt urged that Her Majesty might be induced to erect a lecturer in Oxford of the arts of navigation. But with Hakluyt the accumulation of knowledge had always a very practical purpose, to promote colonization and the sea power of England. 26 INAUGURAL LECTURE No pains were too great if thereby he might add to his stock of knowledge. Thus he rode two hundred miles in order to obtain the facts of the disastrous voyage in 1536 of Hore to Newfoundland, in order to obtain the true story from the sole survivor. He was incessantly employed in the collection of material, and in correspondence with those willing to give informa- tion or anxious for his advice and assistance. In his preface to the first volume of the second edition of his General Collection he writes : ' For the bringing of which into this homely and rough-hewn shape which here thou seest, what restless nights, what painfull days, what heat, what cold I have endured ; how many long and changeable journeys I have travailed; how many famous libraries I have searched into; what varieties of ancient and modern writers I have perused, what a number of old records, patents, privileges, letters, &c, I have redeemed from obscuritie and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance I have entered; what expenses I have not spared; and yet what fair oppor- tunities of private gaine, preferment and ease I have neglected, albeit thyself can hardly imagine, yet I by daily experience do find and feele and some of my entier friends can sufficiently testify/ The key to Hakluyt's life-work is given by the dedicatory epistle to Sir Philip Sidney, published with the Divers Voyages. * I marvaile not a little,' he wrote, ' that since the first discoverie of America after so great conquests and plantings of the Spaniards and Portingales there that wee of England could never have the grace to set fast footing in such fertile and temperate places, as are left as yet unpossessed of them. But again when I consider that there is a time for all men, and see the INAUGURAL LECTURE 27 Portingales time to be out of date and that the naked- ness of the Spaniards and their long hidden secretes are nowe at length espied, whereby they went about to delude the worlde, I conceive great hope that the time approacheth and nowe is that we of England may share and part stakes (if wee will ourselves) both with the Spaniarde and the Portingale in parts of America and other regions as yet undiscovered. And surely if there were in us that desire to advance the honour of our countrie which ought to be in every good man, wee would not all this while have foreslowne the pos- sessing of those lands, which of equity and right appertaine unto us as by the discourses that follow shall appear most plainly. . . . We reade that the bees, when they grow to be too many for their own hives at home, are wont to be led out by their captains to swarm abroad and seek themselves a new dwelling- place. If the examples of the Grecians and Cartha- genians of old time and the practice of our age may not move us, yet let us learne wisdom of these small, weake and unreasonable creatures. It chaunced very lately that upon occasion, I had great conference upon matters of cosmographie with an excellent learned man of Portingale, most privie to all the discoveries of his nation, who wondered that those blessed countries, from the point of Florida northward, were all this while unplanted by Christians, protesting with great affection and zeale that, if hee were now as young as I, he would sel all hee had, being a man of no small wealth and honour, to furnish a convenient number of ships to sea, for the inhabiting of those countries, and re- deeming those Gentile people to Christianity.' It was very meet that, more than twenty years later, 28 INAUGURAL LECTURE Hakluyt should have been among the prime movers who finally succeeded in establishing permanent settle- ments in America. It was largely due to his exertions that a petition was made in 1606 for the granting of a patent for the colonization of Virginia, and that the charter was in consequence granted. It is the close connexion in Hakluyt of theoretic know- ledge and practical policy that moves our special admiration ; but in fact, in the golden age of discovery and colonization, theory and practice always went hand in hand. Thus we find Henry the Navigator the indefatigable student of whatever knowledge was to be obtained from books or men. Columbus gathered inspiration from the mathematician Toscanelli; and the Dutch East India Company was greatly the result of the labours and learning of Linschoten. John Locke did not disdain the practical work of acting as secretary to Lord Shaftesbury, and thus in effect to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, and afterwards to the recon- structed Council of Trade (though it is only fair to say that his theories did not always succeed in real life). It was not till the divorce of theory and practice, and when colonial administration was more and more left to red-tape officials and second-rate soldiers, that the year of English colonization lost its spring. But while Oxford can claim a foremost place in the training of Richard Hakluyt, the father of English literature relating to the colonies, she can point to still greater names of Empire-builders who have been her sons. The period of Ralegh's stay in Oxford is wrapped in gloom. According to Anthony a Wood ' he became a commoner of Oriel College in or about the year 1568, and his natural parts being strangely INAUGURAL LECTURE 29 advanced by academical learning, under the care of an excellent tutor, he became the ornament of the juniors and was worthily esteemed a proficient in Oratory and Philosophy '. Wood adds that he was three years at Oxford. As, however, Ralegh was in France in the year 1569, it is impossible to accept this statement. On the other hand, Ralegh's name appears in the books of Oriel College for the single year 1572, but the rest is silence. But however short may have been Ralegh's stay at Oxford, that indefatigable reader no doubt knew how best to make it of advantage. The University may claim some share in the ripe scholar- ship, which characterized his writings. Of Ralegh as a builder of the English Empire it is superfluous to speak. Through all the tortuous and devious paths of Elizabethan and Jacobean diplomacy, he held fast to his purpose, to make the colonial Empire of England rival that of Spain. In South America he hoped to obtain by Guiana a possession for England that should equal the wealth of Mexico and Peru. Repeated failure could not make him despair of Virginia, and as late as 1602 he wrote, ' It were pity to overthrow the enter- prise ; for I shall yet live to see it an Inglishe nation.' It matters nothing that under James I Ralegh was in disgrace, and that the actual foundation of the colony owed its being to lesser men. None the less is his name imperishably connected with the creation of an Anglo-Saxon America. By a curious coincidence, late in time, another com- moner of Oriel was to arise, who should in new ways carry on Ralegh's work. Amidst very different external circumstances there are points of resemblance between the great Elizabethan and the late Cecil Rhodes. 3 o INAUGURAL LECTURE Among the great men of history there are those who are naturally surrounded by an aureole of charm. There is a fascination about the natures of men like Nelson, or Wolfe, to which all instinctively yield. But there are other great men in history, who come down to us in more enigmatic fashion, and the type of whose natures is not written large that whoso runs may read. Such men may seek simple ends, but by complex paths. They are a puzzle to their contemporaries and to pos- terity. They confer benefits on mankind, but they do not inspire in the average man feelings of love. That Ralegh was in his lifetime unpopular appears to admit of little doubt. This unpopularity was no doubt, in some measure, due to the fact that he held the monopoly of the wine licences, a most unpopular privilege. But apart from this there was enough in his character to account for such unpopularity. A kind of haughty aloofness kept him apart from the rank and file of men. He had not the easy charm and winning ways of Essex. This is not the place, and certainly I am not fitted to pronounce a final judgement on the last (not to consider living men, and there are two living, in whose careers Oxford feels a special pride) — on the last, I say, dead great builder of the Empire, whose name has become so indissolubly linked with Modern Oxford. I myself had only once the privilege to see and hear Mr. Rhodes. As, with his hands in his pockets, he gave out, as it were under suggestion, his dreams of the future, one recog- nized that, with all his practical abilities, his true place was rather among the Matoppo Hills, where now he lies, than at a crowded meeting of City shareholders. Mr. Cecil Rhodes was an idealist who had not suffi- cient faith in the power of ideas to move mankind. By INAUGURAL LEGTURfi' V:%: "" 31 sometimes seeming to lower himself to what he believed to be the level of ordinary men, he excited doubts and misgivings amongst those who were ready to acknow- ledge his greatness. But whatever his faults, he worked for England, and it may be that in the future the colony which he created, and which now bears his name, will cast the decisive vote in favour of British interests, in the future federation of South Africa. And, so far as Oxford is concerned, there is nothing to be put on the other side, in paying tribute to his memory. Finis coronat opus; and Mr. Rhodes' will was a splendid revelation of his own best self. It is for us in our several ways to try and make ourselves worthy of his conception of Oxford. The undergraduate, who hurried home from the business of Kimberley to take his degree, was the father to the statesman, who held that a residence at Oxford was the most valuable gift, which could be bestowed on our colonial fellow-subjects and our American and German kinsfolk. The thing is still in its infancy ; but in process of time what differences of prejudices and convictions may not be bridged by the joining power of friendship at an impressionable age ! How much may the task of making a new home in the West be facilitated for young Englishmen, when in remote districts they have friends to welcome them, who were their Oxford contemporaries ! These things are outside the province of this lecture, but at least they show the spirit in which it is our business to work. The history, with which we are concerned, is largely the record of failures and blunders. Unjust measures leave rankling sores, and short-sighted officials give unnecessary offence. The cause, which more than any other wrecked our first Colonial Empire, * 3 2 ■" : '"->' 'iHAOOURAL LECTURE was the lack of imagination shown by Englishmen at home. It is for us to teach and learn history in such a way, as that the historical imagination may be culti- vated, and that we may recognize the point of view of those from whom we may fundamentally differ. But, if we work in this spirit, we may each and all, in our humble way, do something to bring about that Bri- tannic, or even wider, confederation, which, though it may never exist on paper, or in the world of dry fact, may yet be a spiritual sustenance to hundreds of thousands yet unborn, divided by thousands of miles of sea. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. 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