l
existence, and the natural inclination of prosperous colonists to make
for England, the moment their fortunes had been made. "The condition
of colonial society," he said, "is of a fluctuating character....
There is no similarity between the circumstances of our colonial
fellow-subjects and those of our fellow-subjects in India. Our
colonists are English; they come and go, they are careful to make
fortunes, to invest their money in England; their interests are
immense, ramified, complicated, and they have constant opportunities of
improving and enjoying the relations which exist between themselves and
their countrymen in the metropolis. Their relations to their Sovereign
are ample, they satisfy them. The colonists are proud of those
relations, they are interested in the titles of the Queen, they look
forward to return when they {258} leave England, they do return--in
short they are Englishmen."[33]

It seems fair to argue from these instances that Disraeli, with all his
imagination and insight, did not, even in 1876, understand the
constitutional and social self-sufficiency of the greater colonies; or
the nature of the bond which held them fast to the mother country. His
consummate rhetorical skill persuaded the nation to be imperial, while
he himself doubted the very possibility of permanence in an empire
organized on the only lines--those of strict autonomy--which the
colonists were willing to sanction.

So the party of the earlier British Empire distrusted the foundations
laid by Durham and his group for a new structure; and behind all their
proclamations of authority, there were ill-concealed fears of another
declaration or succession of declarations of independence.

It is now time to turn to the central body of imperial opinion--that
which used Durham's views as the foundation of a new working theory of
colonial development. Its chief exponents were the Whigs of the more
liberal school, who counted {259} Lord John Russell their
representative and leader.

It was only at the end of a period dominated by other interests that
Lord John Russell was able to turn his attention to colonies, and more
particularly to Canada. Even in 1839, the leader of the House of
Commons, and the politician on whom, after all, the fate of the Whig
party depended, had many other claims on his attention. He was no
theorist at general on the subject, and his interest in Canada was
largely the product of events, not of his own