y and
local. As a result of long discussion, the British House of Commons in
1862 unanimously resolved that 'colonies exercising the right of
self-government ought to undertake the main responsibility of providing
for their own internal order and security and ought to assist in their
own external defence.' The duty of the United Kingdom to undertake the
general defence of the Empire was equally understood; the Committee on
Colonial Defence (1860), whose report led to the adoption of this
resolution, agreed that since 'the Imperial Government has the control
of peace and war, it is therefore in honour and duty {147} called upon
to assist the Colonists in providing against the consequences of its
policy,'--a position affirmed by Mr Cardwell's dispatch of June 17,
1865.

Given the fact and theory of political relationship as they existed in
this period, this compromise was the natural result. Under the old
colonial system the empire was Britain's, governed for its real or
fancied gain, and imperial defence was merely the debit side of
colonial trade monopoly. The myth that Britain had carried on her wars
and her diplomacy for the sake of the colonies, which therefore owed
her gratitude, had not yet been invented. True, the day had passed
when Britain derived profit, or believed she derived profit, from the
political control of the white empire, yet the habits of thought begot
by those conditions still persisted. If profit had vanished, prestige
remained. The Englishman who regarded the colonies as 'our
possessions' was quite as prepared to foot the bill for the defence of
the Empire which gave him the right to swagger through Europe, as he
was to maintain a country estate which yielded no income other than the
social standing it gave him with his county neighbours. As yet,
therefore, there was no thought in official {148} quarters that Canada
should take part in oversea wars or assume a share of the burden of
naval preparation. When an English society proposed in 1895 that
Canada should contribute money to a central navy and share in its
control, Sir Charles Tupper attacked the suggestion as 'an insidious,
mischievous, and senseless proposal.' He urged that, if Canada were
independent, 'England, instead of being able to reduce her army by a
man or her navy by a ship, would be compelled to increase both, to
maintain her present power and influence.' He quoted the London
_Times_ to the effect that the maritime de