It was founded in London on 18 November, 1884, as an initiative of W. E. Forster who would be its first chairman. The following resolutions were passed: [1]
- That a Society be now formed to be called “The Imperial Federation League.
- That the object of the League be to secure by Federation the permanent Unity of the Empire.
- That no scheme of Federation should interfere with the existing rights of local Parliaments as regards local affairs.
- That any scheme of Imperial Federation should combine, on an equitable basis, the resources of the Empire for the maintenance of common interests and adequately provide for an organised defence of common rights.
- That the League use every constitutional means to bring about the object for which it is formed and invite the support of men of all political parties.
- That the membership of the League be open to any British subject who accepts the principles of the League, and pays a yearly registration fee of not less than one shilling.
- That donations and subscriptions be invited for providing means for conducting the business of the League.
- That British subjects throughout the Empire be invited to become members, and to form and organise Branches of the League which may place their representatives on the General Committee.
Branches were established in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Barbados and British Guiana. After Forster's death Lord Rosebery became President of the League; he was in turn succeeded by Edward Stanhope.
Francis Labilliere, William Westgarth and John Dennistoun Wood served on a committee of six to draft the prospectus of the Imperial Federation League. [2] It aimed to promote the Imperial Federation, to be formed in a similar way to the confederation of a majority of British North America into the Dominion of Canada in the mid-19th century. The United States and Canada were held up as concrete examples of how vast territories could be effectively managed while maintaining a central representative authority.
The League was cross-party and sought to avoid party politics. The Imperial Federation League combined politicians, journalists, and intellectuals, like Sir John Robert Seeley, James Bryce, Alfred Milner, Froude and Lord Tennyson.
Ontario/Canada
Whilst branches of the Imperial Federation League spread throughout the Empire, a large branch formed in Toronto in 1887. It was spurred on by a United States initiative for a commercial union between the US and Canada. [3] Dalton McCarthy MP was a founder of the IFL. A Conservative MP initially, he ran a slate of McCarthyite candidates in the 1896 federal election on an anti-Catholic platform but was the only one elected.
Prominent Canadian members included Sir Charles Tupper, and both G.T. Denison and his brother Frederick Charles Denison. George Robert Parkin would extensively tour the empire speaking on behalf of the cause.
The annexation crises of the late 1880s and early 1890s were a particular concern of the League.
Victoria/Australia
A branch of the League was established in Victoria in 1885.
Alfred Deakin was a supporter of the League and in 1905 became the President of the Victorian branch. [4]
Partly through the efforts of Henry D'Esterre Taylor the Victorian branch survived the dissolution of the London branch.
The Victorian Branch was a supporter of the notion that Imperial Federation could be encouraged best by not enunciating a clear plan.
"Most of the supporters of Imperial Federation have hitherto indulged in very vague generalities. The Victorian branch of the league weds itself to no scheme, and will have nothing to do with ways and means to effect its object. … This promised land seems just a little indefinite." [5]
Many in the Victorian branch regarded the Federation of Australia as the first step towards Imperial Federation. [6]
Programme
Supporters of Imperial Federation presented the argument that the two choices for Britain were federation or disintegration. In their view, the future importance of Britain depended on it federating what is now called the "Old Commonwealth". [7]
The League promoted the closer union of the British Empire under an "Imperial Federal Government" however it did not settle on any particular scheme of what this would comprise, whether a Federal Parliament, a Council, or Conferences, other than that it would include representation from the parts of the empire to consider matters of foreign policy, defence, and trade. It was generally taken to mean some sort of Imperial Parliament.
The Imperial Parliament (Westminster, stripped of its local responsibilities) would handle foreign affairs, the army, the navy, and those colonies (including India) which had a population the bulk of which was "alien". The center would also have a final court of appeal. Local Parliaments would exercise control over Home Affairs, the police and education. [8]
The League was Unionist in outlook.
The League was divided between those who wanted to establish a clear pathway for Imperial Federation and those whose view was that the program could best be advanced by general discussion, aiming to move opinion in favor of federation with specifics to be worked out later (Parkin, in Canada, argued that that was the method used to bring about Canadian Confederation). [9]
Another point of division within the League was the question of free trade or tariff protection. The League while refraining from adopting a view point did not prevent advocates from either side commenting on the matter. A prominent activist in the League was the protectionist Howard Vincent MP.
A "want of homogeneity" in the League and recognition that it was composed of "three or four sections" would be given as the reason for the eventual dissolution of the League in 1893 [10]
The League's most notable opponents were Edward Augustus Freeman, Goldwin Smith, and Andrew Carnegie. In his Triumphant Democracy Carnegie would refer to the League as Rosebery's "amusing Imperial Federation fad (which, happily, is impossible)" [11]
Alfred Deakin was an Australian politician and barrister who served as the second Prime Minister of Australia. He was a leader of the movement for Federation, which occurred in 1901. During his three terms as prime minister over the subsequent decade, he played a key role in establishing national institutions.
The Australian Natives' Association (ANA) was a mutual society founded in Melbourne, Australia in April 1871. It was founded by and for the benefit of Native white Australians and membership was restricted exclusively to that group.
John Adrian Louis Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow, 7th Earl of Hopetoun, was a British aristocrat and statesman who served as the first governor-general of Australia, in office from 1901 to 1902. He was previously Governor of Victoria from 1889 to 1895.
Ronald Craufurd Munro Ferguson, 1st Viscount Novar, was a British politician who served as the sixth Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1914 to 1920.
Liberalism in Australia dates back to the earliest pioneers of the area, and has maintained a strong foothold to this day. Liberalism in the country is primarily represented by the centre-right Liberal Party. The Liberal Party is a fusion of liberal and conservative forces and are affiliated with the conservative centre-right International Democrat Union. Philosophical liberals are often called a "small-l liberal" to distinguish them from members of the Liberal Party.
The Imperial Federation refers to a series of proposals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to create a federal union to replace the existing British Empire, presenting it as an alternative to colonial imperialism. No such proposal was ever adopted, but various schemes were popular in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and other colonial territories. The project was championed by Unionists such as Joseph Chamberlain as an alternative to William Gladstone's proposals for home rule in Ireland.
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia. The colonies of Fiji and New Zealand were originally part of this process, but they decided not to join the federation. Following federation, the six colonies that united to form the Commonwealth of Australia as states kept the systems of government that they had developed as separate colonies, but they also agreed to have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, on 1 January 1901, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Sir John QuickLL.D. was an Australian lawyer, politician and judge. He played a prominent role in the movement for Federation and the drafting of the Australian constitution, later writing several works on Australian constitutional law. He began his political career in the Victorian Legislative Assembly (1880–1889) and later won election to the House of Representatives at the first federal election in 1901. He served as Postmaster-General in the third Deakin Government (1909–1910). He lost his seat in 1913 and ended his public service as deputy president of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration (1922–1930).
Imperial Preference was a system of mutual tariff reduction enacted throughout the British Empire following the Ottawa Conference of 1932. As Commonwealth Preference, the proposal was later revived in regard to the members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Joseph Chamberlain, the powerful colonial secretary from 1895 until 1903, argued vigorously that Britain could compete with its growing industrial rivals and thus maintain Great Power status. The best way to do so would be to enhance internal trade inside the worldwide British Empire, with emphasis on the more developed areas — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa — that had attracted large numbers of British settlers.
Opposition to the Second Boer War occurred both within and outside of the British Empire. Among the British public, there was initially high levels of support for the war, though it declined considerably as the conflict dragged on. Internationally, condemnation of Britain came from many sources, predominately left-wing and anti-imperialist ones. Inside Britain influential groups, especially based in the opposition Liberal Party formed immediately. They fought ineffectually against the British war policies, which were supported by the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Salisbury.
The Australasian Anti-Transportation League was a body established to oppose penal transportation to Australia. Beginning in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in the late 1840s, it had branches in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Canterbury. The Colonial Office abandoned transportation to eastern Australia in 1852.
Henry D'Esterre Taylor,, was an Australian banker and Federationist.
Sir George Robert Parkin was a Canadian educator, imperialist, and author.
James Newton Haxton Hume Cook CMG was an Australian politician. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1901 to 1910, after previously serving in the Victorian Legislative Assembly from 1894 to 1900. He was a member of the anti-socialist parties and served as a minister without portfolio under Alfred Deakin.
The British Empire League existed from 1895 to 1955; its purpose was to secure permanent unity for the British Empire.
The Colony of Tasmania was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Australian Constitutions Act in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.
Francis Peter Labilliere was an Anglo-Australian historian.
The first Deakin Government was the second federal executive government of the Commonwealth of Australia. It was led by Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, from 24 September 1903 until 27 April 1904. Deakin was the second Prime Minister of Australia, but served as Prime Minister again from 1905–1908 and 1909–1910 – see Second Deakin Government and Third Deakin Government.
Deakin v Webb was one of a series of cases concerning whether the States could tax the income of a Commonwealth officer. The High Court of Australia overruled a decision of the Supreme Court of Victoria, holding that the States could not tax the income of a Commonwealth officer. This resulted in conflict with the Privy Council that was ultimately resolved by the passage of Commonwealth law in 1907 to permit the States to tax the income of a Commonwealth officer. The constitutional foundation of the decision was overturned by the subsequent decision of the High Court in the 1920 Engineers' Case.
The Deakin Government (1905-1908) refers to the period of federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Alfred Deakin. It lasted from 5 July 1905 to 13 November 1908. Deakin was the second Prime Minister of Australia having previously led the Deakin Government (1903-1904), and held the office again in 1909–1910.
