Colony (Lat. colonia), a name somewhat vaguely applied to the foreign dependencies of a state. In accordance with its etymology (colonus, 'cultivator'), a Roman colonia ought to have been an agricultural community; but as a matter of fact it was a military settlement, urban rather than rural, planted in subject territory. It was essential that the colonists should remain citizens, who thus both extended and knit together the power of Rome. The name survives to this day in Cologne and Lincoln. The Greek colony (apoikia) consisted of a band of emigrants, who were impelled by political dissension or some similar cause to seek a new home beyond the sea, and who were connected with their mother-city (metropolis) by no tie stronger than that of sentiment. According to the legend embalmed by Virgil in his Aeneid, Rome itself was a colony, in the Greek sense, of Troy. No Greek colonists penetrated far inland; but the shores of Asia Minor, Sicily, Southern Italy, and even the Crimea, were at an early date fringed with commercial settlements, many of which surpassed in wealth the cities of Greece proper. The Phoenicians, who preceded the Greeks as the traders of the Old World, were not a colonising race. Carthage, indeed, was an offshoot from Tyre; but the wide empire of Carthage was based partly upon conquest, and partly upon a system of trading factories.
Colonisation is an incident of a comparatively settled state of society. The vast land migrations which have so profoundly affected the populations of Europe and Asia belong to a different category. Thus it happens that, after the break-up of the Roman empire, the very idea of a colony is not heard again until the great outburst of maritime enterprise in the 16th century. Spain and Portugal led the way, followed by Holland, England, and France. Love of adventure, thirst for gold, the missionary spirit—all combined to attract the energies of Europe, set free by the Renaissance, to the New World and to the farther East. The long and bitter struggle for territorial aggrandisement beyond the seas went on with various vicissitudes until, at the close of the 18th century, the foreign possessions of the several states of Europe stood pretty much as they do now. Out of her once mighty empire, Portugal retained only a few petty settlements in India, an indeterminate authority over long strips on both coasts of Africa, and Brazil, which has since become independent under a scion of the house of Braganza. Spain has lost Southern and Central America within the present century; but she keeps her hold of Cuba and Porto Rico in the West Indies, and of the Philippine and Caroline groups of islands in the remote eastern seas. Holland, having been deprived by England of Ceylon and the Cape, still draws a rich tribute from Java and the adjoining Spice Islands. France, which entered last upon the struggle, has suffered most severely of all, as the result of the fortune of war with England. At one time it seemed as if half North America, and perhaps all India, would become French. But the twin stars of Wolfe and Clive influenced the fate of two continents. The acquisition of Algeria dates from 1830; and within the last decade France has again pushed forward in Tunis, Tonquin, and Madagascar. Italy has no foreign possessions except the port of Massowah on the African shore of the Red Sea; and those which Germany has recently acquired with so much eagerness, in Africa and in New Guinea and the adjoining islands, must be regarded rather as possible outlets for trade than as true colonies. The surplus population of Germany will doubtless continue to pour into the western states of North America, just as the Italians and Basques will continue to be attracted to the River Plate.
After this brief survey of the foreign possessions of continental states, we pass on to those of Britain, which alike in area, in population, and in promise for the future, surpass tenfold all the rest put together. If it be permissible, on historical grounds, to regard the United States as one with Britain, it may be said that the story of modern colonisation is the story of the expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race. In North America, Australasia, and South Africa, that race is already in occupation of the only large tracts of uninhabited territory where white men can work and multiply. In India, England owns the most fertile and most easily governed of tropical countries; while her minor possessions are dotted over every land and sea. These advantages abroad—gained by the valour of her children, who have known how to make the most of their good fortune—are maintained by a teeming population at home, superabundant capital, and maritime supremacy. Above all, it should ever be remembered that this great colonial empire, as it was won with no deliberate plan of aggression, so it is preserved solely through the conscious recognition of mutual rights and duties. Even in India, British rule exists by the consent of the natives and for their benefit; while the autonomous colonies of Australia are as free from British interference and as loyal to the British name as the Channel Islands or Man.
The colonial empire of England is as varied in its composition as it is vast in its extent. In the political sense, it ought to include every foreign possession or dependency of the crown. It is only by an accident of administration that India is the charge of a distinct secretary of state, that some indeterminate protectorates (such as that of the Niger) are controlled through the Foreign Office, and that the island of Ascension is borne as a ship on the books of the Admiralty. So again, the colonies proper—i.e. those in subordination to the Colonial Secretary—vary in character from a settled country, with a civilisation more than a century old, like Lower Canada, to an unexplored wilderness of savages, like New Guinea; from the continent of
Australia to the rock of Gibraltar; from Hong-kong, the emporium of Chinese trade, to Heligoland, the favourite watering-place of Hamburgers. Adopting another principle of division, the colonies may be classified according to the modes by which they were acquired: (1) as conquered by force of arms or ceded by an independent power; (2) as occupied by settlers, where no rights were recognised in the aboriginal inhabitants. The former class would comprise the Cape and Hong-kong, the latter class Australia and British Columbia. The classification adopted by the colonial office is based upon differences of administration, as follows: (1) Crown colonies, in which the crown has the entire control of legislation, while the administration is carried on by public officers under the control of the home government. Of this class examples are Gibraltar, Ceylon, and Jamaica. (2) Colonies possessing representative institutions, but not responsible government, in which the crown has no more than a veto on legislation, but the home government retains the control of public officers. In this class are Natal, Western Australia, and Barbadoes. (3) Colonies possessing representative institutions and responsible government, in which the crown has only a veto on legislation, and the home government has no control over any public officer except the governor. This class comprises Canada, Newfoundland, the Cape, and the Australasian group. According to the Colonial Office List for 1888, the total area of all the colonies and dependencies (excluding India) is 7,475,896 sq. m., with an estimated population of 18,346,614. Of these totals the nine self-governing colonies possess between them 5,884,020 sq. m. and 9,413,855 souls. (For Cyprus, North Borneo, the Niger Protectorate, and all British dependencies, see GREAT BRITAIN.)
From an historical point of view, the expansion of the Anglo-Saxon race divides itself into three periods: (1) The 17th century, when the first beginnings were made, in rivalry with other European states which had taken the lead; (2) the close of the 18th century, when, as a result of the French wars and the command of the sea, Britain had won a preponderant position, despite the loss of the United States; (3) the 19th century, which has been a continuous period of growth and consolidation. Newfoundland boasts herself the premier British colony, having been annexed by the ill-fated Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583. The East India Company was incorporated in 1600; the first permanent settlement of Virginia dates from 1607; the historic Mayflower sailed from Plymouth to New England in 1620; Barbadoes was occupied first of the islands in the West Indies in 1625. The second period—a period of war—begins with the capture of Gibraltar in 1704; its decisive point was reached at the peace of 1763, when the French yielded alike in Canada and in India; and it culminated in the Napoleonic war, when Malta, Mauritius, and many West Indian islands were captured from France, and Ceylon and the Cape from Holland, then a French dependency. The last period, which is almost co-extensive with the reign of Victoria, has witnessed the consolidation of India under the crown; the marvellous development of Australia under the stimulus of gold discoveries; the erection of Canada into a dominion of confederated provinces; the extension of British influence throughout South Africa; the commercial growth of Hong-kong and Singapore; and the gradual advance of the British flag over new protectorates and isolated Coaling Stations (q.v.). It is estimated that the population of the colonies has multiplied more than fourfold since 1837; while the external trade has multiplied nearly ninefold.
Though colonisation is by no means synonymous with emigration, it is perhaps natural for the mother-country to regard her colonies primarily as affording an outlet for her own surplus population. As a matter of fact, the inhabitants of Australia are almost exclusively British; so, too, are the inhabitants of Canada, with the notable exception of the province of Quebec, which remains to this day thoroughly French in language, in religion, and in sentiment. At the Cape, again, the descendants of the Dutch settlers still form about one-half of the whole population. But when the statistics of emigration are looked into, it will be found that the United States prove much more attractive than all the colonies added together. In 1853-93 the total number of emigrants from the United Kingdom, of British and Irish origin, amounted to 7,759,329, of whom 5,194,930 selected the United States as their new home. Of 227,179 emigrants (British and other) from Britain in 1894, 159,605 went to the United States, 23,731 to Canada, and only 11,185 to the Australasian colonies. The census returns of the United States in 1890 show 3,122,911 persons born in the United Kingdom. The figures for Canada in 1891 are 475,456; and the Australasian colonies in 1891 reckoned nearly half their total population (4,297,889) as born in the United Kingdom. The home government has taken no measures to direct emigration to the colonies, beyond establishing in 1886 an Emigrants' Information Office in London, for the collection and publication of trustworthy information. Queensland alone gives free passages. Natal and Western Australia give assisted passages to farm labourers and domestic servants. See EMIGRATION.
The tie between the mother-country and the colonies is more manifest in the case of commerce. The old practice has long ago been abandoned of compelling the colonies to trade only with the mother-country; and those of them that are self-governing have even been allowed to impose protective tariffs against British manufactures. But, nevertheless, the trade of Britain with her colonial possessions has maintained itself more steadily than her trade with the rest of the world. During the fourteen years from 1872 to 1886, the imports into the United Kingdom from British possessions (including India), notwithstanding the fall in value, increased from £79,372,853 to £81,884,043, while the proportion of these imports to the total imports rose from 22 to 23 per cent. In the same period the exports to British possessions increased from £65,609,212 to £82,067,711, while their proportion to the total exports rose from 21 to 31 per cent. In the year 1893-94 the imports from British possessions into the United Kingdom had a value of £91,205,462 (20 per cent. of the total imports), and the exports from Britain thither of £86,991,135 (34 per cent. of the total). Such, expressed in dry figures, is the meaning of the maxim that 'trade follows the flag.' Though statistics are not so readily obtainable, there can be no doubt that the investment of British capital in the colonies, and the interest paid on it, forms a still closer bond than the interchange of commodities. In 1893-94 the aggregate public debt of all the colonies was about 312 millions sterling.
The most interesting question that remains to be considered is the political relation between the colonies and the mother-country. Not so many years ago it was tacitly assumed that the grant of responsible government to the greater colonies implied the further concession of complete independence whenever the colonies should care to demand it. History seemed to afford support for no other conclusion. Quite apart from the case of the United States, it was argued that any form of political union was impracticable between members of a state scattered over such immense distances and with such divergent interests. Above all, it was doubted whether the slender link existing could stand the strain of a great European war. What concern has Canada with Constantinople, or Australia with Afghanistan? But there were always some to whom such calculations appeared to be a base abandonment of England's historic place among nations; and the colonists themselves have always professed the most perfect loyalty to the British connection, exactly in proportion as they have been intrusted with autonomy in their own local affairs. Canadian voyageurs took a prominent part in Lord Wolseley's boat expedition up the Nile in 1884; and a battalion of 800 volunteers from New South Wales fought by the side of British soldiers round Suakin in 1885. The sense of distance has been largely obliterated by the marvellous progress of steam and electricity. The circumnavigation of the globe is now accomplished as easily and as frequently as was the grand tour in the 18th century. Many of the younger politicians make it part of their education to visit India, Australia, and Canada; the colonists, too, have ceased to be strangers in England—'home,' as they always call it, though born thousands of leagues away. In this connection the future historian will not think it beneath his dignity to record the beneficent influence of cricket. An English team first went to Australia in 1862; while Australian elevens have played on equal terms with the best cricketers of England in every alternate year since 1878. The increase of intercourse has brought with it an increase of mutual knowledge and of mutual respect. The holding of a great exhibition of colonial and Indian produce at South Kensington in 1886, and the plan of commemorating the jubilee of the Queen by an Imperial Institute, have given concrete expression to the feeling of solidarity that was everywhere growing. Few persons, either in England or in the colonies, would now be found to advocate the weakening, still less the severing, of the present political ties.
With regard to the scheme known as Imperial Confederation, less agreement is to be found. It may be suspected that many of its British supporters have been influenced chiefly by their greater dislike of separation; while in the colonies it has nowhere been received with enthusiasm. The essence of the original scheme was that the parliament of Great Britain and Ireland should divest itself of its sovereignty in favour of a federal council, formed by election out of all the constituent parts of the empire. To this council would be delegated the initiative in foreign affairs, the power of treaty-making, the right of declaring war, with the control of the army and navy that necessarily follows therefrom. Putting aside the difficulties that would arise from the inequality of the colonies among themselves, it is easy to see that Britain must, for a long time to come, exercise the decisive pre-eminence in such a council.
In the meantime something has already been done, and more may be, to strengthen the position of the colonies in the English political system. Canada, the Australasian colonies, and the Cape, each have an agent-general resident in London, whose functions are steadily growing in dignity. It has become the custom for every new Colonial Secretary to invite the agents-general to a ceremonious reception on his appointment; they are consulted, either singly or collectively, in all matters affecting the colonies which they represent. It is not impossible that their status may ultimately develop into something intermediate in authority and honour between the council of the India Office and the corps diplomatique. The elastic powers of the Privy-council might easily be utilised so as to constitute them (with other representatives for the crown colonies) into a committee for the general control of colonial affairs.
A still more important step forward was taken in 1887, when a conference was held in London, under the presidency of the Colonial Secretary, at which delegates specially appointed by all the colonies, were present. Many of the subjects discussed were of a commercial or legal character; but a large measure of agreement was also arrived at with regard to the burning question of colonial defence. Broadly speaking, the self-governing colonies have undertaken to provide for their own defence by land by maintaining a trained force of a specified strength; while England supplies ships and guns for the protection of commerce and coaling stations. Steamers connect Canada and Australasia, and a telegraph is proposed. The 'Diamond Jubilee' celebrations (1897) helped to bring closer the relation of the mother-country and the colonies. The colonial premiers and colonial troops took a conspicuous part, and were warmly received; Canada conferred fiscal favours on Britain, and Britain conceded to Canada greater commercial autonomy. During the Transvaal war in 1899-1900 the Australian colonies, New Zealand, and Canada enthusiastically raised military corps to support the mother country; and the difficult problem of combining colonial self-government with imperial unity seems to be brought much nearer a solution.
The colonies of the chief countries will be found under GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, GERMANY, SPAIN, &c. The following are some of the more important books on the subject: Heeren's Manual of the Political System of Europe and its Colonies (Eng. trans. in 2 vols. 1841); Sir G. Cornewall Lewis's Essay on the Government of Dependencies (1841); Herman Merivale's Lectures on Colonisation (1841-42; new ed. 1861); Sir C. W. Dilke's Greater Britain (1863); J. A. Doyle's The American Colonies Previous to the Declaration of Independence (1869); E. J. Payne's History of European Colonies (1877); Colonies and Dependencies, by Mr Payne and the present writer, in the 'English Citizen' series (1883); Seeley's Expansion of England (1885); Froude's Oceana (1886), and The English in the West Indies (1888); the annual Colonial Office List, Colonial Year-book, and Year-book of the Imperial Institute; Silva White's Britannic Confederation (1892); and C. P. Lucas's Historical Geography of the British Colonies (vols. i.-iii. 1888-94). Also see the articles on the various colonies.