of opinion that she is the colony of the future, and that the time is not so very far distant when her importance will be more openly recognised by the civilised world. She is jealous, and justly so, of her individuality, and sees no immediate necessity to federate with colonies that are hundreds of miles distant, while, strange to say, the fact that their interests are to a great extent similar to her own does not appear to act as an incentive in the matter.

Colonial politicians at home and abroad are well aware of the value to the Empire of some scheme of Imperial Federation, but the more thoughtful and practical among them know equally well that as long as we continue to rule our colonies on the present lines Imperial Federation is manifestly impossible. In view, then, of the importance of an Imperial-colonial Pacific policy, it is time to consider the situation, and if, after mature consideration, it should be found advantageous to the Empire to alter the existing mode of administering Australasian affairs, it becomes imperative upon Imperial legislators to consult with the colonies upon the best system to be adopted, and, having sought their advice, to act in concert with them. What the colonies really require is a body of men at home, possessing at once commanding influence and official status, who can speak to the English people with the voice of authority on all questions affecting Australasia. If each colony had such a representative to appeal directly to the English people, the result would be eminently beneficial both to us and to them.

It may be said that the Agents-General exercise this authority. I maintain this is not so. On paper they certainly have great power, while privately they no doubt possess influence, but their power of control, as seen in the treatment of their suggestions concerning the annexation of New Guinea question, is practically nil. The area of Australasia is so vast and its interests so varied, when compared with the other dependencies of Great Britain, that these interests cannot be adequately treated by a Board of Advice that includes representatives from all our colonial possessions. It is equally manifest that the machinery of the Colonial Office, able though it is, cannot effectually deal with the future work of the Pacific without more practical assistance, nor can the organisation of the Foreign Office carry out a vigorous Pacific policy, satisfactory alike to the colonists and the mother country, without similar aid. I would suggest the formation in London of a Colonial Governing Body, in which each colony would be represented in proportion to its area and population, the latter having more weight than the former; the members to be chosen by their own Parliaments, and to hold office for a period of three years. This would enable the more able of colonial politicians to come to England, and yet only deprive the colonies of their services for a limited period. These representatives, being in constant telegraphic communication with their individual Governments,

could discuss in open debate questions involving Imperial and colonial interests, and so enable the British press to ventilate alike Imperial and colonial opinions upon questions where the interests of the two are so closely connected.

The conclusions come to would be drafted into a Bill, to be taken in charge by the Government official representing the colonies in the Imperial Parliament, and the House of Commons would in the ordinary course of events debate upon the Bill thus introduced, and on its second reading either approve or reject it, or, admitting the principle of the Bill, allow it to proceed to Committee, with a view of amending the clauses which Imperial legislators considered objectionable or unworkable.

C. KINLOCH COOKE.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake

to return unaccepted MSS.

THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. CXVIII.-DECEMBER 1886.

ON THE SUPPRESSION OF BOYCOTTING.

It may be doubted whether the portentous importance of the system of boycotting has been appreciated by the public, although some of its immediate effects have attracted a great deal of notice. As the weapon in Ireland of the National League, and in the United States. of the organisation called the Knights of Labour, it has attracted a good deal of attention; but the public has not, I think, appreciated the importance of the principle on which it rests, or, if it has done so, it has recognised it as something which cannot be contended with, but is like a well-conducted strike-a weapon which, however terrible, is still legitimate. The object of this article is to display its true character, as contradistinguished from strikes, and to show what it involves; and to call attention to the way in which it ought to be attacked and frustrated.

The distinctive special characteristic of all law and government is force-coercion in some one of its shapes. It is this which draws the line between law and advice, between government and speculative discussion. It is because nations have no common superior that international law commonly so called is not really law at all, but merely a form of morality. It is for a similar reason that questions arising within a nation must, if they involve the question of sovereignty, be settled, not by argument, but by civil war, or by a compromise guaranteed by the fear of civil war. The question, for instance, whether each particular State of the Union was sovereign, or whether the United States was a sovereign State, was one which depended, not on any argument about the proper construction of the Constitution, VOL. XX.-No. 118.

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but on the power which the States individually and the United States collectively actually possessed over the feelings and imaginations of the individual citizens.

The question whether the King or the Parliament was sovereign of England was a question of the same sort. If Charles the First had been able to conquer the Long Parliament, constitutional writers would have been able to prove that England was constitutionally an absolute monarchy nearly as well as they have, since the Civil War and the Revolution, been able to prove the contrary. In a word, the doctrine that force is essential to and characteristic of law, and that established admitted force is the origin and measure of all legal rights and of all the institutions by which life is regulated, lies at the very root of all fruitful inquiries into political subjects—of all inquiries, that is, which tend to any definite result.

Of course, it is possible, as to many persons it is pleasant, to begin political speculations at the other end; to confound-or rather deny the validity of the distinction between 'is' and 'ought to be,' to lay down schemes of abstract and so-called natural right, and to make such schemes the measure by which actually existing institutions are to be tried, and the ideal at which reformers are to aim. The objections to this method are in my opinion insuperable. They are well known, and need not here be referred to. The terrible practical consequences to which they lead are displayed in the most glaring light in every stage of history, but in none so strikingly as in the history of the last century. If, however, this view is taken of the proper mode of conducting historical speculations and inquiries, it sets in a still stronger light than it would otherwise stand in, the truth of what I have already said that force is the specific peculiarity and characteristic of law. Speculative systems of natural rights produce no definite legal effect till they are definitely embodied in definite laws-definite commands issued by some man or body of men having power to enforce them. Few men have had an influence over their contemporaries comparable to that of Rousseau; but every sort of arrangement absolutely opposed to his principles continued to exist and to be carried into practical effect till the States-General and its legislative successors were able by legislation to give many of his ideas the force of law. The question whether, according to the Constitution of the United States, an individual State had the right to secede from the Union, was discussed with the utmost possible ardour for years before the Civil War, and might have been discussed for centuries; and the discussion no doubt had considerable effect on a large number of the people. But it was not and could not be decided till a civil war of four years, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives and more than five hundred millions of pounds sterling, settled the question in a way which no living man, and probably the son and the grandson of no living man, will think it worth while to protest

against. Look at the whole subject of rights and duties how you please, view them à priori or à posteriori, look at them from an abstract or an historical point of view, and it remains true that force is the origin of laws, institutions, and legal rights, and also the special characteristic which distinguishes them from advice, opinion, and moral rights. It is quite true that force may have a moral or speculative origin, and that this may and does give its direction to the force which is essential to law; but the moment at which speculation passes into law is the moment at which it is clothed with an efficient sanction. In short, the question which in relation to all institutions takes the lead of all others is the question, What is the sanction of your proposed laws? Let any one get into his hands an efficient sanction for his own ideas, and he becomes to a greater or less extent a legislator on the subject to which he applies it and over the people to whom he can apply it. All history is filled with the gradual growth of different kinds of sanctions and laws, and all constitutional struggles may be described as struggles to define and to regulate the scope of different sanctions, and the manner of their application.

There are sanctions which in the nature of things must always exist. All human life at all times and in all places is regulated mainly by what may be called the physical sanction. Eat and drink or you will die; Eat and drink wisely or you will not live in health; and a thousand other maxims of the same sort resemble in some ways rules enforced by inexorable sanctions, though for reasons which are irrelevant to the present subject I do not like to call them laws. Most of our conduct is affected to a greater or less extent by what Bentham called the popular sanction-that is to say, by our regard to the opinions and feelings of others. These sanctions act automatically, and in that respect do not differ from all the common mass of motives. The other great sanctions are imposed from without by institutions constructed to a great extent with a view to improving human life by imposing them. They may be described collectively as political sanctions, and may be divided into religious and secular, the one imposed by the Church, the other by the State. Of the religious sanctions and the body or bodies which impose it I say nothing here. Of the secular political sanction-that which rules. by the application of punishments, which may affect life, liberty, property, character, civil rights-two assertions may be made: first, that its existence is necessary, and, secondly, that its existence implies its being exclusive. There can be but one government using the temporal political sanction in one nation. If there are two, the more powerful will drive out and destroy the less powerful, as certainly as bad coin will, if allowed to circulate, drive out of circulation all coin more valuable than itself.

The first of these propositions no one will dispute. It is admitted