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equal necessity of all men to preserve the attributes of life, motion and prehension, which are common to all, and which, as necessary to all, and arising equally by "endowment of the Creator," are self-evidently "unalienable." From the proposition that each man, equally with all others, by reason of his creation by a Creator, possesses certain attributes which are necessary to self-preservation and "unalienable" without self-destruction, the existence of a supreme universal law was inferred under which each man as against all individuals, governments and states has "rights" which are "unalienable." These rights are spoken of as "certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and evidently correspond to the attributes of life, motion and prehension, which are equal, common and necessary to all. This supreme universal law was declared to rest upon "the opinions of mankind," which are entitled to "a decent respect." Thus at the outset this nation

asserted rights against Great Britain under international law that law being regarded as an international equity based on the common experience and formulated by the common opinion of civilized mankind. The existence of rights necessarily involves legal limitation of the powers of the party against whom the right exists, and the assertion by Great Britain of a claim of legally-unlimited power, persistently followed by acts evidencing an intention to enforce this claim, was rightly held by the Colonies to be a dissolution of the social bond and hence a dissolution of the political connection between the two countries.

By the Declaration of Independence, therefore, the issue raised was, whether a state or a government sufficiently strong to enforce its will may rightfully exercise legally-unlimited power, or whether the conception of legally-unlimited power is rationally impossible and unthinkable, being opposed to a self-evident supreme universal law by which the powers of all states and all governments are legally-limited. The success of the Americans in the War of Independence left the United States. free to carry into effect the principle for which the war had been fought. The principle was accepted by each of the States simultaneously with the announcement of it in the Declaration of Independence, each State making its own interpretation of this supreme law by forming a written Constitution assumed to emanate from the common conscience and common intelligence of the people of the State and limiting the powers of government. In 1787, the principle was applied to the whole United States by the adoption of a written Constitution which was declared to be "the supreme law of the land." In 1796, the principle was applied by President Washington, in his Farewell Address, to all American foreign rela

tions; and in 1823 the South American states, having accepted the principle, received from the United States a guarantee of the maintenance of the principle through the declaration by President Monroe of the Monroe Doctrine. In recent years, the principle has been applied by the Supreme Court of the United States as governing the relations between this nation and the countries under its jurisdiction.

In the opinion of the reviewer. therefore, the author is far from being correct in "omitting" what he calls "the constitutional question," since the Revolution was fought on a question of political theory of the most far-reaching kind, and did in fact result in determining the question according to the American contention. The failure of the author in this respect if there be a failure, as the reviewer believes - does not, however, affect the value of the book as a history of Canada from 1763 to 1812; for during that period American ideas had little influence in Canada; but a history of Canada from 1812 to the present time which should take no account of the effect upon Canadian institutions of those American political ideas which have their beginning in the American Revolution would indeed be imperfect.

Some of the conclusions of the author regarding the effect of the success of the American Colonies in the Revolution upon the development of the British Empire are profound and interesting. Summing up the results of the Treaty of Peace of 1783, he says (pp. 206, 207):

Though the United States, in the war and in the treaty which followed it, attained in the fullest possible measure the objects for which they had contended, it is a question whether, of all the countries concerned in that war, Canada did not really gain most. Had the United States remained

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British possessions, Canada must eventually have come into line with them, and been more or less lost among the stronger and more populous provinces. The same result would have followed, had the British Government entertained, as their emissary Oswald did, Franklin's proposal that Canada should be ceded to the United States. The result of the War of American Independence was to make the United States a great nation; but it was a result which, whether with England or without, they must in any case have achieved. The war had also the effect, and no other cause could have had a like effect, of making possible a national existence for Canada, which possibility was to be converted into a living and potent fact by the second American war, the war of 1812.

Of the effect of the War of Independence on the development of the British Empire, he says (pp. 32, 204, 205):

What would have happened if the revolting colonies had not made good their revolt must be a matter of speculation, but it is difficult to believe that if the

United States had remained under the British flag, Australia would ever have become a British colony. There is a limit to every political system and every empire, and, with the whole of North America east of the Mississippi for her own, it is not likely that England would have taken in hand the exploiting of a new continent. At any rate, it is significant that, within four years of the date of the treaty which recognized the independence of the United States, the first English colonists were sent to Australia.

The present broad-based Imperial system of Great Britain was for two reasons the direct outcome of that war. While the United States were still colonial possessions of Great Britain, they overshadowed all others; and, had they remained British possessions, their preponderance would in all probability have steadily increased. It is quite possible that the centre of the Empire might have shifted to the other side of the Atlantic; it is almost certain that the colonial expansion of Great Britain would have been mainly confined to North America. Nothing has been more marked and nothing sounder in our recent colonial history than the comparative uniformity of development in the British Empire. In those parts of the world which have been settled and not merely conquered by Europeans, and which are still British possessions, in British North America, Australasia, and South Africa, there has been on the whole parity of progress. No one of the three groups of colonies has in wealth and population wholly outdistanced the others. This fact has unquestionably made for strength and permanence in the British Empire, and it is equally beyond question that the spread of colonization within the Empire would have been wanting, had Great Britain retained her old North American colonies. Unequalled in history was the loss of such colonies, and yet by that loss, it may fairly be said, Great Britain has achieved a more stable and a more world-wide colonial dominion.

The book shows the same painstaking study and attention to details as the Historical Geography of the British Empire and the others written or edited by the author. It is an important addition to the works on the general history of the British Colonies in America as well as to those on the history of Canada.

ALPHEUS HENRY SNOW.

British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765. By George Louis Beer. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1907. pp. vii, 316.

As the title shows, this book is concerned with the relations between Great Britain and the American Colonies from 1754 to 1765. The author presents a valuable mass of facts, drawn from his personal investigation of foreign archives, concerning both the war-relations of Great Britain and the American Colonies with France during this period, under the heads of imperial defence and requisitions for this purpose, and the peace-relations between the two countries, under the heads of

regulation of trade, local administration, taxation for these purposes, and treatment of the native tribes.

In the opinion of the reviewer, the ideas of the Americans from 1754 to 1765 are interpreted by the author too narrowly from the contemporary facts and documents, as if that period had no connection with the period before and after it; so that he mistakes in many ways the motives of the Americans and does them injustice. It is only by viewing the history of the American Colonies from 1606 to 1783 as a whole that a correct idea of their political conceptions can be gained and the motives of their political actions understood. Though the American Colonies from 1754 to 1765 were, as the author shows, in one sense a collection of heterogeneous units, each acting for itself, there existed, even at that time, as later events proved, a homogeneity and unity among them which they themselves did not fully realize. There was during that period a common belief in the existence of a fundamental compact between Great Britain and the Colonies, implied in fact and acquiesced in by both parties, according to the terms of which Great Britain was obliged to provide, at its own expense, for the protection of the colonies and they in return were obliged to permit Great Britain to regulate their foreign. trade (including the trade with Great Britain), and the intercolonial trade, to the extent necessary for the general welfare. As a part of this fundamental compact, they recognized the right of Great Britain to participate in their local administration to the extent necessary to make its protection and its regulation of trade effective. Every omission on the part of Great Britain to protect them at its own expense, they held to be a justification to them in ignoring the British regulations concerning their trade.

As early as 1700 it was recognized by the best informed men on both sides of the water that the only way to make this fundamental compact effective was to form a federation of the Colonies with a general legislature elected by them and under an executive appointed by the British Crown. It seems now clear that when the final judgment on the American Revolution is passed, it will be concluded that the original mistake of Great Britain was in not taking up the Albany Plan of Union of 1754 and pushing it to immediate completion. After the failure of the Plar of Union, the American Colonies kept on their guard more carefully than ever before, lest they might do anything which might be construed by Great Britain as an acquiescence by them in its claim to reject this fundamental compact and to exercise absolute legislative power over

them. The maintenance of the fundamental compact became the basis of the po, cy of each of the Colonies, and in spite of their being kept disunited by Great Britain, their common interest in maintaining the fundamental compact resulted in the formation of a steadily strengthening bond of union between them.

Looking at the history of British colonial policy from 1754 to 1765 from this wider standpoint, the history of that period is the history of an epoch during which Great Britain, under the necessity, as it believed, of economic pressure, made a serious attempt to abolish the fundamental compact so as to consolidate the military and financial resources of the Empire under the management of the British Crown and Parliament, and when the American Colonies began seriously to place themselves on their guard lest they might, by their acquiescence in the British measures adopted, give ground for a claim that they had acquiesced in such abolition of the fundamental compact and in the centralization of power contemplated by Great Britain. From this viewpoint, it is necessary t dissent from many of the author's conclusions. Thus he says (p. 71):

The experiences of the [French] War served but to re-enforce the conclusion reached by many in 1755, that the defense of the colonies in time of peace could not with safety be left to them because of their lack of union, and also that they could not be relied upon as a whole to provide voluntarily for their due proportion of the necessary military establishment.

It would probably be much nearer the truth to say that the Colonies were unwilling to provide for the common defence at their own expense, since this was contrary to the terms of the fundamental compact; Great Britain alone being responsible for the defence of the Empire in consideration of its having the monopoly of the trade of the Empire.

The author makes out a clear case of the Americans ignoring the British regulations of American trade; but the question which it appears he does not sufficiently consider is, whether, considering the attitude of Great Britain in questioning or denying its obligation to pay for the imperial defence, the Americans were justified in ignoring the regulations of trade.

The author apparently does not perceive that in the Revolution the American Colonies deserted the "mercantile system" and threw aside. with it this old idea of the "fundamental compact," and every other technicality and fiction; and, meeting the British claim of legally-unlimited power with an unqualified denial, fought the war on the single. proposition that the conception of legally-unlimited power ought to be

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