Britain and the settler dominions ie Canada, australiam new zealand become equal members in a federation. India is given observer status in the federal parliarment and the rest of the colonies remain under British control. How do things go from the 1890s into the 20th century.
WI: The British empire federates in the 1890s
- Thread starter idontlikesand
- Start date
So those living in canada, australia etc. would be granted equal representation in Westminister? Not sure that would fly?
I suppose it might be possible, with places like Hong Kong, Singapore, some of the Caribbean Islands(in fact, IIRC, the Caymans and Bermuda are de facto part of Britain proper, basically), and possibly New Zealand.....but anything else is a little too farfetched, TBH. Especially Canada.
The trouble is, what would the Imperial Parliament do?
Domestic decisions are best handled locally and foreign policy isn't exactly something people are going to vote solely about.
The way things evolved IOTL with regular meetings of the commonwealth leaders is the logical way for things to go. Best case without something major prompting a change of thoughts you can just push that forward a few years and make it more regular.
Though it will be pretty hard to make every dominion equal so early when Britain quite clearly is in a different league.
Domestic decisions are best handled locally and foreign policy isn't exactly something people are going to vote solely about.
The way things evolved IOTL with regular meetings of the commonwealth leaders is the logical way for things to go. Best case without something major prompting a change of thoughts you can just push that forward a few years and make it more regular.
Though it will be pretty hard to make every dominion equal so early when Britain quite clearly is in a different league.
Why not Australia, then? It's arguable that Canada wouldn't work out, considering the probably-adverse reaction of the US. But purely from a population POV (going off of info found on populstat.info for UK, Aus, and NZ for 1900), the territories in Oceania had a combined 12% of the population of the UK proper. not a tall order to give them a bit of representation. Worth noting that even adding in Canada only brings you up to 30% in 1900).
Why especially Canada...? In the 1890s and into the early 1900s, Canada had a vibrant Imperial Federation movement. Check out Carl Berger's A Sense of Power. He discusses the Canadian Imperial identity as a precursor to Canadian nationalism. Canada gets to be a world power by being an equal member of a British federation.
Now, I think that Imperial Federation is a long shot, but more for logistical reasons and the fact that apart from a few MPs and bigwigs in the UK, it is the British who are the ones holding back any federal system...
This was actually proposed by some people in the late 19th century, but it never went anywhere. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was because:
1. The interests of Britain and its self-governing dominions differed enough from each other that there was little interest in bringing them all together under one unified government.
2. The population ratio between Britain and any of its White Dominions was so lopsided that assuming representation was in any way based on population size, this loss in autonomy would inevitably mean a loss in power for the dominions. Alternately if it wasn't based on population size it would have been a tremendous loss of power for Britain.
3. It raised the specter of India with its massive population someday getting in, which if admitted on equal terms would turn the British Empire into the Indian Empire, which obviously would never be allowed to happen. If India was forever excluded, it would have calcified unspoken British imperial racial policies into explicit imperial racial policies. (Remember, the idea of the White Man's Burden; civilizing qualified non-European peoples and uplifting them, was very strong, and admitting they could never be treated as equals would have exploded the myth)
1. The interests of Britain and its self-governing dominions differed enough from each other that there was little interest in bringing them all together under one unified government.
2. The population ratio between Britain and any of its White Dominions was so lopsided that assuming representation was in any way based on population size, this loss in autonomy would inevitably mean a loss in power for the dominions. Alternately if it wasn't based on population size it would have been a tremendous loss of power for Britain.
3. It raised the specter of India with its massive population someday getting in, which if admitted on equal terms would turn the British Empire into the Indian Empire, which obviously would never be allowed to happen. If India was forever excluded, it would have calcified unspoken British imperial racial policies into explicit imperial racial policies. (Remember, the idea of the White Man's Burden; civilizing qualified non-European peoples and uplifting them, was very strong, and admitting they could never be treated as equals would have exploded the myth)
IOTL it was proposed that the Imperial Parliament would deal mainly with defence. Probably foreign policy too, I'd guess, since it would be difficult to have a unified defence system without a unified foreign policy to go with it. Assuming that ITTL it would be the same, my best guess would be that the British Empire survives as a sort of confederal super-state, like a souped-up version of NATO or the UN.
GdwnsnHo
Banned
'The Indian Problem' (to give it a name) as I usually see in these threads can be best described as
"The Subcontinental Populations overwhelming the rest of the Imperial populations voting power if given equal franchise"
The details of such a federations parliament would be important, because to prevent 'The Indian Problem' could involve four actions.
1) Not recognising India as a single colony, and ensuring that the Indians don't recognise it either. Have them identify solely as Kannadan, Bengali, Punjabi, Baluch, Sikh, Nepalese, Teluch, etc. With them kept desperate and disparate, it prevents a single common goal being as easily reached.
2) Encouraging white settlers and population growth in the colonies. Given time, a subsidised while settler population encouraged to have white children would increase anglosaxon presences in ALL colonies (If defined as unfederated provinces of the Empire). This would encourage the growth of small white populations in all the african colonies, probably not enough to dominate local politics with equal franchise, but would strengthen them across the empire.
3) Encouraging migration of groups IN and OUT of India. Having Indians in Africa (As OTL) and Britain would reduce any common consensus among Indians as they would have different interests (as would white settlers).
4) Disenfranchise Non-Whites as long as possible. I don't agree with this, but if you start with Whites, then include African and Subcontinental groups as best suits the empire, the problem can be reduced.
Overall, this leads to a redistribution of Subcontinentals and Africans, alongside an increase in Anglo-Saxon populations to achieve something like a (Anglo:Indian:African) 1:1:1 ratio of representation, or more ideally a 2:1:1 - but the latter would be nearly impossible in a few decades without purposeful disenfranchisement.
"The Subcontinental Populations overwhelming the rest of the Imperial populations voting power if given equal franchise"
The details of such a federations parliament would be important, because to prevent 'The Indian Problem' could involve four actions.
1) Not recognising India as a single colony, and ensuring that the Indians don't recognise it either. Have them identify solely as Kannadan, Bengali, Punjabi, Baluch, Sikh, Nepalese, Teluch, etc. With them kept desperate and disparate, it prevents a single common goal being as easily reached.
2) Encouraging white settlers and population growth in the colonies. Given time, a subsidised while settler population encouraged to have white children would increase anglosaxon presences in ALL colonies (If defined as unfederated provinces of the Empire). This would encourage the growth of small white populations in all the african colonies, probably not enough to dominate local politics with equal franchise, but would strengthen them across the empire.
3) Encouraging migration of groups IN and OUT of India. Having Indians in Africa (As OTL) and Britain would reduce any common consensus among Indians as they would have different interests (as would white settlers).
4) Disenfranchise Non-Whites as long as possible. I don't agree with this, but if you start with Whites, then include African and Subcontinental groups as best suits the empire, the problem can be reduced.
Overall, this leads to a redistribution of Subcontinentals and Africans, alongside an increase in Anglo-Saxon populations to achieve something like a (Anglo:Indian:African) 1:1:1 ratio of representation, or more ideally a 2:1:1 - but the latter would be nearly impossible in a few decades without purposeful disenfranchisement.
GdwnsnHo
Banned
I can imagine that if it behaved in a similar manner to the UN (or even the EU), it may end up handling issues like Human Rights across the Empire, and other issues universal to British Citizens.
The way I'd do it would be to have each dominion have equal representation no matter what the population. So England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, India, etc would have the same number of representatives to the imperial parliament. That way no one member can outvote the rest. Sure its imbalanced population wise, but most of the stuff would be done at the local level and anything that's not would be more fairly done if all parties had equal representation. Like you said, otherwise everything would fall to a unified subcontinent vote an no one would be happy.
Kind of, although presumably with a more official structure. The Commonwealth can't really make member states do anything except through exerting moral pressure, but with a federated British Empire we might see the establishment of an Imperial Court of Human Rights a bit like OTL's ECHR.
Also, since a good part of the Subcontinent was ruled by nominally sovereign native rulers, the Brits could probably get away with not counting those areas' population when apportioning seats in the Imperial Parliament.
Well the Empire did have a court system, the Privy Council/House of Lords. Most of the Commonwealth today has terminated the relationship, but that was very much a post war thing, in some cases far more recently (NZ - 2003).
But then Britain will have massively decreased it's own power, which seems like the least likely thing to happen. They might have been willing to share some power, but suddenly going to having no more of a vote than dominions with a tenth of their population size would have been too much to swallow. With good reason, too.
Listen, until everyone gets an equal say no one is going to be happy. If every decision weighted towards England then there's just going to be unrest until there's reform. Sure, from a 19th century standpoint you have a point; but a hundred years later things will be different.
Maybe there can be several stages in the process but eventually each part of the empire will want an equal say. Maybe a good way to divide it is that each part would have a relatively similar population size so there's no complaints, but each constituent part would eventually need the same number of representative so that there is no one power bloc that can overshadow the others or else eventually a number of them would request independence.
I disagree.
Two points there.
1: Out of nowhere suddenly getting a say where there was none before and not much demand for it- that will make people happy
2:In the EU neither all people nor all countries have an equal say and it works fine.
But generally as I said there's no real point in discussing whether or not everyone has an equal say and Indians somehow taking over and all that. An entire democratic process isn't going to be set up just to discuss defence matters. That's not something the public is generally given too much of a say in even with modern democracies.
The entire thing would have to be thoroughly undemocratic to work. Nobody whether they're in London or Nigeria is getting a vote.
The way round it is to accept that India can't be integrated into the Imperial Federation. What you would have instead is two empires (the British and Indian) each with it's own parliament, military, etc) with a common emperor and the relationship between the two empires governed on a treaty basis, ensuring things like free trade, a military alliance and so on. If this was laid out as a clear end point, and if the British were to take seriously the job of preparing India for self-government (instead of the somewhat grudging some-but-not-too-much approach of OTL) it might (*might*) be possible to get the Indians to grudgingly accept not getting their own seats in the British Imperial parliament.
Places like the African colonies could then be administered as trust territories and gradually admitted to the Imperial Federation as full members as development (read: anglicisation) proceeds.
Places like the African colonies could then be administered as trust territories and gradually admitted to the Imperial Federation as full members as development (read: anglicisation) proceeds.
Derek Pullem
Donor
No reason why you could not have a "senate" style chamber sitting above the Dominion administrations. Until a colony became a Dominion it would not get any representation in the Senate
Or alternatively create a super House of Lords with membership nominated by the Government and colonial administrations. The make up of the body would reflect the UK's view of the "right" balance of representatives.
Or alternatively create a super House of Lords with membership nominated by the Government and colonial administrations. The make up of the body would reflect the UK's view of the "right" balance of representatives.