(; HEATER i; o:\iE AND C; HEATER JMllTAIX HENRY FROWDE, M.A. rUBLISHEE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONBON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, TORONTO MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY ran:A'iTT] va)mv] A N i ) Gin:ATi:K liiniAix BY sii; c. p. Lie AS K.L'.B., K.C.M.G. OXFORD AT Tin: CLAlil.MJU.N rUllSS PREFACE This book is intended to illustrate, ))y comparison Avitli the liouian I'hnpire, some features uf the ])riti-li Empire as they have appeared to me. I have to thank Mr. P. E. Matheson, Fellow of New Culleue, for some valLi;i])le suggestions and corrections. C. l\ L. Xoa'mhrr, 101 l>. cunti:nts rA(iK CllAlTEK I KoMAN Terms 1 f'HAPTEU II Space 10 CIIAITEU III Youth '21 CHAPTER IV SCIEN'CE AND EmTIKE : I. DISTANCE .... 32 CHAPTER V Science and Emtiue : II. Water and Medical Science 40 CHAPTER VI 'I'liE Individual, the Companv, and the State . 72 CHAPTER VII Class, Colour, and Race 91 CHAPTER VIII The Natural and the Artificial . . .112 rilAPTEK IX The T\V(. Empires 131 CHAPTER X The Rritish Instinct and the Law oi- Xationai. Life . . . . . . . Ijd INDEX 171) ciiArri:i; i PxOMAX THRMS ^VnI;^■ wo speak of British lands and peoples lieyoiid the seas, and of their relation to the Mother- land, We nearly always use words which are (»!' Konian oriL,dn. Colonif, (/lii.)i((((i()H, provinro, stntr^ possession. (lonuNioN, rmpirc, all directly or in- directly conie Ironi the Ixonians. One JSaxon word, settle with its derivativi's. holds a i)i"oniinent place ill reference to the beginnings of colonies; and, in taking the name of rummonuralt/i, Australia has in paii borrowed from the Saxons. But all or nearly all the terms which indicate the political status of Greater Britain and its component parts ari' a legacy IVoui Kome. What did the Ixomans mean by their term.s, and what dt» we mean by them? It will be enough to take the tbur words, culoni/, province, (loniini<»i, and empire^ leaving out ilejyendenci/, plantation, and stafi', and oidy noting of possession that jwssessio in Koman law indicated actual occupation with intent to retain — for small populatioirs in iai'^e lands a useful and suggestive woi-d, ami that by tlio 1 iiter{iretatiou Act of ISSl) ' the exprosiou lirili^li [)ossession shall mean any part of Her Majesty's dominions exclusive of the United Kingdom '. 1473 B 2 ROMAN TERMS chap. In its etymology the Roman word colonia was equivalent to plantation. The root-meaning of the word was cultivation of the land, and in the later Roman Empire the coloni were a class of small- holders, free men but bound to the soil.^ Starting from this root-meaning, colonia like ])lantation came to indicate in some sort a colony. But, as compared with the English word colony in its ordinary sense, the Roman word colonia implied rather the body of men and women who went out to settle than the place in which they settled ; and, so far as place was indicated, it was a town rather than a country, and not so much a new town or settle- ment as an existing community, into which Roman citizens were drafted, and where in many cases they were allotted lands which had already been in use and of which the former holders were dis- possessed. Thus the word colonia implied removal of citizens from an old home to a new, and the derivation of the word indicated agricultural settle- ment. But otherwise there was no similarity between a Roman colonia and a British colony. There was no dispersion of Romans over a new and wide area, no squatting, no winning of back- wood, prairie, or bush. The Roman colonia more often than not contained the element of military occupation. It was rather a permanently established garrison of Romans in the midst of a conquered ^ For the coloni see Pelham's Essays on Roman History (1911), chap, xiii, pp. 275, &c., The Imperial Domains and the Colonate. I llOMAN TFJIMS 3 c'oiniiiuiiity than a culuiiy or SL'ttlemeiil in iho uioik-rii soiisc. The C'tyinolo^y ol" the wonl ptor'nicln has always hocii (hsputed. If i\\v old a Wfiv prrfornicd, and lo denote this or that district of the K'oman Empire (»utside Italy. 'Amongst the Ivomans it was used for a country without the limit- of Italy, gained to their subjection by con- quest.'' The lionian I'^mpire was almost entirely the result (»f conquest, an(l in no sense the outcome of discovery and settlement. Its com[)onent parts were dependencies, and those dependencies outside Italy Were cAllvii 2)rori)/ci(ir. Jhniiftiiint in Konian law denoted ownership in its fullest sense ; the sum total of rights over })roperty, including slaves. It implied despotism pure and simple. Tlii^ despotism was opeidy avowed, when Diocletian took the title of 'Inminus, which earlier Ivonian enij>erors had rejected. But the woril dominium was never given, as the Ijiglish word domiition has ])een gi\(ii. ami as /nvriiifitt was given. a geogiaphical meaning. It always indicated j)urely pei*sonal ri^dits. ' Stokes, Constitution of the British Colonies in North America and the West I)uil>s. 17s3, chap, i, \\ 2. u-2 4 ROMAN TERMS chap. Imperium denoted the full authority of the State entrusted to an individual. It included all the powers of the State, military, administrative, and judicial, and was limited only by the time for which, and the area within which, those powers could be exercised. The word, therefore, had by no means a purely military connotation, though armed force was never far from Koman hands or Koman minds. The pages of the classics, especially those of post- Augustan writers, show that imperium, like provincia, acquired a geographical as well as a personal meaning, and was often used as equiva- lent to our English word empire. The English word colony, like the Latin word colonia, originally indicated the people who emi- grated rather than the place to which they emigrated. The place to which they emigrated was rather known as a plantation, and the first beginning of a Colonial Office was a Committee of the Privy Council for the Plantations. 'In strict propriety of speech, colony denotes the people emigrated, and plantation the place in which they are settled.' ^ The word, however, soon came to have a territorial meaning, and the Interpretation Act of 1889 defines a colony as ' any part of Her Majesty's dominions, exclusive of the British islands and of British India'. The modern history of the term colony is interesting. Writing in 1783, Stokes tells us that *For some time before the Civil War broke 1 Stokes, p. 2. ROMAN TI-RMS 5 'o (Hit ill Aiiiuiica, tlii- {iu{»ular Icailt'r.s tliL-iv atlVcUi,! to call the Piuviiicial Establishments, or King's Governments on the continent, colonies, instead oi' luovinces, from an opinion they had conceived, tliat the Wold province meant a conquered country '.' In other words, the Americans were still thinking of colony in the sense of the people rather than the land, and did not wish its meaning to be confounded with that (jf dtj)rniU'ni I/, liut the term cohini/ was taken to include both colonies proper and depen- dencies, which were the result of conquest rather than of settlement; and the latest phase is that the colonies proper have rejected the word colonij as implying youth, tutelage, and dependence, and, with the exception of Newfoundland, have adopted or been given the title of tlontiniori^, leaving colonies to indicate the Crown Colonies or semi-Crown Colonies, which are in fact dependencies rather than colonies in the true sense. The term jtrurincc, as has been seen, was, in the earlier days of North American colonization, often applied to those of the colonies now included in the United States of America which had governors appointed by the Crown, whereas 'a plantation, in which the governor was elected jjy the inhabi- tants, was usually called a colony, as the colony of Connecticut'; but the word has, as a rule, ])een used without any very specilic signitication, with the exci'ption that it has uivir breii 'applied to an ' Stokes, 1.. 3. 6 ROMAN TERMS chap. insular government '.^ In Canada province is roughly equivalent to state in Australia. In other words it means one or other of the units which form the confederation or Dominion ; and, inasmuch as the units which make up the Dominion of Canada are or were more restricted in their powers than those of which the Commonwealth of Australia is composed, the term province may be said to imply less freedom than the term state, although this meaning or implication is, perhaps, more a matter of accident than a suggestion of the original derivation of the Roman provincia. Dominion, used geographically, may be said to have a double sense. We speak of the whole British Empire as the King's Dominions, the lands which own His Majesty as their lord and master. It is also used in these latter days to denote the groups of self-governing colonies, which seems to involve the paradox that the name which of all others most implies despotism has been given to the most independent parts of the Empire. The origin of the paradox is in Canada. The founders of Canadian confederation, or one of them, Sir John Macdonald, wished to christen the new confedera- tion the Kingdom of Canada ; and, when that term was rejected as not being in harmony with American surroundings, the name of dominion was chosen, which seemed nearest akin to Kingdom, and which had previously been given to the colony of Virginia, ^ Stokes, p. 3. I ROMAN TKIIMS 7 stvlr the term ilnmhtunt to a group <»t' solf- govcrning colonies may l)o defended as follows. The term implies a sovereign lord, and Ijrings the territory in cjuestion into direct relation to the sovereign lord, li implies suljordination to the Crown, hut to the Crown alone, and therdjy it • •liminates subordination to any one or anything el.se. Thus it may be construed as a declaration that the self-governing territory is not subordinate to the rnit('(l Kingdom, but ecpially with the United King- dom suljordinate to the sovereign lord of both. In other words it may be held to imply unity of head- ship, and (Mjuality of partners under the one head. It will )je noted that doniinion in modern parlance has more especially come to be used as the name j'oi- a coiii'ederation of self-governing colonies, that it grew up side by .side with the confederation move- ment in North America and Australasia. lUit New Zealand, though originally the result of confedera- ti<'ii. was. l»y K'oyal I 'roclamation of 1U()7, formally gi\eu the title of (luininioit, l»»ng alter it had been ' Winn Kill;,' Charlos I was oxec-iitfil, tlu' •,'uv»'inor of VirL,Mni;i in-ocliiimed CIuuIoh II Kin^c nf Knt,'liiiul, Scutliuul, In^laiul, ami Vir;,'iiiiii, and fm- a tiino tin- anus *^i Virtjinia wi-ro (luartiTcil with those of Eiiglaml, Scutlaml, aiul Iiclaml. IIciico tlio titU- * Tlu' Ohl Dominions' iirosc. Vir;,'inia was in fact thi* lirst Doniinion in the sense in which thf term dominion is now used in the British Kmpiro. 8 ROMAN TERMS chap. unified, and without any further change in its status or composition. Newfoundland, on the other hand, though it takes rank among the self-governing Dominions, still keeps, as a single entity, the name of colony, and is not known as the Dominion of Newfoundland. It is the oldest British colony, and adheres to the name. Lastly, the term empire is used to include the whole of the British possessions at home and abroad. It is a term which has aroused much prejudice, because it has come to imply military rule to a greater extent than the Roman word imperium, from which it is derived. The King is Emperor of India, but of no other part of his dominions ; and when the title of Empress of India was first conferred upon Queen Victoria, there were some in Parliament who raised their voices against it. Those who object to the use of the word empire forget that in past times it was valuable to England, as implying her independence of foreign rulers and not her possession of foreign dependencies. ' The meaning, therefore, of the Legislature, when it uses these terms of Empire and Imperial, and applies them to the realm and Crown of England, is only to assert that our King is equally sovereign and independent within these his dominions, as any emjoeror is in his empire.' ^ In this sense a statute ' Blackstone's Commenlarles, 1800 ed., Bk. I, cap. 7, vol. i, p. 242. The statute referred to is 24 Henry VIII, cap. 12. See the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. I RONfAN TKRMS 9 ot" llciiiy \'l II n \\v\\ coNers the ininirnstdii nuprni nupiis ; it is strictly accuiati', as ap{)li('r the British pussessiuns ; and, it" it i-- less appropriate, as applied to the- othei- hall', it at least serves to remind lis of the complex nature of Greater Britain, ami of the histoi-ical ti'uth that the pri'sent system is not the roult of peacefid growth aloiie, but of pea<'e maintained hy ade(iuate protection. llasinu thus ilhisti-ated tlu^ deht which we owe to the liomans lor our terminology in regard t<» the I'liti^h possessions overseas and their relations to Great Britain, it is proposed in the following pages to examine some of the leading features of the British J]m|)ire, and to compare and contrast them with the characteristics of the l\<»man lani)iri', which was the greatest political system of the ancient World. CHAPTER II SPACE Climate, race, many other factors contribute to the actual present and the coming future of the British Empire ; but there is one element in it which, in the sense in which it will be noticed in this chapter, does not often receive as much notice as it deserves. That element is space. What part has space played, and what part is it still playing, in the moulding of the Empire? The question is important in regard to that half of the Empire which contains the self-governing Dominions. If we consider the relations of those Dominions to the United Kingdom, one aspect of the question, as it stands at the present day, is that we have large areas with small populations linked to a small area with a large population. Assuming for the sake of the argument two countries ; one small, the other large ; one full, the other empty ; and assuming further that all the population of the empty land comes from the well filled small area, then, even if the climate, soil, and general conditions of the two countries are much the same, the mere fact that men and women who have previously lived closely packed together CHAP. II SPArE 11 an- transplant«-(l intn irrrat spat-t-s, and that thoir ehililrrii arc buiii and Itn-d in giuat spaces, will produce a sonu-wliat dillrient typo of people. The great spaces i>[' ihc lhiii>h Knii)ire already lia\e had nuich and will lia\c iii(»re to say to its history. This element of space does not appear in have had any N'ery appreciable effect in the lvi»inan Eniiiire, We are not now considering the total area of that Kni})irt' as compared with the British Empire, nor the size of any one province as com- pared with one of the British overseas Dominions. We are considering the nature of tlie settlement in either case. A large number of Roman men and leinian families emigrated to and settled in the I'loNinces; their children grew up amid new surioundinu-- aii tradition, instinct, and jxilicy of the Ie>nians was, so fai" as they colonized with their own citizens, rather to found new or to reinforce old ti>teil entirely iiti>li J\!iiipiiL' iiielutlr ill llifir i)()pulati«)iis (ttlitr lact'S tliaii the Britisli. This tlcinont of space has, per- haps more than any otlur, made the Dutch race in South Africa what it is at the i)resent day. At liome, in the Xetlierhmds, the Diitdi lived close together in a very small area; and, a> their land was straitened and coniined, Dutch enterprise found its outk't on the sea. The Dutch went to Soutii Africa, the Netherlands Kast India ( oinpaiiy founded a trading-station at the Cape, a few Dutch settlei"S made tlicir })crniancnt homes in South Africa, some few of them became Boers or farmers, and Ncry Ljradually settlement straggled inland. Then political causes made for dispersion. Even before the English took the Cape, the Dutch farmei'S of Graaf lieinet were up in arms against the restric- tive ride of the Netherlaiuls East India Company, while, after the Cape became a British possession, the Great Trek took place, and South African Dutch- men went out more and more into space, though it was not empty space, hut wilderness tenanted by wild men and wild l)oa.sts. Thus, while the .story of the Dutch in Holland was a story of towns and ships and sea, the story of the i)utch in South Africa was one of i)astoral and huntiuL,^ life, from which the towns and the .sea were eliniinate(l, and where wagons took th(> ])lace of ships. CJreat .spaces have made the 13oers, alike in character and in physique, a distinct type of Dutchmen. 14 SPACE CHAP. The case of the French in Canada was not parallel to that of the Dutch in South Africa. France is a much more spacious land than Holland, and on the other hand, French colonization in Canada was so directed and regulated by the government as to keep French settlement continuous on seigniories along the banks of the St. Lawrence, and more especially at or near the three centres of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. 'The inhabitants of French origin are chiefly distributed along the banks of the St. Lawrence, as far up as Montreal. The land adjacent to this magnificent river exhibits the appearance of a continuous line of villages — a military mode of settlement.'^ The French coloniza- tion of Canada had in it a touch of Roman settle- ment. It was in its essence largely military coloniza- tion. It was despotically arranged, organized, and held together, in order to keep the land against notable Indian fighters with hostile British colonies behind them. It is true that there were outlying forts and fur stations further west ; and, as against the habitants attached to the soil on the seigniories, there grew up a race of wandering voyageurs and coureurs de bois, who were always on the move. But, though explorers and hunters and traders were constantly in evidence, going into and coming back from the wilds, there was no wholesale trekking or dispersion of the population far inland. Moreover, * From Appendix C to Lord Durhain's Report, 1912 ed., vol. iii, p. 142. II .SPACE 15 as nil till- oiic liaiid the sea did not doiniiialr tlic li(»nulaiid ot" I'rancc and it-^ jKoplc to the sanu' extent as it dominated the Xctlierlands and the Dutch, so, on the other hand, the riovince of Quebec was very tar from luinu' an inland home for the French, such as South Airica was for the Dutch. LiviuLC <»ii the St. Lawrence, the French in Caiuuhi always kej)t in touch with the sea. In other words, widely different as Canada was from France, the French settlers in Canada were not lran>|»orted iiiluch wliollv dilferent >un-oundini,'s as was the case with the Dutcli in Soutli .Virica ; and, from the nature and the design of Frencli-ranadian settlement, great spaces did not mould the character of the French-Canadians, as tliev moulded the character tif the Boers in South Africa. It was when in latn- times the prairies were reached, and the North-West was opened for British rather than for French colonists, that space began to tell. Tlie most ptn-ely British of the self-governing Dominions are Newfoundland, Australia, and New Zealand; and ol" all parts of the l)iiti>h Fm})ire it is in Australia that the etfect of space has l)cen most marked. Here, more than anywhere else, the pe(^I)le lia\(' Ixcii nionlded by what the .Vustralian poet has called ' tlu' never ending {)lains '. At tlu> same time there is this curious feature in Australian settlement, that a very large proportion of the scanty poj)ulation of Austi'alia is congregated in towns. Some •">'") per cent, of the total pojiulation 16 SPACE CHAP. is in the six capital cities, all of which are on or near the sea, and more than half the population is in towns of over 5,000 inhabitants. Melbourne and Adelaide account for between 40 and 50 per cent, of the population of Victoria and South Australia respectively. But, over and above the fact that the cities and towns are spread over a very much larger area of ground than is the case in the United King- dom, it is the country rather than the town which has given and is giving its distinctive character to the coming Australian nation. It is the bush rather than the sea which calls to the Australian, and the future is being fashioned by the back blocks with their widely dispersed and much isolated stations. Those who wish to account for any difference be- tween the English in the United Kingdom and the English in Australia must set it down largely to the influence of space, and those who want to find the exact antipodes to Eoman colonization will find it in the story of Australia. Merivale writes that 'the latest conquests of Rome annexed the back- woods of Gaul and Germany in great masses ', but he adds that ' even here the colonization of the Romans, and even the occupation of the natives, was confined to certain narrow tracks of internal communication '.^ What did not exist in the Roman Empire and what does exist in the British Empire is a steady stream of citizens going out from the ^ History of the Romans under the Empire, 1865 ed., vol. iv, chap. xxxix, pp. 389-90. II SPACE 17 lioinelaiid into what the Kuinans wuuld have ealk-tl the pruviiict's, and there niakiiiu' their new homes un iheir own lines, scattered and isolated ni ^reat spaces. This element of space makes for diversity. There is inlinite divei-sity in the British Empire. Even in that [»art of it whieh is comprised in the self- governing Dominions, there is the greatest variety of race, language and so forth. In the present connexion we are dealinir only with diversity as the re.siilt of space, and the (piestion arises, llow far is the Empire likely to lose or to gain in unity and strength from the fact that great sj)aces tend to pro- duce different types of the same race? At first sight it would seem that the more uniform in type connnunities are, the more likely they are to cohere. But, judging from private as well as from national life, it may be ({uestioned whether cohesion is not more likely to arise from supple- nientinLi' than from duplicating. Within limits there is less prohahilily of friction Ijetween those \sh<» lia\'e points of ditfeience than Vietween those who are in all respects the same. In the latter case tliei'e is at Ijest wearisome iteratiitn, in the former case one supi)lies what the other wants. We may lind an analogy in the geography of Australia, lecleration or unification of Australia might well have Ijeen an easier malti'i-, if the .States which make up the Commonwealth had ditfereil more in kind friini each other, if they had felt more need of U73 (J 18 SPACE CHAP. one another on the ground that each one obviously contributed to the whole what the others had not, instead of being to a very large extent uniform and therefore repeating one another, differing in quantity rather than in quality. Similarly it may fairly be argued that the Empire as a whole gains from the fact that the British race within it, while funda- mentally the same, develops in different surround- ings different characteristics. A concrete illustration might be found in the late South African war, which was a war in great spaces, and in which the over- seas contingents, mounted men habituated to great spaces, admirably supplemented the regular troops from home. Now, although Canada includes the Kocky Moun- tains and the Selkirks, New Zealand the New Zealand Alps, while fine mountains are also to be found in Australia and South Africa, yet the great spaces of the self-governing Dominions are in the main not mountain regions, but plains and plateaux. In these Dominions, therefore, space may be said to work its full will upon the incoming British race. On the effects which this cause produces it would be misleading to attempt to generalize, because the conditions of one Dominion differ widely from those of another, and many other elements than space, among them notably climate, contribute to the net result. But if we compare the Australian English- man, for example, with the home grown product, we find in the former what may be called the open- II SPACE 19 air characteristics of tlu* Knu'lisluiiaii (|uirkt'iiLtl and intensified, and may lairly attri))ute this rcsnlt to the infhiencc, direct ur inthrci-t, «>!' tlic l)U^h. We lind in the Australian a greater degree, or at any rate more outward signs, of freedom and I'quaHty, greater absence of reserve, greater impatience of restraint and discipline, stronger instinct of race kinsiiip and more spontaneous welcome and Imspi- tality. He is an Englishman who has grown at will with ample elbow room and has not been trinnned and pruned in a confined urea and an ordered place. lie contributes to the l^ritisli Empire a citizen of British race but of somewhat different type from the resident in the United Kingdom. It cannot be doubted that this difterent type makes for increased vitality of the Emi>ire. The United Kingdom, being small and thickly peopled, ovei'flows into the spaces of the Dominions, and many years must i)ass before these spaces are filled. There is no appreciable counter current. Not a few individuals, it is true, from time to time return or come from the Dominions to the Mother- land ; South African millionaires Ijring back their gold, Canadians find seats in the House of Commons, Khodes scholars go to Oxford; but the number all told is not large ; and, so far as I'nuland has recei\'e(l any lasting imj tress from overseas Englishmen, it has prrha})s come mainly tVoin tlm-c who have done their life's work in the tropical half of the Empire, and who have always retained actual or potential c 2 20 SPACE CHAP. II homes in England, with full animus revertendi. Men of the type of retired Indian civil servants, trained in administration, have probably left more mark on life and thought in England than is usually recognized, while the self-governing Dominions have, from the nature of the case, so far been rather engaged in receiving Englishmen and assimilating them to their great spaces than in contributing from their own citizens to the population of the United Kingdom. This means that England is at present leavening the Dominions more than the Dominions are leavening England, but on the other hand, that the proportion of Englishmen of the type which great spaces produce is constantly increasing. There must in the course of history come a time when the lands will be filled and space will cease to tell, but by that time by far the larger number of citizens of British race within the Empire, if the Empire holds together, will be of the type which space has dictated. Therefore, not only in order to appreciate present differences, but also in order to estimate the future, it is well to give some thought to space as one of the factors which is moulding the British Empire, and which was wanting in the Roman Empire. CHAPTER III YOUTH Tm; coimexioii d' l^nulaiid with India is that of a coniparativt'Iy iiKxU-iii (.'umiiiunity of Western type with < >l(l World systems and ciNili/.ation of wholly dillV-runl origin. Tlir connexion of England with the self-governing Dominions is that of a com- paratively old community with younir nations in the making, on similar lines to, and of more or less the same material as, the older people. Still cnntining ourselves for the moment to the latter case, the relations between the self-governing Dominions and the Mother Country, and having considered the effect ol' space, let us consider in a sense the elfect of time, ancl ret L,n\-e bii'lh t<> and icar IVoni subordination to e(iuality young peoples of their own Roman race. !So far as they colonized, tluy colonized, as has been seen, to a large extent in towns, and 32 YOUTH CHAP. these towns had no separate pohtical existence. They were Httle off-shoots of Rome and garrisons of Eomans ; one and another had municipal privi- leges ; but they were never intended to be, and never were, the beginnings of new peoples. A nearer approach to British colonization is to be found in the history of Greece than in that of Rome. The Greek cities were in the fullest sense parents of other Greek cities overseas; but the connexion between the child and the parent was one of sentiment only, the two were entirely inde- pendent of one another, the colony as often as not grew to full strength as soon as the mother city, and we look in vain to Greece for a political system including within it states bearing such relations to each other as exist between the self-governing Dominions and the United Kingdom. There is, in fact, no parallel to it in the history of the world. The gradual growth of younger British peoples within and not without the Empire, the mainten- ance of the connexion between the young and the old, coupled with the continuous development from terms of subordination to terms of practical independence, is peculiar to the British race. Without attempting here to analyse the causes which have led to existing conditions, or discussing how far the lessons learnt from the American War of Independence and its outcome affected the subse- quent course of British colonial history, we can take facts as we find them, and those facts are that one- in YOUTH L'3 lialf of the British Empire consists of an old people and younLj peoples linked together on terms <»f growing equality. Peoples are relati\'ely t)ld and young, only so far as they form separate entities. Rome had older buildings and associations than a Koman colony in Gaul or Britain possessed, l^ut a Koman colony was not a people or the nucleus of a people, for it had no political individuality apart from Kome. The self- governing Dort on Canada. ' Our iirst duty ', he wrote, ' is to secure the well- Ijeing of our colonial countrymen ; and if in the hidden decrees of that wisdom by which the world is ruled, it is written that these countries are not for ever to remain portions of the Empire, we owe it t(j our honour to take good care that, when they separate from us, they should not be the only countries on the American continent in which the Anglo-Saxon race shall be found unlit to govern itself.' ' But Lord 1 )uiham did not contemplate dissolution of the Kmpire. lie contemplated continued life for it and growing strength, by giving greater freedom ' 1912 Oil., vol. ii, 1'. 310. 26 YOUTH CHAP. to communities which had outgrown the stage of childhood. It has been said above that in famihes friction causing or tending to separation arises either from not relaxing authority and making concessions when the time for concessions is due, or from insist- ing upon the son fending for himself entirely before he is entirely fitted to do so. In the history of the relations between England and the self-governing Dominions, usually but not always at different times and in different cases, the Mother Country has laid herself open to two charges diametrically opposed to each other, the first being the charge of inter- ference, the second the charge of indifference. At the time when Lord Durham wrote, and for the better part of twenty years afterwards, government from Downing Street was the bugbear of the younger peoples of the Empire, and their constant complaint was that they were not allowed to manage their own affairs in their own way without continual interference from home. Then, when responsible government had been granted first to one colony and then to another, although from time to time complaints of interference were still made, the more general feeling was that the Mother Country and its rulers were indifferent to the colonies and would be glad to be rid of them. The Whigs had been the main supporters of re- sponsible government, and the Whigs were credited with the doctrine, which some at any rate of the leading men among them held, in common with Ill YOUTH 27 liailicals of the type of Ixit-liard Colxleii, that coiii- pleto separation nf the colonies from the Mother Country was certainly inevitahle anm lime to time we realize that domestie (|Uestions may easily wear the giiise of Imperial (jiiestiuiis, as when reeiproeily with the United States was placed before the electors of Canada, and a}>pealed to party feelini^^ in England. But, assuming that the Dominions are more prone to pass }»ul>lie judgement on the Mother Country than the Mother Country *ni the Dominions, this also is in the ccHU'se of nature. It is the privilege of the young to think that they can put the world to rights, and to criticize their elders ; and if this holds true in i)rivate families, it holds ecjually true in a family of peoples. If again we tm-n to the social relations between the English at home and the English over the seas, harmony in this all-important direction will be promoted and maintained only Ijy bearing in mind the family analogy. Young men and women are sensitive, keenly alive to the ditference of treatment which either makes them feel that they are tolerated and [»atn>nized or makes them feel at home. The same is true of members of young communities. The love of British men and women from over the seas for the (Jld Country will grow cold and turn to resentment if they hear themselves called, and feel themselves treated, as 'colonials', with the im})lica- tion attached to the word that they are on a different level from their own folk at home, livery man and woman from the self-governing Dominions who 30 YOUTH CHAP. visits England, goes back at the end of the visit an advocate for or against England. Either when they have come home — for coming to England is still termed coming home — they have found them- selves at home, or they have not ; and they have found themselves at home in England only if they have been treated on family lines, with all the kindly feeling which is the natural outcome of youth and age making allowance for each other. There are not a few who will still say with the Whigs of half a century ago that all this talk about the family is nothing more than talk, that these young peoples must go their ways, and the Mother Country go hers, as interest dictates ; and there are perhaps more who see in the family analogy the bogy of Imperialism, whatever Imperialism means. The first is supposed to be the view of the plain business man. The second is the view of the man who hates national or racial bombast and exaggera- tion. The answer to the one is that dealings be- tween the young and the old peoples on family lines are good business ; the answer to the other is that such dealings are the most natural thing in the world, opposed to anything that is spurious or affected. The good private business man looks to the future ; and, looking to the future, he is glad to strengthen his business by family ties. The good public business man bears in mind the future possi- bilities of the young peoples, and realizes that separation of these young peoples from the Mother Ill YOUTH 31 Country cannot mean gain to her or to Iiini aiul may mean Lrrievous loss. There is a rational and an irrational Impeiiali.-m. Dislike ol' irrational and l»latant Imperialism seems to breed a wrong- headed belief that to havi- a great and growing Emi)ire, and to rejoice in it, is u sinful thing. It is no more sinful than to have a laruc and growing family ; and pride in it is natural and healthy, when not combined with Ijluster and vulgar ostentation. In short the one wise and sound way of looking at the Empire, so far as it consists of the Mother Country and the self-governing Dominions, of weigh- ing its chances and estimating its future, is to argue from the family ; and the one Wtiy to maintain and strengthen the family feeling and the family con- nexion is to bear in mind that the root of the matter is continuous adjustment between youth and age. CHAPTEK IV SCIENCE AND EMPIRE I. DISTANCE In all previous eras distance has been the main obstacle to winning and keeping Empires. The great problem which leading nations and their leading men have during the centuries, one after another, set themselves to try to solve, has been how to hold together territories and peoples far removed from one another. Of all Empire builders and holders of the past the Komans were the most successful, and the Eomans were pre-eminent in the attention which they paid to communications, in order, as far as possible, to counteract distance. ' The Romans were able for a long time to maintain the obedience of their provinces, and to suppress every attempt at resistance to their authority. This result was mainly due to the efficient military system of the Romans, and to the masterly manner in which they occupied a province, by stationing their legions in strong towns and fortified camps, and by making and maintaining their communications by means of the roads and bridges which they constructed.'^ The roads were made, it should be noted, primarily * Cornewall Lewis, Government of Dependencies, 1891 eel., p. 127. IV (i) DISTANCE 33 for military imrposcs, nut with the diivct purpose of (levclopiiig the icsuiirccs of the countries tlirouuli which tht V passed : and soldiers on active service Were often employed to make them, for, like the nuilway hattali<»n in the Sudan, and the Italian trooi)s in Krithrea. the Koman legionaries were soldiers of the line aii«l lioval Engineers combined, and in the intervals between wai>!, their commander kept them in hand by employing them on Public Works. liut the World which the Kouians conquered and held together was the Mediterranean world, and on the Mediterranean — it is important to remember — they had for theii' homeland the central peninsula. 'AH the great Monarchies, '.says Bacon, * the Pei-sians, the Romans (and the like of the Turks), they had not any })rovinces to the which they needed to demand access through the country of another ; neither had they any long races or narrow angles of territory, which were en\ironed or clasped in with foreign states ; Ijut their dominions were continued and entile, and had thickness and .squareness in their nrb «»r contents.'' 'The Provinces,' says Gil)bon, 'surrounded and enclo.sed the Mediterranean; and Italy, in the shape of an immense promontory, advanced into the mitlst of that great lake.' - The linman Enipiic. in fart, widened out fi'om lujine as a centre, mainly on land. From the Forum ' SpciKliiif^'s L'J., vul. vii, p. 52; 'On the true greatness of tlu^ Kinpdoiu of Britain.' - Dtdint and Full, ch^^.\^. ii, 18G2 ed., vul. i, p. 18U. 1471 D 34 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. at Eome the roads, strong and solid as their makers, radiated in straight lines to all parts of the Empire. When the sea intervened, it was a more or less adjoining sea, the shores of which had been known and settled for centuries. It is no doubt the case that, having on their hands — for instance — the whole of North Africa from Egypt to Mauretania, or again Britain, which was wholly outside the Mediterranean area, the Romans had in a sense to face the problem of holding and governing Provinces which were only accessible by crossing the sea; and Tacitus writes, with special reference to the East, of 'Provinciae, quae mari dividuntur '.^ It is also true, as will be noted below, that sea-going in Roman times was a far more danger- ous and uncertain process than it is at the present day. But, even when allowance has been made for the difference in scale and kind between the ancient and the modern world, Rome can hardly be said to have handled to any very appreciable extent distant overseas dependencies. For the Romans distances were land distances rather than sea distances, and the Roman Empire could show no Province in relation to Rome even remotely comparable to AustraHa in its relation to England. It was when Columbus had discovered America, and Europeans acquired great dependencies which were separated from the centre of Government by sea not by land, and by immense oceans not by the Mediterranean Sea or by the English Channel, that distance began ' Annals, ii. 43. IV (i) DISTANCE 35 to play its most strikiuu i)art as an ubstaclo to Eiiipiir. 'riitiL' cuuM tin 11 !•<• Ill) loiiLTi r any (|n«_stinn of gradually widtning uut IVuin a centre, <»t' c»>ii- tinuuus amuch as, owing to distance, ditfer- ences of sinn»undings, climate, and so forth were not counteracted by close and constant contact with the Motherland. It was not until after this element of distance had had time to leave its mark upon the Empires of the con(iUering and colonizing nations of Eiiinpc^ thai the great enemy of distance appeared oil the scene in the form of scientitic invention, and steam aiul telegrapiiy began gradually to annihilate space and time. Now, llif ureat question (if the past haviiiLT Iuhii how to lii)ld together peoples li\ing at a great di.s- tance from each other, what is tlu' answer to be given to this (question at the present day? The answer is that all the signs of the times point to the D-J 36 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. conclusion that in the days to come the question will cease to exist, that this element of distance will for practical purposes disappear altogether. No man, or, at any rate, no man unskilled in scientific learning, who studies what has been achieved in the past, can set any bounds to scientific achievement in the future. If, say, the cleverest man in Wolfe's army that fought on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 had been told that, had it all taken place a century and a half later, the news of the battle and of Wolfe's death, which occurred before noon on the 18th of September, instead of reaching London, as was actually the case, on the following 17th of October, would probably have been in the London evening papers on the actual day of the battle ; and, if Canada had happened to be east mstead of west of England, would have been in the English Press early on the same day; and further that he could himself probably have come back to London in a week, he would have treated his informant as a lunatic. How is it possible then, looking back on the past, to come to any other conclusion than that the process of annihilating dis- tance will continue, and — so experience teaches us — at accelerated speed ? It is very noticeable how little space most writers and thinkers on political questions have given to the past results and the future possibilities of scientific invention as bearing upon pohtics. Lord Durham stands out almost alone as an exception to this rule. As his report shows, he contemplated, as far back as IV (i) DISTANTE 37 18'50, a time when ' ilic pa.s.sago iVoiii Ireland lu Qiioboc wr»iil(l ])c a inattor of ten oi- twelve days'/ and he .saw that the completion of satisfactory com- munication between Halifax and (^ueljec, especially if it was by rail, woid all intents and piu-poses, reasons on the assumption that though human beinc:s change, space and time and the main featiuvs of the world in which they live do nnt. which may be literally true, but is practically incorrect. It was more or less true before modern science made itself felt. Consequently, the Komans in deal- ing with their Provinces dealt, so to speak, with a fixed luiit. On the other hand, those who are handling the British Empire are dealing with a iluctuating and uncertain imit. If, for instance, we take a lujman colony removed from Rome by both land and sea, the distance of Kome from EI)oraciun, the mop. 31S I'J. 38 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. military efficiency of the Eomans at one time and another, with the resulting state of the roads and the safety or insecurity of the travelling. On the other hand, take Toronto, once called York, in Canada. Though it had been the site of a French fort at an earlier date, as a city it was born about the year 1793, when General Simcoe was Lieutenant- Governor of Upper Canada. Its distance from London at the present day, 120 years since it was founded, if measured by the travelling of human beings, is certainly not more than a sixth of what it was in Simcoe's time, and as measured by telegraphic communication has become almost non-existent. Thus the relations between London and Toronto have been constantly changing, always, it is true, in the same direction, that of greater proximity, but none the less changing, and, therefore, the problem of Empire has been constantly changing likewise. On the other hand, while the gradual diminution of distance makes a modern Empire, as compared with an Empire of the past, a more fluctuating and less con- stant unit, the improved and improving communica- tion, which produces as its direct result this element of change, is in itself a more constant and certain factor than the communication which existed in past times. The importance of steam communication, especially on the sea, consists not only in ensuring greater speed, but also in ensuring greater regularity. A mail steamer crossing the Atlantic meets with IV (i) DISTANCE 39 heavy weather. Slie arrives at her port of destination possibly a lem of distance, will ceaso to exist. What will Ije the result ? The result, it seems, will be that, while the old standing diflieulty of Empire will be removed, the agency which has removed or is removinu' it. will create, and already is creating, new ditliculties. to tax the brains of statesmen and the j)atience of citizens. Let us take elimination of distance as affecting, firstly, the ivla- tions between the .Seli'-( iovi^rning Dominions and the Mother Country, secondly, the internal relations of the Empire as a whole. an late in the day to neutral- ize the elfect which distance has produced in making more or less sepai'at*' nations. The Self-( io\-erning dominions have taken thcii- present form and >hape because* ol' distatice. TIkn- wei'C set to goNcrn them- selves because the Mother ( 'ouiit ry, beiiiLi distant, could not otherwise satisfactoiily provide for their 43 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. government. Before the modern doctrine of responsible government was propounded and put into practice, it was suggested that the British over- seas communities might send representatives to the British Parliament. This suggestion was ridiculed by Edmund Burke as being impracticable on the ground of distance. It would not be impracticable now to anything like the same extent, and in one or two generations will probably not be impracticable at all. But, on the other hand, if representatives were sent to an Imperial Parliament at the present day, they would come as representing distinct nations which distance has brought into existence. In other words, their presence in England would not now be, as it would have been in Burke's time, in lieu of self-government in the Dominions, but additional to and supplementing self-government. Moreover, again as the result of distance working for another century and a half since Burke wrote, the representatives, assuming them to be of the same British race, would yet be more or less distinct types of the race. No doubt the diminution of dis- tance is modifying and will in a growing degree modify the divergence, but still we have to reckon with the broad fact that even when distance has been eliminated, the results of distance will endure. It has been suggested in a previous chapter that the diversity in the British Provinces of the British Empire which great spaces have promoted, may eventually be found to be rather a source of strength IV (i) DL^TANPE 43 tliaii of weakness, inakinu' t'nr union, nt»t I'nr disconl. C'(>nvci-scly. the clinnnatinn >>[' (li>lanct' may nnt 1m) and probably will not bt; wholly a u'ain. lulations fan SCO too much of eadi otlui-, and familiarity is said to l)rccd Contempt. More intimate and every- day knowledge of one another means, or may mean, greater emphasis on tlu dilferences which base been produced by dilfert'nt surroundings. Every change in human relations, however, has its bad as well as its good side, and it cannot seriously ])0 doubted that the not result of the elimination of distance must 1)0 to pn^mote harmony ])etween (Ireat Britain and the Self-Cioverning Dominions. Increased coming and going must mean better nnderstanding ; the vacant spaces will be lilleil l)y British citizens loss and less moulded l)y distance, and, therefore, not inrreasing ])ut diminishing tlic divergence; while the dangers of proximity which arise from facilities for interference, are now practically non-existent as far as regards tlie Srlf-t Jovei'Jiing Dominions, owinu: to the lart tliat distance has done its work in creating distinct peoples and demonstrating the futility and unwisdom of one jx'ople interfering in the domestic concerns ol' aiiothri-. If. howe\'ei-, we turii to cousidi r the internal relations of tho Ijiipire a-^ a whole, it is not possible to feel oipial conlitk'Ucc as to tiie i-esults of elimina- tion of dis(nnc(\ The fad nniti(UutliL'ns ciinlrd, I'Ul at tlir >anif linic it also lacilitatcs intfrl'i-rL-nci-, hy lliu llonie Govern- nu-nt with the men <>ii tlie spot : Ity Parhainriit. the general piibhc, and the I'rcss, witii the (iovnii- nient ; and so lar it tends to weaken the executive, to niihtato aijainst continuity which is vital for the keeping of an Empire. It gives rise to more know- ledL,'e of one kind and to less of aiKjther. There is far more goiiiL!: t'» and fro in tlu- present than there was in the pa.^t, and a mtich larger ]»roportion of Englishmen know something of India than was the case a century ago. lUit. on (hi- other hand, the Enghshmen set to rule or to traile in India make India less of a home than in bygone days, when visits to Ijigland were necessarily few and at long intervals of years. The tendency to come back (•»»nstantly dining the course of service is stronger than it was, because the oi)port unities of returning are greater ; and the English in India, thei-efort.', are less of India than they were, in the sense of passing their working lives ind>rokenly amid Indian sur- roimdings. Nor, again, are the nudtiplied visits to Enghnul oi' the King's coloured Indian su])jects, and the conse(iuently ^lowini; fanuliarity of East Indians with the Engli>lunan at h"»me, all a gain to them or to us. In any case, if we allow that (quicker and more constant coinnuuiicat ion between East and West, ov between .VlViia and Eimland. i^ not 46 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. only inevitable but on the whole beneficial, we must at the same time allow that it is making the problem of Empire infinitely more complicated. As distance diminishes within the Empire, so it diminishes at the same rate between any or all parts of the Empire and the outside world. What is the result? The Self-Governing Dominions are being brought closer to England and to each other, but pari passu they are being brought closer to foreign nations. It would at first sight seem that constant contact between two different races or nationalities might tend to weaken the instinct of race ; but that instinct is so strong that closer contact and there- fore sharper contrast may possibly rather intensify it. It may be said, perhaps, with more confidence that the elimination of distance will tend on the whole to strengthen the race instinct, than that this ten- dency will necessarily make for unity in the Empire. Strong race feeling may make white citizens within the Empire range themselves with white men out- side the Empire as against coloured fellow-citizens within the Empire, and conversely the latter may turn towards coloured peoples who do not share their citizenship in preference to white British peoples who ignore it as a bond of sympathy or brotherhood. Take again the white races only, so far as the white men in the Self-Governing Dominions are not British, improved communication which brings the French Canadians closer not only to England but to their old mother -land France, IV (i) DiSTAXrE 47 may iuak(.' tli»ni not Kss 1ml nioif I'lciitli, ami so willi til.' 1 >iitilimtii ill South Africa. Or take oiicu iiioiu ilir niili^h laL-e aloiR'. Australia is being broui^dit closer t.i llic I'nittMl States as well as to Knglami, a young British nation, to another kimlri'd nation young as compared with JOnglaml and correspondiuLcly attractive in various ways. Assunir, howevrr, that elimination oi' distance will not be a dissolving factor as regards the iJritisli Empire, soldiers and sailors must still be asked what etl'ect it will have in case of war. To a lay- man it Would Stem that, inasmuch as the Brilish Empire is and has been specially vulnerable in virtue of being so widely spread, tin- concentration which will be the result of eliminating distance will make it easier to defend in ca>e of attack, notwith- standing that the possible enemies on all sides are being bronght closer to our doors. One notable result of the Icsseninu' of distance for the British Empire in jtarticnlar, and for the world in general, is what may be called the rise of the South. It is throuuh the lessening and ('limination of t and North: then furtlur ^Vest across the Atlantic to the New World ; and now far in tho Southern hemisphere, the Argentine Ixepublic, South Africa, and above 48 SCIENCE AND EMPIKE chap, iv all Australasia, are beginning to loom large on the horizon. Of the three groups of British Self-Govern- ing Dominions two are in the South, and the rise of the South, as distance decreases, peculiarly concerns Great Britain and her Empire. In this chapter, as in the whole little book, no pretence is made to elaborate solutions of the great problems of the future. It is only desired to suggest what those problems may be and how they have arisen or are arising. As regards the special subject of this chapter, distance and Empire, it seems safe to sum up ; that science is determining and will determine the fate and the kind of Empires : that science is removing what has been the greatest of all impediments to Empires in the past, and in turn is creating new difficulties : and that the Empires of the past, in the absence of modern science, presented a more difficult problem in the sense that the one great obstacle to a solution was more overwhelming, but an easier problem in the sense that the conditions were far less complex. CHAITKR \' SCIKNCK AND EMPIKE lii/ WATKK AND MEDICAL SCIENCE I.N tilt' last c'liapter no reference \va.s made to eauals as agents in counteracting distance, because cimals, being merely water roads instead of land roads, do not necessarily imply steam and electricity. Yet, to take the most obvious instances, the Suez Canal is, an(l the Panama Canal, when completed, will be, of the utmost importance in bringing dilferent parts of the world closer together. Kefer- enco lia.s been made above to the fact that the component parts of the liritish Empire are, by the agency of science, beint,' brought closer to foreign iialions as well as to one another. One most im- portant result of the Panama Canal will l)e to bring Australia and X well as for irrigation. The canal 50 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. from the Nile to the Red Sea, connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, which was finally opened by Ptolemy Philadelphus about two and a half centuries B.C., had been begun about 600 years B.C. and possibly much earlier. The story told us by Herodotus of Xerxes' canal through the peninsula of Mount Athos — 'velificatus Athos' — is a good instance of an ancient ship canal ; and a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth is said to have been contemplated by Periander about 600 b.c. as well as later by Caesar and by Nero. But the Romans, who set an example to all time of road- and bridge-making and of bringing drinking water on aqueducts, do not appear to have made conspicuous use of canals for what may be called Imperial purposes. Mommsen tells us that Ptolemy's canal was kept open and navigable in Roman times, but that it ' was in the Roman period only of secondary rank, employed chiefly perhaps for the conveyance of blocks of marble and porphyry from the Egyptian east coast to the Mediterranean '.^ From Tacitus we learn that one of the Roman generals in Nero's time, in order to give his soldiers something to do in time of peace, designed a canal to connect the Moselle and the Saone, ' so that troops crossing the sea and then conveyed on the Rhone and Arar (Saone) might sail by this canal into the Moselle and the Rhine, and thence to the ' The Provinces of the Roman Enqrire, English translation, vol. ii, p. 297. V (ii) WATER AND MEDKAL SCIENCE .Jl ocean. Thus the ditlirultics of the route hciiijLi: renioved, tliorc wnuld hv commuuicatioii tor ships botwoen the shores ot the West and of the North.' ' But thi.s canal was never made ; and the (h'st great artilicial water cunuuiniications carried out in I'ranco date fnjni the seventeenth centtny, the Briare canal, eonneetinu the Loire and the Seine, and the Langtie- doc canal, ur Canal ilu Midi, lit) niile.-^ long, linking the liulf of Lyons to the Bay of Biscay. The Iionians seem to have repaired and improved existing canals, especially in L^gypt, hut the canals whieh were entirely their own work were mainly local canals. There was, for instance, the Fossa Mariana at the mouth of the Khone, the handiwork of the Kepublican general, ^larius. Augustus made a canal in connexion with his great naval station at Kavenna. Tacitus tells us of another Roman general who kept his soldiers employed in digging ' a canal of "2^ miles in length between the Khine and the Mouse, as a means of avoiding the uncertain perils of the ocean'.- This, according to the com- mentator, was a canal near the coast of Holland, po.ssibly in the neighlxnirhood of Leyden, and its object was not so nuich to facilitate transport as to prevent inuinlation of the land bv the sea. Then' were again in our own i'fii districts an the Caer I)ykc .uid tlio j'oss Pyke, lo miles long ' Tiicitus, Anmtl-i, xiii. '(3, Church iind Ihoilrihb's traiislatiuii. - Annah, xi. '_'0, Church ;iml Hrudiilili's tnmshition. See tho note to the paf'Siige. ij -! 53 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. and 101 miles long respectively ; but these too were local waterways, and it may safely be said that canals for purposes of long distance traffic did not figure to any appreciable extent in the organiza- tion of the Roman Empire. The reason was twofold. In the first place, communications with the Romans were primarily a military matter, and canals would have been of little use to them for the purpose of moving their legions promptly from one place to another. In the second place, neither the Romans, nor any of the ancient peoples, seem to have had any idea of using locks to adjust differences of level in water communication. Locks hardly imply a very advanced stage of engineering knowledge, and it seems extraordinary that they only came into use in modern times. To what extent they have been utilized in the British Empire with the aid of modern machinery can be realized by those who have seen the traffic at the Sault Ste Marie between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, or at home have noted the Manchester ship canal, described in 1896 as ' the first large ship canal which has been constructed with locks, raising the vessels 60 1 feet, and transporting them inland, and thereby converting an inland city into a seaport'.^ Inland water communication in the British Empire has found its fullest expression in Canada. The Roman Empire contained no Province which could be set side by side with Canada in this respect. * Harcourt's Rivers and Canals, 1896, vol. ii, p. 599. V (ii) WATKR AM) MEDK'AL SC'IENCE 53 In r\ui;i(|.i. ))ofnr(' the d.iv.-- of railways, roughly .s|)caking down to tlic nmlillc ol" the nhielceiitli century, coniniunicatinii was by water rather than by hmd, and inhuid canals have [)layed, and still play, a nntably great part in the history of the l>oniini")n. They have been used at once to supi)le- nient and cni-rect the natural waterways, and to .shorten distance. There are To miles of canal cor- recting the great waterway between Lake Superior and the Uulf of St, Lawrence, and some 48 locks, Lake Superior being GOO feet above the lewd of the sea. The canal which would ha\'e the greatest effect in shortening distance was talked of in Lord l)in-ham's time and before, but is still for the future. This is the Georgian Bay canal, which would link Lake Huron to the St. Lawrence at Montreal, l)y following the Ottawa river and the old French route to the AVest. Canadian canals are mostly of no great length. They began with short cuts on the St. Lawrence, above Montreal, constructed, it should be noted, in the Koman spirit, for military piu'poses, when a military man, General Ualdimand, was Governoi- ; and in the Kideau canal, which was cairied out at a later date, I'lii miles long, tVom Ottawa to Kiiiu--ton. we have again a work on Koman lines, in that it was made lor purely niilitaiv rea.sons, an Imperial undertaking paid lor by the hn})erial Government, Possibly, if the Komans had I'oiuid iluir way to Canada, Eastern Canada l)eing so fashioned that its natural highways are water 54 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. highways, they might have turned their attention to communication by water rather than by land, and might have invented locks. But they would have had to leaven their military instincts with a larger amount of commercial initiative than appears in their history, to have constructed, for instance, the 27 miles of Welland canal for the purpose of carry- ing not troops and their provisions but heavy merchandise past the falls of Niagara. That canal, too, though not in its present form, was, like the Eideau canal, anterior to railways. Its present form, and the great canals of modern days, we owe to steam in the making, and they carry steamers when made. Now, leaving altogether the subject of communi- cation, let us ask what science contributed in other directions to the Eoman Empire, and how far it has transformed and is likely still farther to transform our own Empire. It may be laid down in general terms that, over and above communication, the main Empire work of science is to make habitable places more habitable and unhabitable places habitable. But, before taking this point, it is necessary to say a word as to the influence of science in causing the transplantation of human beings, not only directly by easier communications, but also indirectly, as the result of scientific inventions. Ages before the Komans came to mould the world, stupendous works, some of public utiHty, some ap- parently little better than private freaks, were made V (ii) WATER AND .MEDICAL SCIENCE 55 ))V liiuuau liaiuls, and arc staiRliiiLr, like the I'vra- niiils, lo astuiiish us still. Inil it wuuKl In- luiiil t«> siiy li<)\v far tlioy Nvere tht.' result of scit'iitilic iavc-u- tiun and lit»\v far the outcome of unlimited ai>})lica- tion of brute force, at a time when despotism and slavery wore in their most naked staj^^e. Science or force must have temporarily peopled i)articular localities, oiilv tt> ))e left derelict a^ain ; but it is impossible to reason from these very far l)ack days as from the records of the comparati\'ely modern lioman Empire. It can be taken that in historical times, in the ordinary course, the ancients, like the moderns, found at this or that place one metal or another of conmiercial value and had learnt how to smelt and to Work it. The linding attracted p<»pulation to the .spot ; means were devised for providing- the new- comers adecpiately with food and water ; and when the mines were exhausted, so far as science then reached, the poi)ulation moved away. That process has presumably l)een connnon to all a^es, as well as llir process of this or that town acquiring- or losing, from one local cause or another, a particular industry, iiut modern in\ention and modern appliances in machinery nuisi have vastly increa.sed the .scale on which, ami the rate at which, the pojudatinLT and depopulatinu have taken place. iMoreover, the fact that mines in the Iionian I'hu}»ire wei'e treated wholly or mainly as State [)roperty and were leased by the Government, may have had to some extent 56 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. the effect of preventing great rushes of adventurers eager to peg out claims. At any rate, we do not read of any Kimberley or Johannesburg or Kalgoorhe or Dawson City springing up in the Koman Empire. Ruins of what seem to have been considerable mining centres exist in Eastern Egypt near the coast of the Red Sea. But the remains prove that here the Romans were in no sense pioneers : they only con- tinued existing workings. Moreover, these mining townships or cantonments were situated on or near a caravan route from the Red Sea to the Nile, in a fine strategic position commanding the water supply of the district, which points to the conclusion that population may have been attracted on other grounds than mining alone. Nor again do we find any analogy in the Roman Empire to the effect upon the working population which the substitution of machinery for hand labour has produced in modern times. For instance, in the twenties and thirties of the last century there was a large stream of emigration to British North America from the North of England and the South of Scot- land. One great cause of the movement was the distress which arose among the weavers of Lanca- shire, Lanark, and Renfrew in consequence of the substitution of machinery for hand labour. This was a case in which scientific invention repelled popula- tion and led to its being transplanted to America. We read that latifundia perdidere Italiam, that the economic effect of large estates worked by slave V (ii) WATER AND MEDir'AL SflENCE 57 liibuur was to dcptipulatc souiu cli.^liicls ot" aL;ii- ciiltural Italy, in diivu out tlu* small IVcfliuldc'r or peasiint lariiiL-r. Wc- nad too ut" tlu- cities of the Komaii Em|)ire, or, at any rate, of Koine itself, with its superior attractions, depletinj^ the country, just as London and the great urban centres do at the present day ; Ijut there does not seem t»» be evidence that tile movement of populati(»n in the Jiomaii Empire was, to any appreciable extent, alfected by scientitic invention. A German authority has been quoted to the elfect that 'most of the realms of the ancient Roman Empire had better connexions and conditions than ever afterwards or even now'.' If this is true, how far was it the result of scientitic knowledge among the Konians, and how far did they apply science to making the habital>le parts of their Empire more habitable, and unhabitable places habitable? Allow- ance must be made not only for the results of human injury or neglect, but also for changes which since their day nature has wrought or may have wrought in lands or localities which they tamed and civilized. The sea, for instance, has left Kaveima inland ami derelict. Uibbon writes of il, 'The gradual retreat of the sea has left the modern city at the distance <'f fnur miles from the Adriatic, and as early as the lifth or sixth century nf the ( "hri>tian ' Hfinricli Stophiin us nuulril in Fried lilmlcr's liuimtn J.iji uml Miinuira undtr the Karhj I'lniiirt (;iulhuri/.eil tniusliiti'.'n), vul. i, p. 2GS. 58 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. era the port of Augustus was converted into pleasant orchards, and a lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Koman fleet once rode at anchor.' ^ Climate again may have changed in one district or another, apart from the undoing of man. It must also be borne in mind that, though the Roman Empire eventually included no doubt much that might be classed comparatively as bush or back- wood, the proportion was as nothing compared with the wild lands overseas which the English have taken in hand. Yet the Romans had wide scope for applying such scientific knowledge as they possessed, and they possessed a great deal. Their noble bridges and aqueducts, as well as their roads, testify that they were good engineers. They knew how to drain lands for agriculture and for sanitation. They made embankments and dykes and reclaimed from the sea. In various parts of what was their Empire the ground which they made was subse- quently lost and even now has not been recovered. But the same is true of countries which they never administered. In Ceylon, for instance, the English are painfully restoring the great tanks and water- courses which once irrigated and made fruitful districts that afterwards relapsed into jungle. All the world over, much of the good work of the past has been lost ; but taking the Roman Empire as the most highly organized system of the ancient world in historical times, there does not seem to have been ' Chap. XXX, 1862 ed., vol. iv, p. 42. V (ii) WATER ANO MEDK'AL SCIENCE 59 what lia-^ marknl iii"'il»rii history ainl colonization, at any rate .sinec .steam anaratively limited also. Ivoman aims were limited for two reasons already given. The iirst reason was that, taking their history as a whctle and their Empire as a whole, with the Ivomans military considerations were paramount. This does not mean that their Empire was purely the outcome of deliljerate con(iUest ami annexation on a preconceived plan. Tlu'V were drawn on in the path of Empire, as we have been drawn on, hy force of circmnstances. Nor again does it mean tiiat all the Provinces were simply held down l)y military L;arri>ons. On the contrary, in the Provinces not on the frontiers of the Empire, after the time of Augustus, as a rule no legions were (piarti'red ; and the letters of Cicero at one time, of Pliny at another, show that econouui- and >ocial ([Ueslious recei\ed as nuich attention as. or more- than, military matters. Merchants, traders, linanciers, and speculators of all kiiitls. Were coming aiul going and operating threlt" the generic term nf • Pr(»vincia '. The records of the Koman Empire would not provide a parallel tn the water- supply of Kal^oorlie in Western Australia. That is an instance c»f making a place far remote in an outlying Province of the Empire, not on a trade- route, not on the fringe of hut in the heart of the desert, not merely habitable but the scene of a con- sideraV)le modern city with the latest conveniences and appliances, by bringing water from the Mundar- ing reservoir, which even Pome might have envied, in pipes for 80(J miles. Again, so far as their a(pieducts and water-courses served agricultural purposes, irrigating fields and not merely supi)lying fountains and l)aths in citii-s, the Romans seem rather to have improved and supple- mented existing conditions than to have evolved something wholly new. They are not associated to the same extent as Eastern peoples with large irriga- tion schemes, though a (piotation to the contrary is given below.- Augustus, who kei)t the Province of Egypt in his own hands, took care that the canal system of the country was n-paiied and <'oiiipI(ted, and Mommsen wi-itcs that Mho pouian ( Jovei-nineiit ' Sk-etchea and Studies in Italy and (iirece. First Series, lS9b oil., chapter on 'OKI Towns of Provence ', p. 7G. ' p- G5. 64 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. applied itself more zealously to the elevation of agriculture in Egypt than anywhere else ' ; ^ but notwithstanding, Eoman engineers do not seem to have left any very distinctive mark upon the land of the Nile and now of the Assouan dam. Nor did they anywhere, in the matter of irrigation, rival the triumphs of British engineers and the British Government in India. There Sir Bampfylde Fuller tells us that ' from irrigation works maintained by the State seventeen million acres are irrigated — an area half the size of England '. * Not only do these canals increase prosperity ; they create it. Two of the Punjab canals literally have converted desolate uninhabited plains into thriving countries. Along the Chenab canal now stretch fields and villages inhabited by a million people, where twelve years ago a few nomads wandered over a desert of parched earth and camel thorn. The State irrigation works of India are, of their kind, the greatest and most beneficent triumphs of engineering that the world has seen.' ^ There were no doubt cases in which, by draining, reclamation, and irrigation, the Romans did creative work, making land existent, which for men to dwell in and for productive purposes had been non- existent before they came. To Roman handiwork, for instance, aided by the receding sea, we owe the ^ Tlie Provinces of the Roman Empire, vol. ii, p. 253. "^ Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment, by Sir Bampfylde Fuller, K.C.S.I., CLE., 1910, pp. 322 and 195. V (ii) WATKU AND MRDD'AL SCIENCE Go I'ich cornlaiul of lujiniicy Maisii. ' I'arts of Algeria, now wholly bancii, wciv ftTtik- and populous, owing to tluir unsurpassed system of irrigation,' and 'modern travellers notice with astonishment the ruins of what nuist have been flourishing cities far l>eyond the present limits of Alirerian civilization'/ In lheiiauran,ea>t of the Jordan, ihev huill, irrigated, and reclaimed. 'At this eastern limit of the Empire there was gained for Ilellenic civiliziition a frontier domain which may be com[)ared with the Konianized region of the Khine.' - But in the Ilauran, as in Eastern Egypt, they were not the tii-st pioneers, and their l)eneticent work seems to have been done on or near caravan or trade-routes. Perhaps it may be summed up that the liomans .set themselves to make the best use of water which was on the spot, and to bring to the spot water which was within comparatively easy reach. Hut, e\en where it was a question of existing water, in the alisence of modern appliances, no large river was controlled l)y them, to anything like the same extent that the Nile has been by the great works of latti-r days ; and where it was a question of bring- ing water to where water was not, the supply was brought to a limited area and from a short distance away. 'I'lie Komans liad the Libyan desert on their frontier, but they hatl no call to try and reclaim more than its fringes. They were not faced with, ' ArnuM's liuDUin I'lOviiicinl Aiimini.-iiniii'iii, \<[k 4-1. '2'2\.K * Moiuiiisun, Thf rtoiitices of the lioitnin Enipiie, vol. ii, p. 158. 66 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. and did not attempt to handle on a large scale, the problem how to make a desert not a desert, which is the problem that faces us in the interior of Australia, and which, if ever solved, will make the rise of the South more important than ever in the history of the world. Here we have a Province, which is in itself a continent, greater in size than the Roman Empire, and the future of this continent is mainly a question of water supply. Water means population, and production, and, therefore, science will in a unique degree determine the position of Australia among the nations of the world. An instance has been given, in Western Australia, of bringing water from a long distance, measured by the surface of the earth. Elsewhere, especially in Queensland, we have water brought from a com- paratively long distance within the earth, by artesian wells, which would not have been possible without the aid of modern machinery. The great central artesian basin in Australia is estimated to extend over more than half a million of square miles and to underlie more than half the State of Queensland. The boring has been carried down to a depth of 5,000 feet, not very far short of a mile. Thus under- ground water is being made available to an extent wholly unknown to the ancients. How far the supply will be permanent, or how far a not unlimited stock is being depleted, has yet to be fully proved ; but the measurements which have so far been made of the flows of the artesian bores point distinctly to V (ii) WATHli AND MHDK'AL SCIKNCE G7 a decrt'a.so in tlu- >upply. 'I'his is a ca-sc ut" iiiiiiiiig fur water, which wuiikl l)e useless, if the water were not there ah-eady. It is fur the future to cleterinino whether Ijy huiiiau ingenuity a purely waterless region can be made water-bearing; and also whether the art of turning salt water int(_> fresh l)y the process of condensing, which aLrain was ai)parently unknown to the lioinans, can be appiie*! u})un anv large scale. Watir is one great agency in making unhabitable places hal^itable, and habitable places more habitable. xVjiother is medical science. When the history of the British Empire for the past thirty years comes to be written ; if it is written aright, one of the leading features in the story will \)v the rise of medical science into the front rank of hmnan agencies which are making and keeping Empires. The lifetime of a middle-aged man at the present day covers the main part of the discoveries connected with the germ theory of disease, the wurk of Pttsteur, Lister, Koch, Laveran, and othei-s, carried forward more especially in the Ihitish Empire )>y Manson, Koss, Bruce, Boyce, and tiieir fellow workers. Lord Lister, who has but lately died, in the latter }»art of his life, when Ik' had revolution- ized siu'gery, gave his great name and inlluence t(» tin- movement for comixiting tropical disea.ses ; and science received support from statesmanship the strong support (»f Mr. Chandjerlain, as Secretary of State for the- Colonies. 'J'he movenient is still in f2 68 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. its infancy, but the discovery that flies and mosquitoes are the conductors of disease, that the anopheUne mosquito — as indicated by Sir Patrick Manson and proved by Sir Konald Koss — is the bearer of malaria, that the stegomyia is the medium of yellow fever, that the tsetse fly infects horses and cattle, that one or more species of that fly are the agents for spreading sleeping sickness among human beings ; all these and kindred discoveries hold out promise that the future record of the tropical dependencies of European nations will be widely different from the past. We find no analogy to what is now taking place in the history of the Eoman Empire. The Eomans had plenty of common sense and rare power of organization. They were well alive to the calls of public health, to the virtues of fresh air, of pure drinking water, and of good sewers. They knew that marshes cause fever: they even connected disease with insects bred in marshes, and mosquito nets are mentioned by Eoman classical writers.^ They or those whom they ruled, the Greeks and others, had considerable knowledge of medicine and surgery. There were writers on medical sub- jects, consulting physicians with large practices, and medical officers of health.'^ But there seems to ' See The Prevention of Malaria, by Sir Ronald Ross, 1910, chap, i, pp. 5-6. ^ 'The regular organization of public medical attendance in the Provinces dates from Antoninus Pius, who required the towns of Asia to have a certain number of physicians among their salaried officers.' Dill's Soman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, 2nd ed., 1905, p. 219. V ii) WATER AND MEDK'AL SCIENCE CO l)c iio icrorcl of llifir makini^ any great discovciv of the cause and tlu' prevention of some widespread disease in man or animal, wliicli would have effect <»n whole I'r. .vinces or groups of rrovinees. They evidently came across malaria in Campania, wliere Pompey cauirht fever, l)Ut what (iil)bon terms 'the fertile and happy Pro\ince of Campania, the scene t»f the early \ ictories and of the delicious retire- ments of the citizens of Konie',' nuist have Ixeii — possibly because it was better drained^widely diilerent from the Ivonian Campagna of our own day. the home of malaria and. be it noted, the .scene wliere in lUOO it was proved to demonstration that remaining at night time in a mosquito-proof dwelling: confers innnunitv from malarial fever. The h'onians. it nuist be auain repeated, conquered and held in subjection large areas, but for practical pur[)oses handled only towns and small areas. They were very rarely pioneers. They did not settle far afield, or stray into jungle or bu-^h. Nor did they administer trojiiral dependencies, lands where Ijuopean new-comers Were in danger of their lives from climatic causes. In other words, medical science anioiiLC the lionians was not called upon to .serve Imperial j»uii)o^es to any ajipreciablo extent, or, [>erha[»s, it would be nioi-e correct to sav that tlie Imperial [)urposes which luedicine served among ' Chap, xvii, 1802 iil., v..l. li. p. .T3G. Poo on tho sul.joct of Cam- pania in KoMian times, IVIliani's A'<>,i l;,.,n,i,i lU-tniy, . h.i]!. xii. 'Discoveries at Homo ', pp. •Jt3"5-74. 70 SCIENCE AND EMPIRE chap. the Eomans were smaller and narrower than ours. The most that medicine did for the Eoman Empire was to keep the soldiers as far as possible in good health, and to keep the towns and small highly planted and civilized areas in good sanitary order. If we take our own Empire, we find that medical science is working its beneficial results on a large scale in all the tropical and subtropical dependencies, as well as in Egypt. Malta fever, for instance, which has a far wider area than Malta or even the Mediterranean, since Sir David Bruce's Commission traced its origin to parasites, conveyed in goats' milk, has, where the use of that milk has been discontinued, almost entirely disappeared. India and the Far East, the West Indies, the North of Australia — all the tropics are becoming healthier for white men and coloured alike ; but perhaps the healing art, now become the preventive science, is doing its greatest work in tropical Africa, the land of the tsetse fly, of blackwater fever, of malaria, of sleeping sickness, of yellow fever, and many other diseases. What is medical science doing for this continent ? It is making the parts which were unhabitable for Europeans, or barely habitable, comparatively safe for them to live in. It cannot make a tropical climate not tropical, but it can transform, and is already largely transforming, unhealthy into healthy tropics. English families have lived continuously in Barbados and Jamaica for between two and three centuries, proving that the British race can V (ii) WATKlv AND .Mi:i)l( AI. SCIKNCK 7L live aiul tlirivo in healthy troi)ie.s. It does not seem oredihle at present that the West Coast of AlVica will ever he thus colonized, but it is already a ditVerent place from what it was forty yeai"s ago, larL,'ely l)ecauso medical science is conquering malaria. AssuminLr that it can never be a homo for British settlement, at least the economic results of medical scienci' will be most marked. Ad- ministering, trading, developing, will ])e carrie\ W . (i. llfithintl, lOO'J, vol. i, iluii'S. Niaiul vii. ini. :>.") ami -VJ. * FritHllilmkr, uuthoiizcd tnmslation, vol. i, pp. 304, 31-. 74 THE INDIVIDUAL, THE COMPANY, chap. country was organized as a Province, traders (mercatores) were generally on the ground. Alleged ill-treatment of merchants was not seldom a pretext for campaigns and annexation.' ^ Mr. Arnold again says that ' The Koman trader was ubiquitous. He even preceded the Eoman arms.' '^ Eomans traded with nations and races outside their Empire. If Mithridates found 80,000 Italians to put to death in one day in the cities of Asia Minor, it must be assumed that not a few Roman or Italian traders had made their way beyond the actual limits of the Roman Province. In the days of Augustus a large fleet of Roman merchant vessels plied between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and India, diverting as far as possible the trade of the Far East from the land route through Persia to the ports of Egypt. But none the less it seems safe to say that, in the making of the Roman Empire, the Eagles usually went first ; that the merchants, for the most part, came where — to use the terms of our own Empire — there was already a Roman Pretectorate or Roman sphere of influence ; and that, so far as they contributed to the creation of the Empire, they did so by giving ground for further intervention in lands where the State through its soldiers had intervened already. ' The Romans were not an adventurous people'^: they * Tlie Itoman liepiihlk, vol. ii, p. 217. "^ Roman Protnncial Administration, p. 18. ' Rome, in the Home University Library series, p. 11, by W. Warde Fowler. VI AND THK STATE 75 (lioint of view rather groups (»f town conununities than areas of country.' Fr«>ni liiis centre, as already said, the Empire widened out on all sides, always in continuity, by moving frontiers outwards ; and almost always by conquest, that is to say, by action of the State. The motive forces of the Koman Empire were the instinct of a military and conquerino: race. State policy and material advantages, tribute for the (iovernment and the governing city, which meant relievinu- the citizens of the crovernim; citv from the necessitv of paying taxes, and uain for the Ixoman merchants and usurers who went out or sent out their representatives into the Provinces. The Jhiti-h Jjupire is not, and never was, the London Em])ire. It never was the l*]mi)ire ("fa city, the Empire of a seat of (Jovernment. London is the greatest city of tlie Empire; but in overseas ' 'Tlu' RoiiKiii Kiiii>ire Wii-; iiuiinly an aj,'j:jiv<,Mto of citiis whirli were oiir religious aversion, sent out I British men and I>ritish families in munbera to settle overseius. For the Ivomans, on the other hand, and in the making of the Koman Empire, religion had little inspiring personal force. There was a State religi(»n, l)ut there was much more State than religion in it. ' It was the religion ol' the family, tlu' reliuiun also of the Eni}>ire of the world. Beginninu- in rustic simplicity, the traces of whi(;h it evi'r aiterwards retained, it grew with the power of the ixoman State, and became one with its laws. No fancy or poetry motdded the forms of the Koman gods; they are wanting in character and hardly distinguishabK- i'unn one another. Not what they were, but tlu'ir worship, is the point of interest al>out them. 'Those inanimate ])eings occasionally said a patriotic word at some critical jimcture of the I\oman allairs, l)ut they luul no attribtites or (pialities ; 78 THE INDIVIDUAL, THE COMPANY, chap. they are the mere impersonation of the needs of the State.' The Eoman rehgion 'was truly the " estabhshed " religion. It represented the greatness and power of Rome.'^ The Romans adopted other people's gods in addition to their own. Religious toleration was conspicuous among them, except when they saw political danger in a creed such as Judaism or Christianity ; but their tolera- tion was the toleration of indifference, and religion cannot be said to have been a living personal force to the Romans. Rome was not inspired to conquer by religion. Her conquests were not made in the name of and to the glory of the Roman gods. Nor did Roman pilgrim fathers go out to settle in strange lands. Christianity was the very opposite of the Roman religion. It made itself felt in the Roman Empire, as the religion of the individual not of the State, and thus, as Professor Bury points out, it operated as a dissolvent force in the Empire. It ' emphasized the privileges, hopes, and fears of the individual. Christ died for each man. It was thus opposed to the universality of the Roman world, in which the individual and his personal interests were of little account.' 2 Over-population and consequent distress seems to have contributed to Roman as to British colonization, but the difference of the two cases is ' Select passages from the TJieological Writings of Benjamin Jowett (1903), p. 163. "^ Bui-y's History of the Later lioman Empire, vol. i, pp. 33-4. VI AMj 11 1 1: STATE 79 Very iiiaiked. The oversea coluiiies ut' Caius Gracchus were designed to reheve the uvei-p<»pidati(»u of Kuine (tr Italy and fmd hind fur {nnn- citizens. The colonies planted by Augustus liad a similar intent, thouj^h, hke most Roman colonies, they weri- largely composed of «»ld st)ldiers. The Western half of the Empire Could not have been so thoroughly Romanized, without a considerable amount of voluntary settle- ment of Romans and Italians in the Provinces, side by side with existing, or forming the nucleus of future colonies. lUit none the less the main feature of the ivouian colonies was that tluy were part of a politi- cal machinery, ^vhereby groups of Roman citizens Were planted in conipiered lands, holding in check existing comnumities which had come under the rule of Rome. In short, Roman colonization w;ts in it.s essence a State matter. British colonization, on the contrary, has in the main been inde})endent of the State. Concpiest and colonization ha\e r diioctly intorvtiicMl. \vi' can often trace indirect intervention, notably in the ^rant ol" Kuyal L'liarters to associations of private citizens. The part phiyed ))y tlie State and the in(H\i(hial in the Roman and the British Empires respectively can be well illustrated by considerini^ and contrasting the position and the work of companies in the two Empires. Trading partnerships and companies are not peculiar to any race or any time, and among the Komans, as among other peoples, private citizens or associations of private citizens took contracts from the Government for the construction of pul)lic works or for other services, just as companies of contractors tender for and undertake the erection of public buildings, the btiilding of ships, the supply of stores, the conveyance of mails and various pul)lic services at the })resent moment. It is stated that joint stock companies or syndicates fii-st came into evidence in Roman history as doing work for the State, at the time of the Second Punic War, towards the end of the third century i;. e., when they tendered foi- supplies to the Roman army in Spain;' but the companies of whom we hear most in connexion with the Roman State were the Societatcs Puldi- canonoii, the companies (»f middlriiuMi who farme«l tlu' tithes and <»ther taxfs in the later days of the Repul^lic, and farmed some (»f the taxes under the Empire. I'lulei- the litpublic tiiev pai \<. '210. :?">1. liis G 83 THE INDIVIDUAL, THE COMPANY, chap. in each case to the Government and made what they could out of the taxpayers in the Provinces, being notorious as machinery for extortion and misgovern- ment. The members of these companies were capitalists, belonging exclusively or almost exclu- sively to one particular class of Koman citizens. Thus it may be said that in the Roman system, companies, so far as they had to do with the State and the Empire, were purely private companies, but were most in evidence as undertaking by contract one of the principal functions of the State, the collec- tion of revenue. They were private citizens who were middlemen and monopolists of State revenues, who did not produce or create directly or indirectly for the State, but who took over purely State work as a matter of speculation. Their existence and their functions seem to point to the fact that the Romans, if State led, were, at the same time, by no means State ridden. In modern days State intervention is accom- panied by multiplication of officials, whereas in lieu of creating a regular Civil Service to collect their revenues, the Romans, at any rate in the earlier days of Roman rule, left the duty to private contractors. There does not seem to be any parallel in the British Empire to these companies of ptihlicani. On the other hand, there is no parallel in the Roman Empire to the chartered companies, who have played such a notable part in our own Empire. In a sense these companies have been middlemen and mono- polists, that is to say, they have been a kind of inter- VI AND THK STATK 83 iiiodiato at^'eiicy. really lining State work, and in their original guise in i)a.st centuries they held a trading monopoly from the State as iigainst other British citizens. The great East India Company lieM a licence ov charter from the Crown to carry on trade in certain lands and watei*s to the exclusion of other British traders. But the shareholders in the East India Company and in other British char- tered companies were not concerned with exploitiiii,^ lands which had already been Ihoi'ouuhly cr»n(piered and dominated hy Great Britain, nor with speculating in revenues which accrued to the British (Jovei-n- ment, hut with trading in lands wholly outside British rule or colonizing hmds which were at most only Britisli in name. TIkv held no contracts from the Government, only a licence from the Govern- ment and a safeguard against competition from home. They took the whole risk. They made no profit out of the State, but indirectly Ijrought profit to the State. A Societa.s Puhlicafionon was a purely private company, not incorporated by the State, but it ditrated the initiative of piisate liiiti.^h citizens, who Went in fioni df the State and [)layed a con- spicuous paiM in building u[) tiie Hritisli liinpire. l\«unan citizens nevt-r >(.>ein to Iia\c loinied associa- G 2 84 THE INDIVIDUAL, THE COMPANY, chap. tions of this kind and on these lines. They did work for the State and made profit out of the State, but they took their lead from, rather than gave the lead to, the State ; and they did not to any appre- ciable degree go outside and beyond the State. The merits and demerits of chartered companies have often been discussed. Whatever may be said for or against them, the fact remains that the British Empire, as it stands to-day, is in no small degree the outcome of chartered companies, which have been a machinery peculiarly adapted to the British type. There are three points in this con- nexion which it may be well to emphasize, that chartered companies have been of different degrees and kinds, that there have been two distinct eras of chartered companies in the British Empire, and that these companies have been of rather special value to that Empire as contributing a much needed element of continuity. The Spaniards and Portuguese did not make much use of chartered companies for their overseas work ; though comparatively late in their history, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Portuguese, under pressure of war with the Dutch in Brazil, took a leaf out of their enemy's book and established a Brazil company ; while a century later, the Portu- guese minister, Pombal, created similar companies, also in connexion with Brazil. The French used chartered companies, but the genius of France did not lie in this direction. French chartered companies VI AND THE STATE 85 Were nut so much the oiitcuiiR- ot" coiuiiiereial initiative from l)elo\v as the creations of the State from al)(»ve; aiiert in another. The French companies, therefore, wanted vitahty, thev sutl'ered fn)m constant interference l)y the Govern- ment and Were perpetually made and unmade. The Northern — the Teut(jn and Scandinavian — peoples, especially the Dutch and the English, were most successful in their chartered companies. Tlie two great Dutch chartered companies, the East India Company and the ^^\'st India Company, practically embodietl the State in its overseas dealings. 1 hey were national associations rather than private concerns. The British chartered companies, on the ollar hand, were pri\ate concerns rather than national associations; Ijut they did national work. The influence of the State in con- nexion with chartered companies was far more felt in France and in the Netherlands than in l^ngland. In France it worked against strength and contimiity, and killed the usefulness of the companies. In the Netherlands it l^mvc such wholesale and continuous support to the companies that iluy weif }>ractically identified with the State. In fhigland the (h)Vei-n- menl was not so pernicious to the companies as in I'rance, and gave no such unwaviring supi>ort to them as in Holland. The Dritish chartered companies remained private companies. 86 THE INDIVIDUAL, THE COMPANY, chap. As the historic British chartered companies differed from the chartered companies of other nations in being less closely connected with the State or less constantly interfered with by the State, so the later British chartered companies have differed from the old chartered companies. The old chartered companies, which contributed so greatly to the making of the Britisli Empire, may be said to have come to an end, at any rate in their Empire-making capacity, when the Government of India was taken over by the Crown from the East India Company in 1858, and when the Hudson Bay Company in 1869 surrendered their territorial rights to the Canadian Government. But within a very few years from this date a new series of chartered companies came into existence, for between 1880 and 1890 the British North Borneo Company, the Eoyal Niger Company, the Imperial British East Africa Company, and the British South Africa Company, all received charters from the Crown ; and through their agency, directly or indirectly, little short of a new Empire came into existence. It is one of the most interesting features in the record of the British Empire, that its latest developments have been accompanied by and largely accomplished through the agencies wliich did so much for the original beginnings of the Empire. Once more in British history the individual led the State, and the State worked through and gave some endorsement to the individual. The first of these latter-day chartered companies, still in vigorous vr AM) TIIK STATE 87 oi)t*ration, was the British Noi-th Borneo Company, wliicli received its charter in l^sl. llu- tuundei-s uf the company had ahtady acsumcd no Dominion or sove- reignty over the territories so ac(|uired — such as woukl have been assumed under the old rhartei-s, and instead of giving to the company in their sphere of action a general monopoly of trade, it expressly prohibited any such general monopoly. Thus the new type of charter differed from the old ty[)e in that the State disclaimed sovereign rights over territorial ac(piisitions made by its subjects, thereby holding itself even more al(X)f than before from the responsibilities which the private citizens incurred ; and. on the other hand, it restricted the trading monopoly which had been the mainspring of the old companies so as to ensure that individual citizens, other than shareholdei-s of the company, should trade at will with the territories which the company had ac(iuired. In either respect the new type of charter tended to encourage private initiative.' The weakest iK)int in British colonial policy, taken as a whole, has been want of continuity. Most of our mistakes and misfortunes, notably in the past history of South AlVica, have arix-n from this cause. WritiuLT of the state of feeling in rpi»er Canada at ' For a compaiiH.in of tlie oUl uiul thf m-w iluut.Ms rft'i ronct' sliouKl b.' nuulf to lA)ra < inuivill.''.s ilisiuitcli to Sir H. Moiicr of .l.iiiii.uy 7. 1S«2, i.riiitfd in LUue Book C. 310S, 1^82. 88 THE INDIVIDUAL, THE COMPANY, chap. the time of his mission, Lord Durham said in his report, ' They ask for greater firmness of purpose in their rulers, and a more defined and consistent pohcy on the part of the Government ; something, in short, that will make all parties feel that an order of things has been established, to which it is necessary that they should conform themselves, and which is not to be subject to any unlooked for and sudden inter- ruption, consequent upon some unforeseen move in the game of politics in England.' ^ In this respect the Romans were infinitely superior to the English. They had a defined and consistent policy, and established an order of things to which all peoples in their Empire felt that they must conform them- selves. This is the good side of State omnipotence, as opposed to individual freedom and initiative. Individual freedom has made itself felt in bringing about party government in England ; and, so far as party government has affected Imperial policy, its influence has been all for the bad because it has been all against continuity. It has been stated above that in the beginnings of the British Empire there was no continuity and no system. This was in the seventeenth century, when the great Civil War took place and when State authority was constantly changing and much at a discount. But this same age was also a notable age for chartered companies, and chartered companies in their work beyond the seas in no small degree supplied the continuity ' 1912ecl., vol. ii, p. 192. VI AM) Till-: srATH h'J which the State (H«l not give, fur they hiil»hc recognition at honu' and abroad, Ijeing cunipused of juivate merchants they did not stand or fall with this ur that (Juvennnent or })arty. In the seven- teenth centm-y very especially, but also in later ages and in oin- own times, these companies have con- spiciiuiisly contributed tu continuity. For this we uwe them a del)t uf gratitude, as alsu fur the scope which they ha\e given fur evolving a race of administraturs (»iit of trading siu'ruimdings which led on to concjiiest and to rule. If the private British citizen, either alone or in combination, has taken a great i>ait in making the Kmpire, he has a great part to play in keeping it, J]nipire> necessarily imply inclusion uf dilferent races and dilferent types of the same race. In all Kni]»iies in«li\ idiials nmst have great indirect in- liuence. 'i'he in(h\ iilual I>riton ur German ur f)acian ur Xiiniidiaii iiiu-t lia\e formed a liking ur a hatred lur lilt lu.inans as a whule, largely from the kind oi' individual h*uman with whom he came into cuntact, just as the nativi' of India niu.^t ine\ilablv juh people as a whole from the indisithial Lngli>lii)i(ii wliniii he has si'rN'e(l or whom he has nut. Hilt the le-> an Janpire depenils upon iorce of 90 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE chap, vi arms, the more it depends for cohesion upon individual characteristics, and in this respect, as in others, the individual is of more importance in the British than in the Roman Empire. He is perhaps of most importance in that half of the Empire from which the element of force has been most eliminated, that is, in regard to the relations between the Self- Governing Dominions and the Mother Country. State wisdom or unwisdom may do much to make or mar good relations, but a more potent force still, and growing in potency as the opportunities of meeting multiply owing to better communication, is the action and reaction of individual citizens. This point has already been referred to in a previous chapter in connexion with the subject of old and young peoples. It is impossible to exaggerate the good which can be done by individuals and associations of individuals, such as the Victoria League, which bear in mind the individual from over the seas. For an Empire is a collection of human beings who live individual and private lives, and it will never be made one or remain one, unless public ties are supplemented by private intimacy and friendship, and unless to the sense of common citizenship is added the sure feeling of welcome to the family and the home. CIIAITKK \11 CLASS. COLOUR, AND RACE TiiK main (litl'ereiK-e.s Ijotweeii ancient and nioik'rn political systems arc usually held to l)c, that in the ancient world representative institutions \vcrc un- known, and that slavery was a fiuidamental element in every ancient commmiity. Negro slavery and the slave trade have stained the records of the British Knii)ire : but only in certain tropical dependencies of Great Britain — maiidy the West Indies — was slavery ever in any sense an integral factor. In the l\oman J'nipire. on the other hand, it was a standing and univei-sal institution ; and the existence of slavery throughout that Emi)ire created a great class dis- liiiclirkl, slavery was unt ininiiral to Empire; and in the Roman Kmi)ire it wa> not altogether a source of weaknt'ss and danger. Mr. Arnold states that, with the extension <>1 the citizenship, ' tlu' Konian Ihnpii-t.' came to he a honiomneous mass oi' pri\iKucd persons'; ' aiul it may laii'ly he argiud that the existence of sla\er\- ' Jlonnni J^-oiim lal Adminislivtiuii, l». 42. 92 CLASS, COLOUR, AND RACE chap. tended to produce this result, and to create a bond among all those within the Empire who were not slaves, as being privileged persons, which bond counteracted differences of race. The Koman Empire was a military despotism evolved out of a Republic or an oligarchy which had ceased to meet the requirements of the time. Slavery harmonized with despotism ; it was in a sense an appropriate base of the pyramid ; slaves and freemen alike were of various races and colours ; and the result of slavery in the Roman Empire was to make a class distinction which not only did not follow but tended to obliterate the lines of race. Among the freemen of the Roman Empire how far did class operate ? What relation did it bear to race ? and how far can we find parallels in our own Empire ? It is very difficult to compare Roman and British citizenship, or, as has been shown l)y a recent discussion in the pages of United Empire, to define exactly what British citizenship means. Citizenship among the Greeks and Romans attached to the persons, not to the place where they lived. The State was a collection of citizens, not a territory; for the earliest basis of political community, as Sir Henry Maine has pointed out, was kinship in blood, not local contiguity.^ Full Roman citizenship in- cluded both public and private rights, the former consisting of the franchise and eligibihty to office in ' Ancient Law, chap. v. VII CLASS cor.nrn and hack m the State, the latter ciiilxxlyiii^j:, anirniLr ctluT |)ii\ ilegt's, exL'inptioii l'n»iu what aiiinunirtl lo Jiiartial law. 'Tlie martial law uiidir which all other provincials lay. did imt ap})ly in him who could .say with St. Paul, " I am a Roman."' In the early days of Koine there was a threat ^ulf lixed between the citizen and the non-rit i/.eii. between the ciris and the pen'firinits, annil of Italy, but not to the Pro\ince.s. As Ixonian power widened in Italy, ditferent shades of partial citizen- ship came into existence ; })ri\ate rights, all or some, were given to individuals; jjublic rights, all or some, were given to town communities. Then the full Koman citizenshij) was extended to Italy; and iinally, at the beginning of the thii'd century A.n., it was made universal throughotit the Kmpire. From this time the only distinction left was that l)etween freemen and slave.s. It will l)e noted that the more Koman citizenship extended beyond the city walls, the less valuable one cdement in it. the franchise, ]>ecame ; for, as the Komans had no representative institutions, a Jvonian citizen could only vote l)y gf)inLr to l^)me. and when the K<'public was ex- changed foi- a despotism the vote at l\ome became of lit! le \alue. ' Arnold's /?yma» I'rovincial Administration, pp. 71-2. 94 CLASS, COLOUR, AND RACE chap. Starting originally with the tie of race as the basis of citizenship, the Komans stand out beyond almost all peoples in the extent to which they disregarded race, and in the liberality with which they widened their citizenship. Here is Bacon's verdict upon them : ' Never any State was in this point so open to re- ceive strangers into their body as were the Komans. Therefore, it sorted with them accordingly ; for they grew to the greatest monarchy. Their manner was to grant naturalization (which they called j^^s civitatis), and to grant it in the highest degree; that is not only jus commercii, jus connuUi, jus hereditatis, but also jus suffragii and jus honorum. And this not to singular persons alone, but likewise to whole families ; yea, to cities, and sometimes to nations. Add to this their custom of plantation of colonies, whereby the Eoman plant was removed into the soil of other nations. And putting both constitutions together, you will say that it was not the Komans that spread upon the world, but it was the world that spread upon the Komans ; and that was the sure way of greatness.' ^ Emphasis has been laid in the preceding pages upon the military basis of the Koman Empire ; but that Empire was, it need hardly be said, infinitely more than a mere creation of brute force. Gibbon calls the story of Kome ' the rise of a city, which swelled into an Empire'.- And in truth the Komans ' ' Of the true greatness of Kingdoms and Estates,' Spedding's edition, vol. vi, p. 448. ^ General observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West {Decline and Fall, 1862 ed., vol. iv, p. 403). VII CLASS, (.OLorK, AND KA< K 95 were the one people in tlie history of the w<»ilet and C'vrenaica was in the Western sphere. Eu'ypt was in the Mastern. Colour nm>t ha\e bei-n as luueh in e\ ideiice in Mauretania as in l!L:yj>t. but there was a race instinct anion-; the Komans against Eu'ypt and its ways which did not a[iply II M73 98 CLASS, COLOUR, AND RACE chap. to tlie Romanized districts of North Africa further West. Nor again, as has been said, was slavery in the Roman Empire in any way based on colour; and it is probably to this fact, as contrasted with the fact that in modern times a special coloured race — the Negro race — was marked out for slavery in the overseas possessions of European nations, that the difference of feeling on the subject of colour in Roman times and in our own should be attributed. Or possibly it should be traced more especially to the time of abolition of slavery and the consequent equalizing of the white and black races in the eyes of the law. Slave emancipation intensified with apprehension the colour feeling of the white oligarchy in the lands where slavery had prevailed, and it may well be that those lands became a nucleus whence colour prejudice spread outside the former areas of negro slavery, and coalesced, for instance, with the feeling of West as against East, in which, far more than was the case in the Roman Empire, the element of colour is also present.^ In the Self- Governing Provinces of the British Empire at the present day the coloured natives of the soil, though British subjects, are, more often than not, excluded from the franchise, as in Australia, for instance, or parts of South Africa, or British Columbia ; while ^ On the subject of the colour question in ancient and modern times see Lord Cromer's Ancient and Modem Imperialism. The views which he has expressed seem to be generally accepted. vir f'LASS, COLOUR, AND RACE 1)0 in New Zralainl, tlio Maoris have a spoc-ial n-pivsi-ii- tatioii : and iimst, if not all, of the Sclt-( lovernin^ Dominions have laws desi<:jnecl to restrict the a»hnission of coloured inuniirrants, whether thi-v aif British suhjects or whether they are not. In other words, in tlu' liritish llnipire there are disahilitiis attachini,' to race and coli»ur, which found no place in the Ivunian l'hn[iiiv. It >Iioiild he noted, lioweNcr. with reizard to tho colour (|ue.stion, so far as it concerns the relations between England and her dejJendencies at the present day, that the feeling on the subject is not merely the result of i)rejudice. but the result also of practical experience. In other words, colour pre- judice is one thini,% and what may be callee, and usually is. prejudiced against the coloured man, because he himself is white, while the other is coloured; and the j)rejudice is prol)abIy mutual. But thf white man. or at any rate the Knulishman, also iinds more rational ^rountl for discrimination, in that the (pialities, character, and u})brinL,dnij: of most colouit'd men air not tlio>e which are in demand for a rulinL;; race, and are not. except in rare individual cases, eliminatctl by education on the white man's lines. The same discrimination is made bvcolouretl laces tlu'mselves, or some of them. A peasant in India would, speakinij ;;enerally, look for justice to an l]nL,dishman in jueference to onal (■ili/.Lii.>liip 111 llif liuiuaii l.!ni|)irc was (•i»inI)iii(Ml witii tlu' stereotyping ufinilitarvilcsputisin. It WiiuM tic pciliap^ iiiiirt^ accuralf lo sav that all Kuiiiau citi/x'iis bc'caiue luweiitl id ilic K\«l of Iioiiiaii subjects, than tliat all Iioinaii sul)jfcts were raised to the level of Ivoiuau citizens. K(piality came in llio K'omau Empire as the result of the loss of freedom. l)i\eisity has developed in the British I'^mpiie as the result of the "^a'ow ih of freei.lom. The race and colour prol)lem has increased in ditiiculty in our Empire in {iioixirtion as some <»f the Provinces of that J^mpiie liavr become more and more self-governing, as the Emiiire has cK-veloped into two Empires, of which more will l)e said in a later chapter. Leaving the (piestion of citizenship, let us now ask what class di-iiiuliuiis in the ordinary >en>e llu'iv were among the citizens of the Roman Empire, and how far they correspondeil to our own. 'Tlure wcir rich and poor, then as alwavs, very rich and Very poor, millionaires and pau[)ers as in our nwii tlay, and as the Ijupire went en towards decay, luxury and extravagance incn-ascd in the upix-r classes — a warning to (jurselves. Thcri- were old I'atrician families and nnurcai(.r riclns^ and a class which has no parallel at the present day, of frecil- nicn wlio>L' former masters iiccamc (heir patrons with certain rights i)y law or custom. Theic weri- pii\ileges anil di-al'ilities attaching to j)articular 103 CLASS, COLOUR, AND RACE chap. classes. Senators had various privileges, and from the time of Augustus there was a hereditary senatorial class, analogous to the peers in the United Kingdom, though the eldest son of a senator did not ipso facto have on his father's death a seat in the Senate. Senators, on the other hand, incurred disabilities. For instance, they were de- barred by law and custom from taking a direct part in money-lending and financial business, and this business was almost exclusively in the hands of another class, the Equites. In the later stages of the Empire, social position seems to have been mainly determined by Government employment. 'The aristocracy of the Roman Empire in the fifth century was an aristocracy of officials. This is a fact to be borne in mind, that social rank ultimately depended upon a public career.' ^ In earlier days it may be assumed that, while bureaucracy was on the increase, social distinctions were, on the whole, much the same among Romans as among us ; but we look in vain in the Roman Empire for a counterpart to the growing strength and impor- tance of labour in modern society and in modern politics, and the development of a Labour Party or parties. ^ Bury's Iliston/ of the Later Boman Empire, vol. i, pp. 38-9. The writer points out that the members of the senatorial class were wholly removed from local or municipal surroundings, that 'the senatorial world was thus the undiluted atmosphere of pure Roman Imperialism ', and that the Empire came to consist of the Emperor, the senators, and the mass of Roman citizens. VII CLASS, rr)L(')T"R, AND V.MF. 1()3 Manual laljoui- alllun^ ila- Kuinans was, uinlt-r tiie l^'puMic ami al llu- lif^iniiiuijj ot" tlif Knipiri-, aiinust (-'Xflu.siv(.ly slaw labour. 'The slave- class of anti<[uity really furrespuiulcd to our t'rct' labouring class.' ' The Konian }>lcbs, who dt-nKUulfd pancm rt ('lrcfn.'<:es, did not apparently consist of wagc-carncrs. Tlu-y were rather a privilegeti class of unemployed, who looketl to the State and to the cumj[Ue>ts matle l)y the State to keip them ivd and amused. This fact, that manual ial»our was in the main slaw labour, accounts for the absence of any delinite labour movement or lal>oui- proljlems in tlu- Ivoman Empire, as apart from the general question of [>overty. We do not reail of our competition (Miters in ; a!id where, as in Australia, the laml is by nature adapted to be a white mans land and at tin ' Dill'-f lionutn Siicifly f'loin *Vf»v to Mhivilh AiitYliiin. '2nd oil., IIK).*!, bk. I, Lhap. iii, ' Tho Society of the Frtc^lincn,' \>. 10-.'. 104 CLASS, COLOUR, AND RACE chap. same time the indigenous coloured men are not numerous, the tendency to exclude coloured labour is largely due to the white labourer's determination not to allow his labour to be undersold and his wages to be reduced by the incoming of cheaper coloured labour. Where slavery was in existence, no such element of competition could arise, for even if skilled slaves were wage-earners, they were not in a position to determine upon what terms they would sell their labour.^ Mr. Dill tells us that under the Empire a numerous and important class of freedmen grew up and brought into the State the element, which had not previously existed, of free industrial labour. The different trades had their clubs and societies, some- what resembling modern Trades Unions, but being rather combinations for social purposes than for the protection of wage-earners against the capitalists.- If, however, free industrial labour on a considerable scale came into existence, it does not seem to have produced any of the political and economic develop- ments which have attended the modern labour movement. Presumably, to the end, the proportion of slaves among the labourers was large, and among ^ For the extent to which at Athens (whatever may have been the case at Romej slave artisans and free artisans were ' fellow- workers ', see Mr. Zimmern's Greelc Commonwealth (1911). ^ In addition to what Mr. Dill tells us as to these Guilds or Clubs, see Mr. Warde Fowler's Rome in the Home University Library Series, pp. 223-5. The guilds seem to have been largely what would now be called funeral clubs. Mr. Fowler says that we do not hear much of slave labour in the provincial towns of the Roman Empire. VII TLASS, rOLOUR, AND WXCT. 103 the Irc'c labuuifrs a coii^itltialtk- piopoiliuii wt-rc freeclinen, men ^\■\u^ had been .slaves, who still owed a kind of allcLiiance to their t'urnitr masters, and who bein^ themselves pliice«l in a privileLjed jiositiun l>y tile fact of havinu; been given their freedom, wire not one in feehm^ with the whole multitnde of manual labourers. To use a moilern term, there was no solithirity in the labour movement in tiie Roman Empire, if there ever was any laljuur niovtuiint at all; and lal)oin- was prevented from forming ono class by bfiiig itself divided into the two great classes of slave and free. In our own days the labotn* movement attracts imiversal attention in the political and industrial world. The Liberalism of the last centin-y in this country, from the date of the great Reform liill onwards, directed its energies to curtailing class pri\ileges and working for connnon citi/.enshiji ami equality of chances. 'Vlw aim was a noble one; the dream was gradually to wipe out cla.ss distinctions in the State, so that the State should all hv one. l>ut, as democracy grew in strength, and more especially as it developetl in the younger nations of the British Empire where custom and tradition had not the same biudiuL,' force as iu the oldt-r land, cla.ss reappeared from Ixlow .nnd iircanie far more than ever a political as well as .m indu>trial basis. Thus what Jiad Incn reg^niled as an c-vil half a century ago has now bfcoinc, foi' the time lieinu' at any rate, a settled i»rinciple of politics; .md 106 CLASS, COLOUR, AND RACE chap. a Labour Party, that is, a political combination based exclusively and avowedly on class feeling and class interests, is a prominent feature, perhaps the most prominent feature, in the public life of our time. How far does this great revival or new assertion of class accord with or militate against the instinct of race, and what bearing has it upon the future of the Empire ? The existence of a Labour Party implies the growing claims to ascendancy of manual labour ; it is a pronouncement that manual labour has a right not only to safeguard its own interests, but to bid for and in the name of the majority to acquire the control of the State. The Australian Labour Party govern the Commonwealth of Australia at the present time. They govern it as being Australians, that is, as residents in or citizens of a certain country, and as being representatives of labour, that is, of a class. Other Governments in plenty have governed in fact as representatives of some privileged class ; but in the case of a Labour Government and a Labour Party, class is openly inscribed on the banner. Now class is not coterminous with a particular race or confined by the limits of any particular country or Empire. We have seen that in the Roman system, the existence of slavery, that is, of class distinction in its most violent form, tended to modify and in large measure counteract distinction of race. What are the relations of class to race under modern conditions, class having become the VII CLASS, rOLOT'R AND RACF 107 fuiKlauRiital l)a.>i.s ul' uiil- j^ivat political party? The answer is that the lines of class largely coinciile with the lines ot" race, so far as tlu- liiu-s of rare coincide with the line-; of colour. Tiie lahoiir move- ment, as it exists in the Self (.J(»veriiing Dominions, is beyond m this it follow.N that in the British Empire the tie of class rims coimter to the tie of citizenship. To the labour man in Australasia it is of little or no account that an incoming coloined W(»rkman is a iiritish sul)ject, if he comes from India. He is a coloined man, not a white man, aneil oil race, and which chiss interest has adopteil and accentuated. l>ut when We leave the colour eculiarly strong factor as against the tie of citizen.-^hip or nationality. This instance of Canada and of Trades Uni«»ns in Canada with their connexions in the United States suggests that, in a chapter dealini: with class, colour, and race, a i)oint well worth attention l»y those who ai'O trviuLT to forecast our future, is the (piestion : What will he the })olitical rc-lations in the comim,' time between the British Empire and the I'nitiMl States? The (luestion may well be asked, because as a matter of fact one great Province of the Emi)iri'. Canada, destined in the judgement of many well aide to judge to be the corner stoiic of the arch of the Enii)ire, has had its whole history niouldi-d by the proxiniitv of the United States, anritish Emi)iri' in the f<«rm of some no CLASS, COLOUR, AND RACE chap. kind or other of Anglo-Saxon Federation. A rival picture it is, or would probably be, because it is difficult to believe that a federation of the kind would not be a dissolvent of Empire. The younger nations of the present Empire, if brought into some kind of partnership with the great Republic — already, in its own comparative youthfulness and surpassing strength, a most powerful attraction to growing peoples — would tend to become independent members of a loosely bound political system, in lieu of being, as at present, integral parts of an Empire under what Lord Durham well called, ' the stable authority of a hereditary monarchy ' ; ^ and the new organization, having its root in race affinity, would militate against the Empire citizenship which takes no count of race. It is an alluring dream of what is probably impracticable, but which finds some substantial backing in the class connexions to which reference has been made. The whole basis of any scheme of the kind would be race affinity, but as the years have gone on, race affinity between England and the United States has become more and more alloyed by the enormous influx into the American Republic of immigrants not of British and very largely not of Teuton stock. The Americans, too, have in abundance race and colour problems of their own, and it is difficult to picture any time, however distant, at which they would welcome any kind of close combination with an Empire full of 1 1912 ed., vol. ii, p. 263. VII CLASS. CO LOT 'II AM) \l\rK 111 race and colour proldi'iiis. CJrowiii^' iViciidsliip betwctii ( iitat Uritaiii and ihc British Dominions (jn tlie ono liaiul, ani' an institution or an Em}>ire. A state of nature is an imclothed world. But how far, weit-^k, does the history of the Ivoinan Empire or of the British Empire beai* out the dictum that force is no remedy, that no hinnan system can be permanent which is not base(l upon l)Ut in a greater or le.ss degree ruiLs counter to nature? If you wail long enough, everything human in tinn- decays, and the argument can always l)e used that it would not have deceived if it had not been artificial. This is the kind of judgement which is so often pa.-^.>ed upon the Ivoman Empire. People need to be reminded of the very carefully weighed wlfni hall" of the Eiupiic luiig uutliscd tlic WL>tfrn halt* and, in I'reeiiiaii's wurIs, 'Ktpt tlic puHticiil tiaditioii of tho eklci- Ihiiiiirc unln'ukeii.' ' However \sc look at it, the lioiiiaii Empire, in om- form or ancjther, was very luiig-lived, antl side by >iile with its long life, wi- have to set the fact that it was a most arti- iicial creation, the one artificial creation which placed itself bevond all ct)nipetition and l)ecaine coterminous with the civilized world. It was based on force, and it stands out to all time as contradicting the dictum that force is no remedy. At the same time, while the Koman Empire was essentially artificial, it matle what may be called concessions to nature. Though differences of race and nationality were in the main overridden or ignored, the great root ditferenco })etween East and West was recognizetl, and tho East was left to l>e Greek in civiliziition rather than Koman. Though the Empire was the residt of conquest, tho coiupiest was to a large extent tho result of natural expansion. Tho Empire grew by constant and continuous accretions of atljoining territory, not l»y ac(juisition t>f lands wholly removed from the centre of life. Further, with >onie excep- tions, such as liritain and l)acia, there were more or less natural boundaries to the Fhnpire, whicli Were more or less observed, the ocean, the ilesert t>n tlie south, the great rivers of the Rhine, the I)anul)e, and the lOuphrates. Within the F]m[)ire, too, in ' Historical Gtohi/ i>/ Kiirope, liiS'2 cd., p. ii75. 1 -2 116 THE NATURAL AND chap. Mr. Arnold's words, ' the Romans showed greater power of assimilation than has been shown by any other conquerors,' and they ' were not cursed with the passion for uniformity.' ^ They actively encou- raged municipal institutions, they tolerated local creeds, their armed forces gave peace, and peace made for natural conditions under a mihtary despot- ism, which was an artificial regime. In a previous chapter it has been attempted to show that the British Empire has owed more to the initiative of private individual citizens and less to the State than was the case with the Eoman Empire. That is another way of saying that our own Empire is not such an artificial handiwork as was the Roman Empire. Inconsistent, illogical, full of contradic- tions and diversities, the British Empire gives every evidence of having in great measure grown at will, as opposed to being made to order. Men argue, therefore, looking at this Empire and considering how it has come into existence, that what is lasting is based on nature, and what is transient is the out- come of State interference and human will or caprice. To illustrate how dangerous generalizations of this kind are, we will take the case of one great Province of the British Empire, Canada, and examine how far Canada of to-day is a natural or an artificial creation. Canada was first colonized by the French. Its beginnings were, in the words of Francis Parkman, those of a mission and a trading station, and it was ^ Boman Provincial AdministnUlon, pp. 5, 22. VIII Tin: AirnrrciAL iir lint until lliu reii^ii ni" Lniiis Xl\' that it Kt'caiiif in tliu true .sense a C(jl(»iiy. ' The object of Loiiis XI \' aiul his adviseis was to reproduce France in America, to make Canada in tact, as in name. Xi-w Fiance. With tliis object the forms ami custnms ot" the <>ld world were transplanted into the new, and a teiidal system was created on American soil, and canu- into ))eing not as a historic u'rowth. but by order of a despotic kinu'. '^Vn iuiiorant poi)ulation, spruiii,' from a l)rave and active race, but trained to >ul)- jection and depemlence through centuries nf feudal and monarchical despotism, was planted in the wilderness by the han»l of authority, and t(»ld to grow and tlourish. Artiticial stimulants were applii-d, but freedom was withheld.'^ Parkman goes on to tell us that • the Canadian Ciovernment was essentially militarv',' and that the })opulation in large measure sprang from soldiers and was recruited by (.lisbaiided .soldiers. For instance, some companies of the famous Carignan-Salieres regiment, which had Im. n sent on service to ( 'aiiada, were disltanded in ( "anada, the otliceis were c(jnverted into .seigniors, and the non-coiiiniissioiied olllccrs and men hild Lzrants of land tVoiii theii- foiiiK r otliccrs. The Royal 'Inteii- daiit ' of ('anada, ialon, who pi-..p..-rd .and carried out this scheme, in recoinnienl)><. ' See Munio'8 Sri'jniohul Sif^t^in in CnwuUt, p. 68 iiiul note. 118 THE NATURAL AND chap. out in a previous chapter that French settlement in Canada had much in common with Eoman colonization. Canada then, or rather the Province of Quebec, was settled by the French on a purely artificial system, the only natural element in it being that the colonists were given the same conditions — artificial conditions — that they had known in the Motherland. Lord Durham's verdict upon the French Canadians in his report was that ' They remain an old and stationary society, in a new and progressive world V ^J^d he recommended the fusion of Upper and Lower Canada in order to absorb this old-world conservatism of French Canada. The seigniorial system was eventually abolished, but French Canada still bears witness to the strength and permanence of a colonization carried out on purely artificial lines. As part of the British Empire, French Canada has been, in spite of Lord Durham's recom- mendation, allowed in the main to take its own line of development, and the result is that French Canadians to-day are more nearly allied to the French of the eighteenth century than to the French of modern France. In other words, a colony which owed its inception to the will of a king and was organized under hard and fast rules made by a king, which was artificial in every sense, except that the artificiality was reproduced from the old home, has held with singular tenacity to its original character. Now, if we turn to the boundaries of Canada, we * Lord Durliam''s Eeporf, 1912 ed., vol. ii, p. 31. viir TIIK AlMII'I'IAr, 111) can hardly iintance, it simply follows a parallel «»t" latitude. At some points, as in the north-oast, where the ]\Iaine l)oundary ([uestion in past vears nearly hroiiudit on war between (Jreat ]>ritain and the Ignited States, or in the reL,don <»(" the Lak*- of till' Woods, the boundary is almost Lrrotescpielv contrary to nature. The whole line is the result of treaties made liefore the geography was known, of subseipient interpretations of the treaties, and of political compromises. The gradual delimitation of this nnnatm-al and inconvenient boundary left Canada, or rather liritish North America, the very antipodes of a compact territory. It was in short little nioiT than a Lreou^raphical expression. What was the a^jcncy which gave it cohesion and the })eL:iiniinu' of a national (existence? The answer is railways, the Inter('()lonial railway which wa-- the condition of the Maritime Provinces feilerating with the Canadas, and the Canadian Pacific railway which was the condition .if IJritish Columbia enterini.; the I)ominion of Canada. No single work of man in any pari of the world at any peii-'d >,[' the world'.s liistory has so obviously and directly contrilmted to the makiuL: of a nation ;i^ th(> transcontinental railway in ( 'anada. That Canada t«)-day is .a Dominion from sea to .sea is not the result of nature. 120 THE NATURAL AND chap. it is the result of human handiwork, though behind that handiwork, it is true to say that there was the instinct of nationahty. This instinct, if not called into being, was and is most powerfully nourished by the neighbourhood of the United States, of an always present, in the past not always friendly, power, not separated by any natural boundary and possessing all the attractive- ness of strength, wealth, kindred race, and language. It was in order to resist this attraction that Lord Durham recommended the union of British North America, so that the danger of being absorbed into the United States might be met ' by raising up for the North American colonist some nationality of his own'.^ Canadian statesmen feared that Canada might be absorbed not only by conquest but, in the alternative, by peaceful means and financial pressure. This was in large measure the origin of the policy of high protective tariffs, which was advocated and carried by Sir John Macdonald as a national policy, and which has held its ground to the present day as being a national policy. In other words, once more the artificial has, with a view to preserving national existence in Canada, been set against the natural. From first to last Canada is an instance of a nation growing up not on the lines of nature but rather in transgression of those lines. The original colonists were planted out by rule, they have never amalga- mated with the race which came in after them so ' 1912ed., vol. ii, p. 311. viir Till-: ARTIFICIAL r.»l that tlu'ii' should Ik- race cohesion tliroiiL'li tht- whulu J)uinini<»ii. that l>t)iiiiiii(>n has tlic lUfst unnatural Ixnindaiy, the cohesion Avhich it has attained is tlie dirc('t result of scientitic invention, and nationhood has been satei,aianled l>y the most ai'titicial of all human devices, a Protective Tariff. Yet Canada, thus constitute*!, ))ids fair to kad tln^ liritish Emi>ire and has already achieved a hiuh })lace amont; the peo})les of the world. In order to avoid a.s far a> possible matters of current controversy, it is not i)roposed to enter upon any detailed discussion in this hook of tlu- nu'rit> and demerits of j^referential tariffs. It may well or plausibly be ari,'ued that the ^reat natural re-sources of new countries are the secret (»f their history, that where land is abundant, j)opulation small, and means of living plentiful, political experiments are not so dangerous and harmful a> in niaturLtl couununities, and that, theref«»re, the root of the matter is after all in the natural and not in thr artilicial. Frrr Trating that the father of Free Trade. Adam Smith, has a ^(mhI wortl for the Na\iLratioii Arts, which esjucially embodied the old merfaiitile .sy.-^tem. *A> drhiicc', he writes^ 'is of much more importan<'e than 122 THE NATURAL AND chap. opulence, the act of navigation is, perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.' ^ It may be pointed out again that if, as has been con- tended in a previous chapter, the family analogy gives a true representation of the relations that exist or ought to exist between Great Britain and the Self- Governing Dominions, Imperial Preference, the root principle of which is membership of the same family, is in its essence far more natural than Free Trade which draws no distinction between members of the family and aliens. Further, it is most noteworthy that the young nations of the Empire, having been given self-government, in other words, having been set free from artificial restrictions imposed by the Mother Country and left to develop on natural lines, have, from the instinct of self-preservation or other causes, shown a strong preference for the artificial as opposed to the natural. The case of Canada has been quoted. Let us take Australia. The doctrine of the school according to nature is that goods and men should as far as possible come and go at will without artificial re- strictions. Australia is an island continent colonized from Great Britain, and Great Britain very wisely obeyed the call of nature and threw the reins on the necks of Australians, giving them their heads in the race for destiny. The result has been that they have turned in the making of their nation to the artificial, to high tariffs and to race exclusion. There ' Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV, chap. ii. VIII TllK ARTlKIi'IAI, l-^) aro vciv LTOod reasons in i-itlu'i- ca-se ; and Australians are lliu ri^'htful kufpt-rs of the I'utiuv oi" .Australia and the best judges of Australian interests. But licrt' we have a curious contrast hctwern the Ivonian and the British Empires. The I Ionian l]nii)ire was a tfiuniph of the artilicial, a niilitarv di'spotisni. ^'ct in this artitieial whole, and to some extent hecauso it was artitieial, that is t(» say lu-cause force i)revailed and meant comparative p<'ace, natural conditions pre\ ailed to a consiili-raMe extent in tlii^ locality and in that. There was an absence of political freedom, but there was no want of liviuLT ac<-ordinL: to nature. Especially it should be noted that un which further reference will be madi-, probably inort- l-Vee Trade and fewer Customs barriers in the Konian ]'an]>ii'e than in th(^ Britisli EnijMi-(\ which is the out- come of Self ( lovernnient and Free Trade combineire. .and in those jiarts of it where the intention was most cleaily shown that development -hould be on natural lines. 124 THE NATURAL AND chap. there the world has learnt the lesson that artificial restrictions commend themselves to the instincts of young peoples, who do not feel safe in entrusting their future to the course of nature. They may be wrong; they may be short-sighted and erring un- wittingly against the light ; but the fact remains that, while England through obedience to natural laws has given that freedom which has enabled the Empire to be a nursery of young peoples, the young peoples judge that they can only fulfil their destinies as nations by calling in the artificial, not merely to supplement, but in large measure to counteract nature. Closely akin to the antithesis of the natural and the artificial is that of facts and appearances. Do not tell me what this man or this thing looks like, the whole question is what he or it is. That is a very common form of expression, which commends itself as being downright, going to the root of the matter, and indicating the view of an honest, straight-thinking man. It is a most dangerous view, if applied wholesale to Empires. In his Essay on the Government of Dependencies, at the conclusion of the chapter on the ' Advantages derived by the Dominant Country from its Supremacy over a Dependency', Sir George Cornewall Lewis discusses the ' supposed advantages flowing from the possession of dependencies, which are expressed in terms so general and vague, that they cannot be referred to any determinate head. Such, for example, viir Tin- AT1TIFIi(l to derive from :ui extensive cdloiiial Kiii])ire.' lie (Hsinisses the suhject l>y sayiiiL!: 'that a nation dt ri\t- u.. trne «^h>ry from any possession wliicli produces no assign- able ad\antage to itself i»r to other conununities ', that, it" a country receives no access ot" strength, no commercial advantages and so forth from a de|)i'n- dency, to be set against the evils of dependence, 'such a possession cannot .justly be called glorious.' ' The writer, thoULch he published his Ijook in 1841, afti-r Lord JJidhiuit's Ui port had seen the liudit, conceiveil of a cohtnial Empire as consisting solely of depen- dencies. He had no vision of a system containing alike dependencies and Self-(,io\erning I)ominions, and he uses the word glory to empluusize his argu- ment that appearance without fact behind it is nothing worth. E\en glory is something more than vainglory. A nation does not win glory without thereby deriving some permanent residt. good or bad, uj)(»n the character and the thought of its members. But if for the word glory we substitute prestige or credit, we realize that a{)pearances may be in themselves substantial facts. The wortl pres- tige has )>een attacked — nuich as C'ornewall Lewis attacked glory as being a foreign word importing an idea of ])ombast, which is, or ought to l)e, foreign to linglishmen. Credit, on the contrary, is well known in matter of fact conunercial circK'^. A merchant tradis in great measin*e on credit. It is ' (•'oierumint of DijHiultiicitu, Ib'Jl eil., jip. 2Z'.\ 4. 126 THE NATURAL AND chap. possible that he may have little or no actual cash behind it, but if he possesses credit, in other words, if he is believed to be a man of substance, he can carry on transactions which would otherwise be out of his reach. Appearance in this case is an actual fact. Similarly, nations also largely live on credit, they are largely judged by appearances, even more so than individuals, because they are less liable to daily close inspection from experts. Further, the more competition there is, the more important appearances are. The Eoman Empire for the greater part of its existence had no competition, it was in the position of a successful monopolist, and the Komans were so assured in their position that appearances mattered less to them than to us. Yet it can hardly be doubted that their Empire would not have held out so long, in its time of decay, had it not been for credit and appearance exceeding the actual facts of the case. The shadow of the Roman Empire was something without the substance. The Empire looked stronger than it really was in its later days, and the Roman name alone was an asset. Our Empire is far from holding the unchallenged position which the Romans so long enjoyed, and appearances are proportionately more important to us. Let us suppose that, as a matter of fact, we derived from the Dominions and dependencies beyond the seas no advantage whatever in commerce, or for defence purposes, or in any other direction. Still the fact would remain that the British Empire VIII THE ARTIFICIAL 1'27 luuk.s large uii llic map ; tlial iIr- woiKl iu gnuial, the mail in tiic stiLct, judges «»t' iiieii ami tilings by wliat they louk hke, n»>t l>y what they are ; that our Kin]Hre oil the map, uii the (»ne haiul, suggests mucli to be taken by those who are prepared to go to war, and, oil the other hand, gives an a[>pi'arance ot" strength which woukl l)e wholly wantinir, if (Ireat Ihitain had no ovei-sea possessions. In short, those who try to e>timale aright the value ot" our Empire will never leave out ol' sight the inipoi- tanee of appearanees. which are even more p(»teiit in day> like our own of widely spread half knowledge, than in former times of fairly general ignorance. There is yet another side to this sul)ject ol' appearances. In Arn'ont anil Mixlrni JntjitTialism Lord Croiner, like Mr. Arnold who has \x.'vn (juoted above, places the Ii'»mans far ahead of any modern nation in power of assimilating subject races. They iiad, lie thinks, a much easier task than has fallen to the lot of modern Ihnpires, for they Were not confronted by the ditliculties of colour and religion which are obstacles to us. At any rate, they were more successful in Ivoinanizing other races than the nations of modern lair. .pr have ))eeii in assimilating their subjects. Among these modern nations the English are LT'^neially >uppose(l to have less capacity for assimilation than, at any rate, the Latin in-ojiles. Lord Cromer hoMs that ' oiu- haliits are insular, ami our social customs render us, in comparison at 128 THE NATURAL AND chap. all events with the Latin races, somewhat unduly exclusive '. On the other hand, he gives as the result of his almost unrivalled experience, ' the conclusion that the British generally, though they succeed less well when once the full tide of education has set in, possess in a very high degree the power of acquiring the sympathy and confidence of any primitive races with which they are brought in contact.' ^ Similarly, Mr. Arnold writes of the Komans : ' Kome was extraordinarily successful in civilizing barbarians, not perhaps so successful in dealing with races already of a high type.' ^ In comparing the English with other modern Europeans in this matter of assimilation, Lord Cromer finds that while the English are wanting in ' social adaptability, in which the French excel ', they have, on the other hand, * a relatively high degree of administrative and political elasticity.' 2 These views may be summed up as follows. The Romans were more successful in as- similation than any modern nation, partly because in the Western provinces a larger proportion of their subjects were in a primitive stage and, therefore, ready for the melting pot than has been the case in modern Empires. The higher and more civilized races are, the more difficult they are to assimilate, because they are more stereotyped ; and, lastly, assimilation has two sides, what Lord Cromer calls * Ancient and Modern Imperialism, pp. 74-5. * Roman Provincial Administration, p. 6. ' Ancient and Modern Imperialism, i^ji. 84-5. viir THK AKTIFK'IAL 1:29 'social adaptaljility ', and what he calls ' adiiiiiiistra- tivc and political cia-stifity '. Now if the English, by common coasent, have been wantinLi: in 'social adaptability', it is because they are more inditl'erent than other peoples to appearances. If, by common consent, they have been successful as administrators ami makers of Empire, it is precisely for the same reason, that they have disregarded appearances, cared little for logic and uniformity and dealt with facts. But in propor- tion to the success brought by administrative and political elasticity is the drawl )ack arising from absence of social adaptability ; for the better the work d miierally classed under the term artilicial. But the truer 1479 K 130 NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL chap, viii explanation is that the home Briton is too natural, he does not care for appearances or estimate them at their proper value. If he could really become more artificial, he would seem more natural. In short, if we desire to keep goodwill among the nations of our Empire, we must pay more regard to appearances. C'lIAPTKi; IX Till-: TWO EMPIRES ITnw far \va>^ the Ivmnan Einpiro, and Iiow far is thu liriiish Kin})iiv, uiic Kiupiiv / It is not easy to gather the answer to the (luestiun as regards the Ivunian Empire from those who have \vritten with authority on the suhject. Cornewall Lewis says, 'The reguhitions resj)ecting the appoint- ment, powers, and rank of tlie Ivoman governors, and the chn^ation of their ollice, constituted the only part of the prtnincial institutions of Kome whieii were uniform throughout the Provinces. In all other respects there was the utmost diversity in the l)rovincial governments. It was the general policy of the Konians not to make more changes in a con- quered territory than were necessary for retlucing it to complete subjection.'' Mr. Arnold writes, ' It is exceedingly ditlicult in discu»ing the Provinces of Kome not to talk of them as a whole, and as a fixed whole. Put, in truth, the Koman w«'rld is a worKl contiiuially growing, developing, changing, always tending to a imiformity but never fully reaching it. The ditferenco between Past and \\'est is nevi-r o))literated, and at last victoriously a.sserts itself. ' (ioitrnnuttt of' DtpnuUttclrs, pp. 119-20. K -2 133 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. The Romans showed greater power of assimilation than has been shown by any other conquerors ; but even they could not assimilate a civilization like that of Greece, which was in some respects superior to their own. So the Greek East was not organized, after the strict type of the Roman Province, into colonies and municipia until a late date.' But he goes on to note, ' the large and increasing element of unity. The administration was everywhere of much the same type.' ^ Professor Bury tells us that * The Roman world was a complex of diiferent nations and languages, without a really deep-reach- ing unity, held together so long by the mere brute strength of tyrannical Roman universality, expressed in one law, one official language, and one Emperor — a merely external union. Naturally it fell into two worlds, the Greek (once the Dominion of Alexander) and the Roman ; and this natui-al division finally asserted itself and broke the artificial globe of the Roman Universe.' This passage empha- sizes the artificial character of the Roman Empire, a point which has been discussed in the last chapter ; and it seems at first to suggest, as Mr. Arnold's words also suggest, that the Roman Empire was two Empires in one ; but Professor Bury goes on to negative any such conclusion. ' The actual territorial division between the sons of Theodosius did not theoretically constitute two Roman Empires'; and in the Preface to his volume, he is at pains to con- * Roman Provincial Administration, pp. 5-7. IX TIIK TWO KMPIRES l.-^^ tradict tlic r-omnionly i-opoivod doctrino that the Em})iR' hrokc up into an Eastern and a Wcstorn Knipiif. ' Nothing can l)eea.si('r than to a}>prehend that the Konian Empire endured, one and uu- (Hvided, liowever chani^'ed and dismembered, from the fh-st century n.c. to the fifteenth century a.d.'* His view is home out hy Professor Freeman's words quoted in the last chapter. - The Tvoman Empire was nocossarily very (Ull'erent in one era from what it was in another. After Diocletian, for instance, had handled ami recast it, it was widely different from the Em})ire which Augustus left l)ehind him. It may, therefore, well be objected to any comparison bi'tween the Koman Empire and the British Empire at the present day, that the Roman Empire wa.s one thing in one centm-y and another tliinu in another, just as the British l]mpire at the end of the nineteenth century was poles asunder from the Briti.sli Empire at the end of the eighteenth centiny, and still more at the end ol' the seventeenth century, so far as it then existed. l>ut the objection is not wholly a valid one. The tnie conchi.^ion seems to l)e that, in sjute of the niaiiilold ehanges which time wrought, in spite of the statesmanlike (hsrcL^ard for miifoiniity ^vhich (he K'oiiians showetl in (heir bc.s( (hiys, in .spite of (heir (ojeration of local creetls and usages, ' .1 Jll^tnnj of Ihf lAitk)- Jioman Kmititf, vol. i, y. 3G, ;uul PrefiiCP, p. viii. - .\b(jvf, !>. 11'). 134 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. the Eoman Empire, so far as it was an Empire, that is so far as it was a poUtical organization, was from first to last one Empire. If it was artificial, 'a merely external union,' at any rate it was all artificial. It Avas one, whichever way we look at it. It was one in authority, even when emperors were multiplied. The imperium, we have seen, was one and undivided. At head-quarters, at any rate in the early days of the Empire, the Emperor had all the powers of the State in his own hands. He had no departmental ministers, recognized as such, no Foreign Secretary, no Secretary of State for the Colonies.^ The nearest approach to any division of authority was the allotment of the Provinces made by Augustus between the Emperor and the Senate, but the real power remained with the Emperor. In each Province again, when the Empire was at its best and strongest, the governor was supreme in all respects and combined all powers. ' The special feature of the Roman system was its union in one single head and hand of functions which the modern system takes care to separate.' ^ It is true that the time was when in the British Empire also the governor of a colony was actually, as he still is nominally, commander-in-chief, when ' Mr. Arnold in Roman Provincial Administration, p. 133, in writing of the early Roman Empire, says, ' The Emperor was assisted by his Cabinet ; and his secretaries for the conduct of the different branches of the administration became ministers of state,' but no authority is quoted for this statement. ' Arnold, 1. c. p. 54. IX TIIK TWO KMrniKS 135 he had judicial l'uiicliuu>, ina.siuiU'h as hi> l]xrculi\'L* Council was a Court of Appeal, while he always was, and in the Crown Colonies still is, directly responsible for the iinances. It is also true that, in the later days of the Koman I^nipire, the command of the troops in those Provinces in which legions were stationed, was separated from the charge of till- Civil Administration ; so that it miL,dit bo artjued that the pusilion and powers of a governor of a Koman Province did not widely dilfer from those of a governor of a British Crown Colony, if they are compared at corresponding epochs of history. 1)111 it was not so. The perfection of the Koman system was union of all authority in one IK'rson. The perfection of the British system is entrusting diiferent functions to different hands. In its essence the Koman system was an imdivided despotism. Mr. Arnold sums it up in the words, ' Koine had imdertaken an impossil)k' task, that of riding an innnense Empire without federation and without a representative system, where the solo sources of power were the Supreme Central Covern- ment and the army.' ' It seems strange to say that the task was imi)ossible, when it was performed so IdIiU and >o etliciently, and it lias yet to he proN'ed in the history of the world that a military despotism in lioinaii haiuls was not as loni:dive(l as, or more longdived than, soimder systems in other hands. But there will always l)e two oj>posite points of view ' Romnn Proviiiciul Admiiiintrdtion, p. 108. 136 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. from which the Eoman Empire can be regarded, one which seeks for the reasons why it declined and fell ; the other — surely the wiser one — which tries to discover why this Empire lasted so long. From either point of view, however, it can be summed up that in the matter of authority the Eoman Empire was one, the result of a single military despotism. It was one in kind, too. Great as the Empire was, it hardly reached, in its southernmost limits, in Egypt and Arabia, to the Tropic of Cancer. The North of England or the South of Scotland was its northernmost bound. It took in East and West, but only the Nearer East, and the West only in Europe and North Africa. It was in the main a Mediterranean Empire, all or nearly all within the temperate zone, not concerned with lands of great cold, not concerned with the Tropics, not concerned, as has been said, to any appreciable extent, with coloured races. The Provinces differed one from another in this respect or in that. The Greek East, as a whole, differed from the Eoman West. But all the Provinces in East and West alike were of the same general type. All bore the hall-mark of town life. All were thoroughly conquered ; all were partially colonized ; ' and, as the franchise becomes more and more extended, the Eoman law comes to be the only law over the whole Empire.' ^ ' Arnold's Roman Provincial Ailministmtion, p. 32. IX THK TWO KMPIRKS 137 It was one au'aiii in icVLiiue inattoi>>. The receipts t'mni the taxes, other tliaii octrois ami numicipal t*L\es, all went to tli<' Imperial Treasurv. as we should now call it, including (as long as the provinces were divided between the Senate and the ICniperor) hotli the aerariuni and the tiseiis. It is true that, not heing 'cursed with the passion for uniformity', and \(iv })rol)ably acting on their favourite principle of tliiidc ct Inipfra, the Konians allowed considerable varieties of taxation as between the different provinces. Even the Portoria, or custfuns duties, were not uniform. 'In this respect the Empire never formed a united whole, but was divided into a number of large customs districts, within wiiich the scale of the tax varied consider- ably.' ^ The customs duties were a.s a rule ad ralorrm duties, l>ut the rate varietl. Five per cent, was charged in Sicily on imports or exports, 2,^ percent, in (laid or Asia. The duties were levied for revenue, not for protective purposes, but we have an indication of protective duties as against the foreigner, in that ' the Egyptian ports were, if not direct 1\ barred, at anv late i)racticallv closed, by ditferential custom tlues against Arabian and Indian transports'.- No doubt taxati<»n within the Konian l']nipii-e was far from unifoiiu, but for diversity of tarilfs tile Ivoman pr(»vinces wouM not compare with ' The linpinal Civil Stirice of liotiif, \>\ 11. Miittingly (Ciimbiiil}.,'e Historicul Essays, No. xviii), 1910, p. 10. • Monuuscn's Pmriiicis o/ tht Hainan Kmpivf, vol. ii, p. 299. 138 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. the British Crown Colonies, let alone the self-govern- ing Dominions. The reason is that the tariffs in the different British colonies or dependencies are, with some few exceptions, as when British Free Trade may have dictated to India, arranged in the interests of each colony or dependency. The Romans, on the contrary, from beginning to end, never let go the principle of tribute to the central power. The provinces were to pay the cost of their Government, but the surplus was to go to Rome. Financially, as in other respects, the Empire was one. Bacon's view of the Roman Empire is specially interesting, because he lived just at the time when England was on the threshold of her Empire work. Roman colonization, it has been seen, was mainly military colonization, but what Bacon found to admire in the Romans was the extent to which they went beyond the mere planting of garrisons in conquered countries. * I find,' he wrote, or rather pleaded, 'by the best opinions, that there be two means to assure and retain in obedience countries conquered, both very differing, almost in extremes, the one towards the other. The one is by colonies and intermixture of people, and transplantation of families . . . and it was indeed the Roman manner ; but this is like an old relic, much reverenced and almost never used. But the other, which is the modern manner, and almost wholly in practice and use, is by garrisons and citadels, and lists or com- panies of men of war, and other like matters of IX THE TWO ENiriRES 130 tfiior aiitl Iditllt'.' ' 'I'lie Roman J^mpiie, in his view, was i\w result (•!" conquest, l»ut of eonquest assured by coloniz^itinn and widening of citizenslii}), whereby, to quote again words of his whicli have ah*eady been (quoted, ' It was not the Konians that spread upon the world, l)Ut it was the world that spread upon the Konians.*- Uj) to liacon's time Knipire had been synonymous with ('onefore his eyes and within his ken, must have seemed another illustration of owrrunninu a world. To him the Ixomans stood out as being more than mere (•(>nqueroi"s. Where they eon(iuered, they colonized also. ' Ubicunquc vicit Romanus habitat.'^ But Bacon's words bear witness to the fcict that this great Komaii Jhupiie was (^ne, and one only. .VU of it was the result of conquest ; in all of it there was .somethintr more than conquest. No part of the Empire contrasted with another part, as being different in kind, it was all one Empire. What wouM Ikicoii have said of the present l>ritisli Empire? He coidd only have come to the conclusion that it is two Empires in one, that this fact marks it out from all the Empires of the world. Before i-nlarging upon this feature of duality in the British I']mpire as contrasted with the unity of the ' ' disc of the Post Niiti of Scotland, ' Speddinj^'s edition, vul. vii. p. 661. ' 'Of the Tnio Grcatnt'ss of Kinf,nloniR ami KstatcB,' Spfuldinjj's edition, vol. vi, p. 44><. ' Seneca, Diiloijues, xii. 7. 7. 140 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. Roman Empire, there are two points to be noticed which are at least interesting for the purposes of comparing ancient and modern history. We are taking what was incomparably the greatest Empire of the ancient world side by side with the greatest Empire up to date of modern times, and we have seen that the greatest ancient Empire was one in authority and in kind, all in the same zone, in the main continuous, compact, and practically coterminous with civilization. Now the most remote province of this great ancient Empire was part, not all (for the Roman province of Britain at no time included either Ireland or the Highlands of Scotland), of the motherland and centre of the great modern Empire ; and this modern Empire lies almost entirely outside the limits of the ancient Empire. Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus were w^ithin Roman bounds, and Egypt, though not part of the British Empire, may be said to be under British hegemony or protection not very far removed from its status in regard to Rome under the later Ptolemies, before it definitely became a Roman province ; but otherwise the whole of the British Empire is in parts of the world which Rome never knew and which never knew Rome. More- over, we have the interesting fact that, while the Roman Empire was all in one zone, which con- tributed to its unity, that zone and the Roman part of it has become, beyond all other regions of the world, split up into separate and independent nations. On the other hand, where England has overflowed IX Tin-: TWO KM PIKES 141 into ttiuperate zuiies like her own, slu- has t'oiind them ^vhully outskle Euiupe, and veiv largely in the most remote part of tlie world, in the far south. The contrast between the Kouian and 15riti>h Kmpires is illustrated and emphasized, if it is borne in mind that thev are in the main geographically exclusive of each other ; and yet we have this curious halt-link )>etween them, historical and geographical, that the most distant province of the Roman Kmi)ire, cut oil by the sea from the main body, became the heart and nucleus of the modern Empire. The second point concerns the diversity of tlie British Empire as compared with the unity of the Ivoman Empire. What Wits it that made the Koman Empire one? The answer, which has already been given, is loss or absence of freedom. It lu'came more one in proportion as liberty disappeared. In the same i)roportiou the British Empire has l)ecome less one ;i.s freedom has grown. The Ixoman system produced a structure which lasted for almost if not <|uite an unparalleled time, but we are told to believe that it lasted, as an old oak lasts, more dead than alive, and perished because the source of life, which is freedom, was dried up. It is for the futuie to show— and herein lies the intense interest of the British llmpire whether the diversity in that Empire, being born of freedom, will preserve the liie of the whole, whether the true road to unity is through diversity, because divei*sity means freedom. 142 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. The British Empire, it has been suggested, is two Empires in one. It falls into two wholly different, and in the main, mutually exclusive spheres, which may be distinguished as the sphere of rule and the sphere of settlement. It is obvious that these two spheres differ wholly in kind. The sphere of rule is an Empire over tropical lands and coloured races. There the English have come, not to settle, but to administer and to rule wholly alien peoples. The sphere of settlement is an Empire of dwelling-places in lands which are outside the tropics and inside the temperate zones. It is an Empire not over but in the hands of white races, mainly our own British race. The English have come there to settle in the lands, to make them British, to rule the lands, it is true, but mainly to rule themselves. Keproduction is the key-note of the sphere of settlement, govern- ance is the key-note of the sphere of rule. Of the sphere of rule it may be said that the English are in it but not of it ; of the sphere of settlement that the English are both in it and of it ; and this difference is illustrated by the fact that the self-governing Dominions are all British soil, all lands held in complete sovereignty and ownership, whereas a considerable proportion of the sphere of rule is technically only under British Protectorate. In kind, then, there are two British Empires, not one. How does it stand in the matter of authority ? The whole of the British possessions are the King's dominions, whether they are in the sphere of rule or ix THE TWO HMIMUKS 143 in the sphere of .seltleiiieiit. It cauiiut l^e too stroiiLjly emphasized that alleLriancc to one Kiiiir, to one Crown, is the ;:^reatest ol" all honds ol" union in the British Kni})ire. Nor can it be overlooked that the bond is not merely to the Crown its representing the State or the race, but is also a i)ersonal tie to the King for the time reigning, all the stronger when, as in the case i»f his present Majesty, the reigning King- has in a miique degree personal knowledge of all parts of his dominions. This loyalty to a person is liable tt) ))e underrated. One of the great mistakes made l)y the English after the conquest of Canada was to overlook the fact that French-Canadian loyalty had been to pei*sons rather than to institu- tions ; and at the time wise governoi>!, like Carleton, emphasized, thuiigli with little or no result, the importance of making the Canadians feel that under liritish rule they were still the King's men. Kspecially is this personal side of the monarchy to be l^n-ne in miiul in regard io Eastern races, and herein lay the statesmanship of creating the title Emperor of India. l>ut taking the Crown as the embodiment of authiirily. h<>w far is it one? It has been said that thuugh Kunian Emperors were nudtiplied, the authority was one. There is but one Crown in the British Empire. Does it represent inidi\ ided authority? His JMajesty the King is Emperor of India, he is the constitutional King of Canada ; he is the K*ider of India in a wholly ditVerent .sense from that in which he is Kinu ui Canada. This means 144 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. one person representing two kinds of authority, as opposed to the later stages of the Roman Empire when there were more Emperors than one but only one authority. But this statement does not quite meet the case. There is division of authority, but the root of the division is not, so to speak, in the Crown itself, it is in the advisers of the Crown. Great Britain has acquired an Empire ; part of that Empire Great Britain rules, the other part is not ruled by Great Britain, but is a reproduction or reproductions of Great Britain. His Majesty is the constitutional King of Great Britain. Therefore, both as regards the United Kingdom itself and as regards the parts of his dominions which are ruled by the United Kingdom, he is, whether as Emperor or as King, advised by the Ministry of Great Britain. His Majesty is the constitutional King of each of the reproductions of Great Britain, that is to say, of each of the self-governing Dominions, but here, through his representative in each Dominion, he is primarily advised, not by the Ministry of Great Britain, but by the Ministry of the Dominion. In this lies the division of authority, which did not exist in the Roman Empire, even when the Roman Empire had no longer a single head. The general statement has been made that the British Empire is two Empires in one, each Empire outside the other. It is a statement which is broadly true, sufficiently true to give a fairly accurate bird's- eye view of the whole. But, as a matter of foct, in IX TIIH TWO KMPIRKS 115 till- lirst place, tlu' t\vi> >|»hcics i^t" nilr and .--fUkiULiiL arc lint (|uit«' niulually exclusive; aii white races. All of tlieiii had once aboriginal inhabitants. The aboriginal natives are now extinct in Newfoundland and Tasmania. In Canada, and still more on the continent of Australia, they are — from any other than a philanthropic point of view — a negligeable (juaiitity ; hut in New Zealand the Maoris are a very appreciable element in the population, and in South Africa the coloured men largely outiiuinV)er the wliite, making the native question the greatest of all ►South African problems. Nor are the Self-Govern- ing 1 )Mniiiiioiis all outside the tropics. The South Africa 11 Cnion toucdies the tropic of (Capricorn in the north of the Transvaal. The whole of the north of Australia is within the tropics; and Australia has a tropical dependency in Papua, as has New Zealand in the Cook Islands. If, on the other hand, we turn to what has been styled the >[)here <•!" rule. W(> tiiid that, so far IVoin all of it btiuu' inclutled in the tropics ov all of it the lit>me of ci»loured races, the Mediterranean colonies are within this sphere, so are 1473 L 146 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. the Falkland Islands, so is Bermuda, which last colony is largely self-governing. If we go inside the tropics again, to the West Indies, here are tropical islands which have been the scene of British settle- ment since the seventeenth century, and which had a large measure of self-government long before any one of the present Self-Governing Dominions, except Newfoundland and the Province of Nova Scotia, had any connexion whatever with the British Empire. Within each of the two spheres the diversities are great. In the sphere of settlement not only has South Africa a native problem, which Canada and Australia have not ; not only are Canada and South Africa differentiated from Australia and New Zealand in that from the beginning of colonization Canada had the French element in its white popula- tion and South Africa the Dutch ; but in this very respect in which they differ from Australasia, Canada and South Africa may be compared and contrasted in various ways. For instance, the French Canadians are much more concentrated in one part of the Dominion of Canada than is the case with the Dutch in South Africa, and again the only political liberty which the French Canadians have known in their history has been in the form of self- government on the British model and under the British flag, whereas some of the Dutch in South Africa have known political liberty in other forms. It is important to emphasize that the Self-Governing Dominions differ so greatly from one another, that IX TIIH TWO KMl'lKES 117 they liavr divcTsc ek'ineiits, Nvliitc aiul rt»luinv(l. in their populatioiis, and conditions varyinLT arcordinLC to latitude antl longitude and lantl and sea ; for one main cause of inaccurate tliinkinii; on the pruhleni of the reUitions between the Dominions and the Motlier Country is that that prol)U'ni is usually presented as oiir ])etween two parties only, the Dominions on th<' oneside,and theMotherC'ountry on the other, wlu-rt'as wo have not to .li:o farther than the Imperial Confer- ences to lind abundant illustration of the fact that the divergence between one Dominion ami another is as great as or greater tliaii the divergence between any one of the Dominions and the Mother Coimtry. Has Australia, for instance, more in common with South Africa or with the United Kingdom? In connnon with South Africa and as against the United Kingdom, it has space and youth. It has its bush as South Africa has its veldt, it has not a few similarities to South Africa in climate, products, water supply or want of water, and so forth. Both are young communities in a somewhat similar stage of develop- ment : they will to some extent compare in numl>ers of the population. On the other hand, Australia has practically no native problem, and in race antl all that race brings with it is as lirilish a.-^ Jhigland herself. How can the pioldem of lunpire be rightly presentetl as one l»et\veen (ireat Di'itain and Australia, (»r one between (ireat Britain and Sonth Africa, and never its between Australia and South Africa, and >o forth oi'the r)tlier Doniini<»ns ? L -2 148 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. To speak and write and think of the Self-Governing Dominions in their relations to the Mother Country as a homogeneous whole leads to misapprehension of the difficulties and the possibilities of the British Empire, but it is still more misleading, though it is hardly so common a failing, to overlook the vast difference between the various dependencies which are included in the sphere of rule. What could be more different than Gibraltar from Fiji, the Malay Peninsula from the Falkland Islands, India from West Africa ? It has been seen that some of the West Indian islands, Barbados for instance, with its long record of British colonization and representative institutions, have historically a claim to be placed in the sphere of settlement. India again is on a wholly different plane from West Africa, and is so completely organized as a unit, so equipped with a complete administration, that it has been a question whether it should not be one of the parties to Imperial Conferences. Further, there is this interesting and notable feature in India that as Great Britain has colonized the Dominions, so India, through the operation of the indentured coolie system, has colonized not a few of the other tropical dependencies of the Empire, Mauritius, Trinidad, British Guiana, Fiji. It has, in short, to some extent supplemented Great Britain in the British Empire by playing the part of a Mother Country. But if we take the case of India, as being the British dependency which is on the highest plane. IX THE TWO KMl'lllKS 149 we sliall I'iikI tliat ilwvc is in roal truth a great gulf lixetruction perhaps the most advanced of the British dependencies — never has been and never will be made Bi-itish by settlement. If it Were to be jdaced in the category of self- governing peoples, it would l)o placed in a category to which it docs not natin-ally belong, and it would be endowed with entiit ly aheu institutions, which for many generations tt> conie would be hanlly 150 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. intelligible, much less beneficial, to its millions of inhabitants. Further, the above argument assumes what many authorities have warned us is not and never has been the case, that India is one, instead of being the home of the most diverse races, creeds, classes, and sorts and conditions of men. In Lord Durham's report self-government was to be the concomitant of union, and responsible government has attained or is attaining its fullest expression in groups of kindred communities, made or being made by union or federation into larger wholes. Such unity as there is in India has not sprung from the people or the soil. It is the result, as the Roman Empire was, of all the diverse elements being controlled by one alien rule, which has produced, again to quote Professor Bury's words applied to the lioman Empire, ' a merely external union.' If self-govern- ment were granted to India, this bond of union would largely disappear, and the diversities would prevail. It would be impossible to estimate how many generations must pass away before union, which must be the basis of self-government, can come from below not from above, from within not from without. India, which perhaps of all parts of the British Empire is most nearly akin to a Roman Province, has been taken as the British dependency which is on the highest plane. It is on the highest plane, partly because there has been in this great Eastern IX THE TWO EMPIRES 151 land a civilization uiikiunvii to neti:ro or Paeitic lands of barbaiisni, partly because British constnictivo administration has here been lun^:est at work, and has found its widest and fullest field. IJut the fact that India, i>r {lart of India, has been the home of a civilization of its own, does not necessiU"ily make it a more proniisinii; area for future self-government. The conservatism of the Eiist is proverljial, and lands which have known no goveriunent at all, other than baibaric usatje, niav conceivablv be a more comrenial soil for [ilanting alien institutions than one which possesses a system or systems deep rooted in the past. British constructive administration in India has been successful, not as havinu; brouijht in political institutions of a British type. l)Ut as having bettered what was in India already, that is more or less pei-sonal rule. It has uiven what was and is under- stood, and ni>l a House of Commons, which would not be understood. Self-government implies the many, not the few : and it is not until the many have in the long coui-se of ages been wholly trans- I'oiiu.mI that the sphere of ride can ])0 assimilated to the >[)li(rc of settlement, thouuli tlu' few may be and are beinu' incicasin^dy as.sociated in the Work an then roughly true to say that the I'ritish Empire is two Empires in one. Let us suppose, Ijy way of fmther illustration, that the l^mpire consisted only eillirr of the sphere of settlement or of the 153 THE TWO EMPIRES chap. sphere of rule. Could we in either case find analogies ? If there were no India and no Crown Colonies and Protectorates, the British Empire would consist of the United Kingdom, Canada, Newfound- land, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, forming a group or federation of self-governing communities, linked together in partnership under one Crown, and having in the United Kingdom a predominant and to some extent managing partner, for the reason that the United Kingdom is the ancestral home of the common King, that it formerly- ruled the other partners, that it is the Motherland, and is still, though in a constantly decreasing pro- portion, far ahead in strength, wealth, and population. There is no analogy to be found to this political association, either in the Roman Empire or in any other ancient or modern Empire. At first sight, to compare great things with small, there was some- thing resembling it in Greek history, in the famous confederacy of Delos, which started as a League of Sea States of kindred blood and origin, with a j^re- dominant partner in Athens, the league being formed for common defence purposes, and the partners contributing, some in money and some in ships, while the executive control was left in the hands of Athens as the predominant partner. If we could forget how the Ionian confederacy began and how it ended ; if again the question of Naval Defence was, even more than it is, the all-absorbing question of our Empire ; and if the Sclf-Governing Dominions IX TIIK TWO KM I' IRKS 1:^3 left tlio cniitnd of their ships whollv in tlie hands of the Athniralty, we .shuukl lind some parallel lutween the two CiLses. l>ut tliis Cireek league began with menibers which were entirely indepeiulent States, and ended with nienihers which were tributary subjects of Athens. Our system is composed of units which ha\e Ixtii steadily growing from subordination to etpiality and partnership. We cannot lind analogies to the British Empire in (Ireece, l>ecause all the (Jrcek colonies started as independent .States. The Koman Empire gives us no parallel to our sphere of settlement, because its history is a history of taking away, not enlarging freedom. Nor does modern history gi\'e us anything with which to compare Great Britain and her colonies as opposed to her ilepeiidencies. We must comfort oui*selves with having, for better or worse, presented the woi-ld with something wholly new. If, on the other hand, we eliminate the Self- Governing Dominions, if the British Empire at the present day consisted solely of India and the Crown Colonies and Protectorates, we should have the case of a conij)aratively small init strong nation ruling a)j>olul»ly leirilorirs and [)eoj)lfsin si/.e and numbers out of all proportion to itself. The pojiulation of the United KiuLTtlomat {)nt Indies is an exceptional case. Nothing could he more remote from the military colonization of the Roman Empire. The (juestion asked at the beginning of this cha])ter was, 'llow far was the Koman Enipiri', and liow far is the Hritish Empire, one Empire?' The answer is that the Koman Emi)ire was one, that the Ihitish ihnpire is two in one; that each of the two halves of the British Empire contains the most diverse elements ; that one half is a })olitical structure wliich has no connnon groinid whatever with the itoman Empire and cannot bo compared with it in any way ; that the other half admits of cumparisttn but still nil ii-e of cont I'ast . CHAPTER X THE BRITISH INSTINCT AND THE LAW OF NATIONAL LIFE How did the Romans hold their Empire for so long a time ? How has the British Empire been held together up to date? And by what means, judging from past experience, and from the signs of the times, are we likely to continue to hold it ? The answer to the first question has been abundantly given already. The Roman Empire was held by force, supplemented by assimilation, the nucleus of which assimilation was in the Roman colonies. It may be emphasized once more that the Romans used force so effectively and so con- tinuously that they placed their Empire beyond the possibility of competition. It became not the strongest or greatest in a group of competing kingdoms, nations, or Empires, but for centuries practically the only Empire. According to the view which each student may take, it may be said to have lasted so long because it had killed out competitors, or to have decayed for want of competition. At any rate, the only civilized power which the barbarians living in the outer darkness had ever known or heard of was the Roman j^ower. niAi'. X THK r.urrrsii instinct i.-)? 'i'licTu was lu) ollnr power wilh wliidi llii'V cniikl compart • it. In 15riti>li history overseas much has tuiiKnl and still turns, in many ami ditt'erent respects, on knowledj^'c or want of knowledge, on ahility or inability to com})arc. This can be illustrated on various sides, all (»!" iluin interesting though not all germane to the subject of this chapter. In North America the relations iK'tween the colonies which now form the l^'nited States and the Mother Counti-y snl!'ei»(l greatly because, communication l)eing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries relatively worse than it Wiusin the Koman Empire, the colonists did not at any given time know what Great Britain was doing at the other side of the world. They saw British mistakes under their eyes, })ut Marll)orough's victories which, as a matter of fact, brought the Treaty of Utrecht and assured British possession of Nova Scotia. Newfoundland, and the coasts of Iluilson l^ay, being remote from them, were not compared with and weighed against failures in America. When the American War of Independence came on, the French Canadians, a lately contpiered people and strongly attached to I'rance, did not. with very few exceptions, rise against I^ngland, though invited to do so liy the revolting colonies, largely because they had had ojiportimities of comparing the ]']nglisli from honu' with their ICnglish neighbours and former enemies in Anuiii a. They did not want the English in any t'^'riii, but of tho two t \ pes they 158 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. preferred the English from England. At the pre- sent day the negroes in the West Indies compare favourably their own status under England with the status of the negroes in the United States ; and this comparison means a strong attachment to England in the black population of the West Indies. Take again the case of India. The natives of India only know British i*ule. They would probably appre- ciate it more fully, had they been able to compare it with other alien white rule. Where British rule is side by side with other European rule as in West Africa, there are clear indications that the native races prefer British rule. England, in her relations with native races, has gained greatly, not from the fact that the English are popular as a race, but from the fact that wherever there is a possibility of comparison, at any given time or place, some other people is usually found to be more unpopular. This feature did not enter into the Eoman Empire, because it had no competitor, and because its basis openly and avowedly was force. If the Eoman Empire was held by force, how has the British Empire been held together up to date ? Again, let us take separately the two separate halves of the Empire — the sphere of settlement and the sphere of rule. The Self-Governing Dominions and the Mother Country have so far been held together, by starting, in the main, from a common origin, by allegiance to a common Crown, by the sentiment which a common X TllK r.rJTISH INSTINCT l.VJ origin ami a cuininnn alley:iaiiLL' Iia.s cieaud ami preserved, by substantial advantages accruing tn the Dominion:^ from their coniicxjon with the Mullu r Country, mainly protection from toruign enemies, and the supply uf capital tor j)urposes of dcvcloii- nient ; and over and above these Ijonds of union. l»v the constant renioNal of restrictions on liberty and the steady encouragement of larger units. The policy which has produced existing cniiditiniis in the self-govrrning half <»f the Drilish Kmpire originated in L<>rd nuiham's report, and the e.ssence of that report was that self-government is in British or Anglicized connnunities the l)asis of content, though the self-government which he sketched out for Canada fell very far short of self- government as we know it at the present day ; that self-government should V)e preceded or accomi)anied by union of coterminous Provinces into one hu'ger whole; and that this dou))K' process of giving freedom, anh a> of the K'onian ra<'e. bnt the constructive genius of either race has shown itself in dilferent ways. The Ivomans set themselves to buikl u[) one 160 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. Empire on a despotic model. To make the one whole, they kept the parts divided, in order to concentrate strength at head-quarters. The English for the last sixty or seventy years have set them- selves to build up nations within the Empire. They have taken the method of devolution, and made the parts into larger units, thereby giving them greater strength relatively to the centre. The success in doing so up to the present date has been due to greater continuity in this respect than has always been apparent in British history overseas. It has been pointed out in a previous chapter that the Romans were far superior to the English in continuity of policy, and that want of continuity has been the chief failing of the English in the matter of their Empire. It is difficult to dissociate a Govern- ment from a people. The kind of people produces the kind of Government ; and party Government in England, which is at the root of any want of continuity in policy, is the product of English love of freedom. But, so far as Government and people can be dissociated, want of continuity in British colonial policy has been due to the Government rather than to the people ; and in giving freedom to the younger British communities of the Empire, and creating or encouraging larger units, there has for once been continuity of policy on the part of successive Governments, with the happiest results up to the present time. It may be summed up that the United Kingdom and the Self-Govcrning X TIIK IIKITISH IXSTINXT If.l Duiiiiiiiuiis lia\u been IilKI togetliL-r up to the present time, because, apart i'v*>in what may i)e called temporary sources of irrilatiuii, there has been no substantial reiuson why any of the Self- Governing Dominions should wish to part from the Mother Country and leave the Empire, and there have been substantial reasons why they should not want to leave it. The dependencies of Great Britain, as opposed to tlie Self-( JoverninLT Dominions, like tlu' Koman Provinces, have, speaking generally, been held l)y force, open or in reserve, but by force perpetually receding into the background as good government has produced good will. At the risk of vain repetition, the main features of the story of Great Britain and her dependencies, as opposed to the Self-Governing Dominions, may once more be sum- marized as follows. Trade has bred conquest, and conquest has de- veloped into rule. Similar stages can be traced in the over.seas history of other European nations ; but beyond the seas, as at home, in s[)ite of much want of continuity of policy, and in spite of a mischievous cliaracteristic oi Englishmen at home to assume that the laws and institutions which are ^ood for Englishmen in Enuland nuist necessarily \)v good for all other races under all othei' conditions, there has been more growth ami evohilioii in Hritish history than in the history of any other power with which Great Britain might be conq)ared. 1«T3 .M 163 THE BKITISH INSTINCT chap. There has been much going backwards and forwards, greatly to the detriment of the subject races as well as of the dominant people, but on the whole there have been few violent breaks in the history, just as there have been few eras of meteoric brilliancy. The English did not overrun a world or a continent as the Spaniards overran Central and South America ; nor did they rise from being traders to be conquerors and then sink back again. By holding their own, they gathered round them more than had been their own, and in every quarter of the world where the English have gone, there has been, over and above their great contests with other European nations, a gradual widening of the British sphere either by a series of small wars or by more peaceful means. It has already been noticed that to the work of ruling the dependencies so acquired the British character has not brought any special power of assimilation. British citizens who have gone among coloured races have lived more outside them than has been the case, for instance, in the dependencies of the Latin peoples. This has been a source of strength rather than of weakness, not only on the assumption that the sphere of rule is to remain a sphere of rule, but probably also if the ideal of the future is that the sphere of rule is eventually to broaden out into something more than a collection of subject dependencies ; for it must be counted as a gain that there is no apparent likelihood of self- X THE BRITISH INSTINCT 103 governing communities eominL,' into being on any great scale in the British Empire of the type to be found in certain parts of Spanish America, where liyljrid p()puhiti<»ns handle democratic machinery with little result bt-yond constant revolutions. What the British character has contributed tu the task uf riding is liunusty, as men g(j, and the instinct of fair play, common sense, and })ractical con- structiveness. The success which Great Britain has attained in dealing with her dependencies has been mainly due to the combination of the strong hand with honesty and justice. She has given to them from without what they had never received IVoni within, srciuity for life and property, justice between man and man, immunity from extortion, law instead of caprice. Connnon sense has made against violent changes, so that the Enghsh, like the Romans, have on the whole dealt gently with and turned to good account native customs and institutions; anliis lur dependencies. In other Words, it is eonceivaljle, though nio>t unlikely, that England might at some future date have to choose })etween her sphere of settlement and lur sphere of rule. This point will be further noticed below. Taking the sphere of rule lirst, how will it Ije retained? The answer is fairly simple. As far as can be judged, it will be held simply and .solely by the same means that have been hitherto employed, by good government with the strong hand behind it. It must, at the same time, be recognized, that being held on these lines and by these methods, the dependencies have been, or are being, more or les.s transformed. Good government and constructive work has meant not merely multiplying numbers by giving security for life and facilities for living, but also raising the status of peasantry or tribesmen, who before the advent of British rule were held of little or no account, linking u}) tiibes and States and prinri[»alities into larger imits, intellectual and moral development, and the partial substitution of British civilization for other civilizations or for many types of barbari>ni. As in the sphere of settlement, so in the sphere of ride, the policy of Great iMitain has been the reverse of the Pi/idi' rt Impcra policy ; but whereas in the sphere of settlement British methods have residted mainly in liroadening and enlarging 166 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. without transforming, in the sphere of rule they are resulting to some extent in making something different in kind. New conditions, bringing in their train new problems, are being evolved to a greater degree in the sphere of rule than in the sphere of settlement, and science is setting itself to modify the effects of climate. Still, as has been pointed out in the last chapter with regard to India, the greatest British dependency, we have to look very far ahead to contemplate seriously a time when the depen- dencies of Great Britain will cease to be in the true sense dependencies ; and it may be safely concluded that if the British Empire simply consisted of Great Britain and her dependencies, it would be held together as long as, and no longer than, Great Britain retains her strength. When we turn to the Self-Governing Dominions, there is no such simple answer to be given. There are two preliminary comments to be made, sufficiently obvious but not always sufficiently regarded. Aristotle has told us that the objects of revolutions are great but the causes or occasions of them are small. 1 It is these apparently small causes or occasions, originating with individuals rather than with Governments, which are most likely to make or mar the Empire. The individual had more to do than Government with making our Empire, and the individual will probably in the long run have more to do with keeping it. It is not statesmen who are ' Oil nfp\ yuKpbov dXX' (k fxiKpap, Politics v. 4. 1, X THE BRITISH INSTINTT 167 going to have the final say as to whetliLr the British tamiHcs arc going to conic closer to one another or to drift further a j)art. The ultimate decision will i-est with the men and women who make up the diilVrent British families, who live everyday lives, and are guided not so much l)y liigh State policy as hy instinct and c«>nnnon sense. It is, therefore, a very great and real mistake to regard the future of the Empire as depending in the main upon Ministers and Government offices. It depends in an increasing degree, as distance diminishes and knowledge grows, upon the individual citizens. It is also a great mistake to argue in regard to the problem of Empire as though men and women, and comnumities which are made up of men and women, did not act, as they do almost invariably act, from mixed motives ; to lay down that sentiment is the one bond of Empire, or that the Empire wholly depends upon connnercial interests, and so forth. What holds the Empire together and what will hold it, if it is held, is an aggregate of considerations, one of which will perhaps be predominant at one time and in one connntniity and another in another, l)ut none of whi(,-h will hold the lield exclusively. N()W, having seen how tiie Dominions and the Mother Cotmtry liavo so far l)een held together, let us iisk what motives are there likely to be in the Dominions for .separation from the Emitire and what motives i'i>r remaining in it. The main motive-^ lor separation will be twofold, oiu' more sentimental 168 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. than practical, the other purely practical. The first will be the increasing and perfectly natural desire, which grown up peoples feel as strongly as grown up men, not to be subordinate even in name, to control their external as well as their internal relations, to be sovereign peoples in the eyes of the world. The second and practical motive is, or may be, the desire not necessarily to be involved in all the liabilities of the Mother Country, partly on financial grounds, partly from fear of in any way compromising existing autonomy. There have already been indications that a Dominion may not wish, when the Mother Country is at war with another power, necessarily to take an active part in the war, unless the war is to some extent of its own making and on its own behalf. Similarly, in the early days of the old American colonies, the New Englanders tried to make a treaty with Canada on the terms that they should remain at peace even though England and France were at war. With regard to this second motive, however, it is specially important to bear in mind the point which has already been emphasized, that the Self-Governing Dominions must not be treated or thought of as one in their relation to the Mother Country. Nor must it be forgotten that party Government holds the field in each of these Dominions as at home, and that, therefore, the views of one Government even on Imperial questions may be utterly different from those of another. The dominant feeling in one X THE imiTI^^II INSTINCT ir,D I)oiiiiiii()ii at a ^iveii tinic may Ije to stand outside thulial)iliti(vs of tlio Mother roiintrv, and in anotlior not to stand outside tiieni so much as to have a Noice in determining^ thcni. It i- pciliaps r(»UL,ddy true to say that the first of the two motives given above, the sentimental dislike of the ai»[)earan('e of sub- ordination, operates, or is likely to operate, quite as sti-ougly in tlie more purely British connnunities as in the more mixed connnunities ; but that in the case of the second moti\'e, if we allow for party government and ihe divernent views of Liberal. Consen'ative, and Labour parties, and ti-y to strike an average, the more purely British com- munities are likely to l)e less desirous to stand out- side the liabilities oi' the Mother Countrv and more desirous of fidl re>ponsibility and partnership than the mixed commimities. Wliere there is a strong Frencli Canadian element or a strong American element as in Canada, or a strong Dutch element as in South Africa, there must naturally Ix', in a section of the population, a tendency to aloofness from liabilities which do not directly concern the particular I )oniini( ai. TakinLT the olliei- siile of the account — the moti\es loi' remaining within the I--inpire it may fairly bo said that, even leaving out of sight the present tnidoubted \alue of tlic Ibitisli coiniexioii, coni- nuniitit>, likr individuals. lio\ve\'er d»inoci-at ic. have a strong stiaiii < >i' ( 'onseiTatism in t liciii, and, uidess some very special occasion arises or some very iro THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. obvious gain is in view, they are slow to break entirely with the old order. Moreover, special occasions which make for union are as likely to present themselves as special occasions which make for division. At the present time, for instance, the foreign competition which threatens England's sea power is a strong stimulus to Imperial unity. Gratitude and good feeling again have weight in collections of men as in each individual man, and the British record towards the Self-Governing Dominions of the Crown is a bright record, which cannot be matched in history, of liberal and generous policy. The call of the race is strong, wherever the citizens are of British descent, and the mere sense of established nationhood in the Dominions may, and probably will, in a manner to be referred to later, make for the permanent continuance of the Empire. If we balance these two sets of motives against each other, the path of salvation obviously lies in a continuance of the constructive policy of which Lord Durham was the pioneer, and which has so far proved successful. There is no other alternative ; we have gone too far in one direction to think of turning back ; we have created nations, and cannot uncreate them. We can only recognize and welcome existing conditions and move forward again. It has been said that the Romans and the English have shown in a marked degree constructive genius ; that the Romans, on the one hand, while giving much X TUK ITvITISir IXSTINTT 171 scope to iiiuiiicipal life ill the .separate provinces, were always intent on strenptlieninf; tlie contrc, while the English, on tlu' other hand, have applied themselves to building up the parts. Possi})ly it might he ditlieult to maintain that the constructive genius of the English has been actually greater than that of some other modern {peoples, of the French, for example ; but, at least, British constructiveness has liad a character of its own. In creative work tlie 15riti.sh instinct has sh<»wn itself in tlie absence of a hanl and fast system ; in the rejection of .schemes involving all or none ; in the ready accep- tance of compromise ; and in favouring evolution, growth, and development jw opposed to complete novelty, liritish history tells us that whatever has Ix'en permanent in the work, of the English has been the result of evolution from the past, not of breaking with the past, and that the English have l)uilt well because the ])uilders have accommodated themselves to the times and the places and have not heon hampered by elaborate plans, designs, and surveys drawn (»ut beforehand by the Government. In considering the future of the I'nipire it ai)pears feeble and inconclusive not to sketch out a definite programme and to prescrilx? new machinery. Con- sequently we have a i)h'thora of plans and schem(\s. But it is in the very attra<'tivene.ss of schemes and j>rogranHues that (he danger foi- tlic fiiluic consists. The Ihilish present has grown up on ip. delinito plan. So far from Ijeing logical, it is a unity oi 172 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. contradictions, absolutely impossible on paper, but working very comfortably in fact. To anything like an orderly ground-plan of the future, British in- stinct, which constitutes British genius, is opposed. It is equally opposed to the all or none element, the absence of compromise which all schemes and plans usually imply. Clear and practical views are con- stantly obscured by the wholesale character with which both the supporters and the opponents of schemes invest them. There is only one sure guide to the future, and that is the race instinct which represents day to day opportunism. What does continuance of a constructive policy mean ? What is there left to construct ? On the one hand, the process of strengthening the parts in relation to the centre can be carried on. Nationhood can be further encouraged among the young peoples of the Empire by constant recognition, as occasion offers — and occasion is constantly offering, the object being to eliminate as far as possible the first of the two motives for leaving the Empire, which is the sense and appearance of subordination. On the other hand, the future seems to call for some grow- ing organization which will link the Mother Country and the Dominions each with each on terms of equahty in lieu of the discarded terms of superiority and subordination. But this organization is well on its way in the form of the Imperial Conference, supplemented by subsidiary conferences for the discussion of single questions ; while the calling X THK BRITISH IXSTINCT 173 inlu hciii;; ul' a .Slaiidiiiu ( 'I'lnniiltLc nl linitcrial Dufeiico presents ubsiuus iacilities i'ur the develup- nioiit of Imperial eo-operation. Nothing couKl )je mure ill harmony with (ht- British instinct and British methods of eonstruetion, than the ovolution of the Imperial Conference and its concomitants. Twenty-five years have elapsed since the fn-st meet- ing of tlu' kind took place without any system of any kind or an\- rule as to representation, and at the present moment the Imperial Conference is a well- defined, fully understood, and fully recognized machinery, the meetings being held at stated intervals, and each meeting resulting in a step forward in the direction of Imperial unity. The wontler is that it has develojied so rapidly, not that it has not d«-\cloped fin-ther, and any attempt to stinuilate its growth )>y hothotise methods would be disastrous. It would be disastrous, because it would run counter at onoe to the British instinct and to what has lieen described above as the second motive for leaving the Empire, the dread of being involved in external liabilities which woidd not be removed at the present stage (»f development by having one voice among several in the direction of a conunitn jM-licy. The diversity between the 1 )oiiiiiii(>iis. and the operation of party CJovernnient in each Dominion, makes for different views in regard to an Imperial Coimcil of one kind or another, it is, on this i/round alone, not only inexpedient but al.)solutely inipossil^Ie to Ijuild up the futtu'e except by slow degrees, if the 174 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. building is to endure. The more the parts are strengthened in relation to the centre, the more they recognize their strength, the less they will fear that autonomy will be injured by closer partner- ship. When we turn from the question of political organization to that of commercial relations, we find the young peoples on the one side and the Mother Country so far on the other. Preference and Protec- tion commend themselves to the young peoples, whereas the present generation in England has grown up under Free Trade. It is often suggested that the Dominions might under certain circumstances or for certain reasons wish to part with the Mother Country ; but since we have outgrown the old Whig doctrines, there are few who suggest that England might wish to part with the Dominions. In fact it is probably true to say, though it may not be generally admitted, that as each succeeding year adds conspicuously to the population of the young peoples of the world, whether inside or outside the British Empire, the value of the Dominions to England increases in much greater proportion than the value of England to the Dominions, because each year each Dominion comes nearer the time when it can defend itself, and each year England, without the Dominions, tends to be more outdistanced in population and home resources by some of her foreign competitors. Nor does this statement exhaust the case. It is not merely a question of quantity, it is a question also X THE BRITISH INSTINTT 175 ui" tjuality and ul' kiiul. The a.scciidaiicy ul" Euiupc in the world, of Old W<»rld methods and standards, is no longer uncluUlenged. The future is largely fur the 'New Model' among peoples, and in the com- petition of the future it is all-important for England to have by her side British peoples built, for better or Worse, on the New Model. From this it follows that if England is to hold her own as a nation, she must keep the Dominions with her; and if she can only keep them with her by paying a i)rice, the price must, if possible, be paid. Imperial Preference, therefore, cannot be regarded simply as an economic question. On the other hand, if the price is too high for the English to pay, they cannot and will not pay it, whatever may be the result, and may elect to part with the Dominions. But as the Dominions do not intend that the tics of Empire shall impede their own development, so they make no claim whatever that any step should be taken by England which should militate against the welfare of her people at home. The whole (piestion is (jbscured by, and the whole danger to the future lies in the lust for a wholesale scheme and llie desire of extreme Free Traders to saddle their opponents with a wholesale scheme. Again, the one and only safe guide is British instinct and readiness for practical comi)romise. It is not a case of all or none. Imperial Preference, as has already been said, is quite natural, more natural than Free Trade. Further, it is one of the many Ciiaes in 176 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap. which appearances are valuable. In the absence of any substantial preference being given, a definite indication of readiness to give preference to peoples within the Empire as against peoples without the Empire, so far as such preference will not be sub- stantially detrimental to the Mother Country, would be of great effect. It is as necessary to reject the doctrine that to give better terms to our own peoples than to foreigners is unsound in principle, as to be cautious with regard to any novel and wholesale scheme. Imperial Preference is the goal to be aimed at. Little by little is the way to the goal. British instinct, the instinct of wise opportunism, is the one and only safe guide to sound relations between the Self-Governing Dominions and the Mother Country. But we now come back to the point that the relations are not merely between the Self-Governing Dominions and the Mother Country, but between the Self-Governing Dominions (all different) on the one side, and on the other the Mother Country plus the dependencies. The posses- sion by England of great tropical dependencies with multitudes of coloured British subjects already gravely complicates the relations between the Mother Country and the Self-Governing Dominions, and, as has been seen, is likely to complicate them still further, as coming and going increases, and makes the colour problem a continuously increasing difficulty. On the other hand, the existence of these British dependencies may, and probably will, X Till-: r.RITISIl INSTINCT 17 bo lV)Uiul to supply tlio strongest of all motives to the .Self-CJoveriiing Dominions Inr remaininLr within the circle of the British Empire. The Self-Governing Dominions are respectively IniiM iivj; up tlu-ir national structures and their national Hfc, l)ut the nearer they come to maturity and the more they become conscious of havinu- done their necessary work at home, ihv more ihcy are hkely to vahie partnership in a greater whole. It is a hiw of nations, writ large in history, that when they have completed the home editice, rounded off the corners, and given it final form and sliape, the constructive instinct seeks for new outlets beyond the seas. The colonial Empires of European nations followed on the achievement of national unity at home. Spain, Portugal, Holland. France, Great Britain, all in turn oboyod tlie law. United Italy has acquiri'd po.ssessions in Africa, United Germany has felt increasingly the call to colonial expansion and Empire. Even theUnited States have not kept within the limits to which they have a})plied the Monroe doctrine, and that doctrine itself, in its latter-day phases, is little less than a claim to a Protectorate far beyond the actual boimdaries of the great Kepubli(\ The yoimger nations of the Empire are not likely to l)e exceptions to the rule: Ami if (hey, too, nnist lind an outlet in (heir turn, how can they liiid it hut by retaining tlu'ii- British citizenship and entering into the heritage side by side with the citizens at home ? Or even if they coidd luul it HTS N 178 THE BRITISH INSTINCT chap, x otherwise, what opening would be comparable in greatness and in worth to that which the British Empire offers? The fact that under existing con- ditions the Self-Governing Dominions have such scope for future history, and that they would lose it were the present supremacy of the Motherland to be wrested from her by foreign rivals, may well, in an increasing degree, make the sentiment of kinship, which is patriotism for the Empire, coincide with a sense of common interests ; and to young peoples, who look to the future, the possibilities of sharing greatness are likely to appeal with more potency than any dread of incurring liabilities. Meanwhile every citizen from the sphere of settlement who serves the Empire in the sphere of rule is a missionary in the cause of holding the Empire together ; and the more openings that are found in the Imperial Services for the white sons of the Empire from beyond the seas, the greater will the number of such missionaries be, and the more it will be brought home to the younger peoples that it is worth while to stay in the British Empire. iM)i:x Adt'liiiilt', 10. Africa, Noitlann. 34. 97 X, lOH. Africa, Tropical, 70. 100. Africa, W.-st. Stt West Africa. Agricula, CO. Algeria, G'*. Auiorican Culoiiits, OKI, .'>, l.'»7, 168. .Anglo-Saxon FiHleratiun, 110 II. AiJpoanuici's, iuiportanci' of, 12-t 30. A.iueducts, oS. 02-3. Arar (Saone), .')0. Arnoiil's Roman Provinddl Ad- ministration, Go, 7-t. i>l. 9:5, 114, Vll, 12^, 131 '2, 134 and n, 135- G. Artesian bores, GG-7. Asia, G8 »^ 74, 97, 100, 137. As.souan Dam, G4. Athens, 104/j', 1.V2-3. Augustus. 51. 58-9, 03, 73-4. 79. 102, 133-4. .\ii.stralia and Australians, 1. G, 15-19,34.40. 44, 47-9. GG. 70, 80.98, 103, lOG. 122 3, 145 7, 152. B. Bacon, Francis 33, 91, 9G, 138 9, 154. Barl.adus, 70, 14^. BtMiuuda, 14G. Boers, 13. 15. Borneo, 1G4. Boycf, Sir K., G7. Bristol, 7G. Britain, Kouum Province of, 23, 34,37, 60, 115, 140. British clianitteristirs — Assimilating (lu.ilitics, want nt', 127-30, If 12. C'.ipaiitv for ruling, 60, 12>^, 154, 1(32, 165. Constructiveness, 140, 151, 159, 1G3, 165, 170-2. C'i)ntinuitv of |iciliiv. want of, 45. s7 y;it;0-2. Individual initiative, 19. 72. 76-7,83,87,89-90,112 13,116, 1 66. Instinct of opportunism, 171-2, 176. Liberal policy, 163, 165, 170, &c. British Kmpire — Diversity in. 17,42,95-6. 100 1. 116, 141, 145 8. 173. Duality of, 44, 101,139 44. 151, 155. Kxtent of, 61, 66, 140-1. Family analogy in, 23 31, 122. Rtdigion a force in making, 77. Space an element in, 10 11, 13-20,42-3,58. Trade a force in making, 62, 76-7, 82-9, 154-5, 161-2, .^'c. British Columbia, 98, 119. British (iuiana, 148. British North America. 37,44,56, 119-20, \c. British Noith America Act of 1867, 7. Bruce, Sir David, 67, 70. Burke. Kdmund, 42. Bury's Jlisturi/ uf thr T^nttr RonnDi J'Jmpire, 75 n, 78, 102, 132 3, 150. c. Campagna, Roman, 69 and n. Canada, 6, 7, 14. 15. 18. 29, 36 7. l4,tilan.h/.79, 80. 8(;.96. 109, 116 21, 14:;. 145 C, l|!l, l.Vi, 159, 168, 1G9. Upper, 38, 87 8. Canadian racilic Railway. Sif Railways in Canada. Canal locks, 52 4. Canals, 49-51, 62. 180 INDEX Canals {continued) — Briare, 51. Caer Dyke, 51. Canadian, 52-4. Chenab, 64. Chinese, 49. Egyptian, 49-50. Foss Dyke, 51. Fossa Mariana, 51. Georgian Bay, 53. Irrigation, 49, 64. Isthmus of Corinth, 50. Languedoc (Canal du Midi), 51. Manchester Ship Canal, 52. Moselle — Saone, 50-1. Nile to Red Sea, 50. Panama, 49. Ravenna, 51. Rhine to Meuse, 51. Rideau, 53. Roman, 50-2. Sault Ste Marie, 52. Suez, 49. Welland, 54. Xerxes', 50. Carignan-Salieres regiment, 117. Chamberlain, Mr., 67. Citizenship, 44, 46, 90-6, 100-1, 107-9, 189, 177-8. Civil Services, 82, 96. Civitates Foederatae, 95. Class distinctions, 91-2, 101-9. Cobden, Richard, 27. Colbert, 85, 117. Coloni, 2 and n. Coloniae (Roman colonies), 2, 4, 11-12, 23, 37, 79, 97, 132, 155-6, &c. Colonization, military, 14, 80, 117, 155. See aho under Roman Empire. Colonization, Roman and British compared, 11-12, 16-17, 21-2, 80, &c. Colony, 1-5. Coloured races and colour pro- blem, 43-6, 62, 97-101, 103-4, 107, 110-11, 127, 142, 145-7, 158, 162-3, 176. Commonwealth, 1. Communications, 32-54. Companies, 81, &c. Companies {continued) — Chartered, 81-9. British East India, 83, 86. British North Borneo, 86, 87. British South Africa, 86. French, 84-5. Hudson Bay, 86. Imperial British East Africa, 86. Netherlands East India, 13, 85. Netherlands West India, 85. Portuguese, 84. Royal Niger Company, 86. Comparison of peoples, impor- tance of, 157-8. Competitive system, 100. Cromer, Lord, Ancient and Modern Impenalism, 98;;, 127, 128. Crown, the, 5; 7, 8, 86-7, 143-4, 152, 158. Crown, Advisers of the, 144. Crown Colonies, 5, 44, 135, 138, 148, 152-153. Relations to Mother Country, 44-6, 152-5, 161-6. Customs duties. See Tariffs. Cyrenaica, 97. D. Dacia, 89, 115. Dawson City, 56. Delos, Confederacy of, 152-3. Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, 68 n, 103-4. Diocletian, 3, 133. Distance and Empire, 32-49, 164. Dominion, 1, 3, 5-8. Dominions, Self-Governing, 5-8, 13, 15, 17-21, 44, 46, 48, 98-9, 101, 110-11, 126, 138, 142, 144-7, 149, 152-3, &c. Relations to Mother Country, 7, 10, 21-3, 26-31, 41-3, 90, 122, 147-8, 152-3, 158-61, 164, 166-78. Dominium, 3. Durham, Lord, and his Report, 14,25-6,36-7, 53, 79, 88,110, 118,120,125,149,150,159,170. Dutch, 13, 15, 51, 84-5, 149, 154, 177. in South Africa, 13-15, 47, 146, 149, 169. INDEX IKl E. Kgyi'l. =^. 49-51, oG, G3 4, 7u, 71, 97, l;W, 140. Klrclricit}-,4;j,59. ^VfTeK-j,'rii|)hy. Kiupeior, Koimin, 134 iiml «, 14.! 4. Empire, 1, 4, ^, 9, 7'J, ^9-90, 124-5, 13y. See aho British Empire, Human Emiiire. Equites, lO'J. F. Falkhind IslaniLs, 14G, 14s. Family iuuilugy. See Uritisli Empire. Fiji, HS. France and tlie French, 15, 4l, 40, 44,45, 00,01-2. 04,70,74,77, 80, 80, 90, 97, 99, lUO, 107, 138, 143. 148-54, 158, 105. India, Colonization from, 148. Interpretation Act of 1889, 1, 4. Ionian Confederacy. Set Delos. Irri;,Mtiun, 58, 03-7. Italy and Italians, 3, 12, 33, 37, 39, 50, 74, 79,93, 177. Jamaica, 70. Jowett, Beiijaiain, Seltcf passai/es from the 2'htoloi/ical ]f'ritinii< of 77-8. Julius Caesar, 50, 73. Kal^'oorlie, 50, G3. Kimberley, 50. Koch, Dr., 07. Labour and Lal'our I'.irlv, 102 9, 109. Labour guilds in Roman Empire, 104 and n -'. Latin peoi)les, 127-8, 102. Laveran, 07. Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, (iovernment of Dependencies, 32, 124 5, 13i: Libyan Desert, 05. Lister, Lord, 07, 71. Livingstone, David, 77. London, 36, 38, 40, 75, 70. 182 INDEX M. Macdonald, Sir John, 6, 120. Machinery, substitution for hand- labour, 56-7. '^a.ine,SirEenvy, Ancient Law,92. Malaria, 68, 70. Malaya and Malays, 100, 148, 164. Malta, 70, 140. Manson, Sir Patrick, 67, 68. Maoris, 99, 145. Marius, 51. Marlborough, Duke of, 157. Mattingly, H., The Imperial Civil Sei-vice of Rome, 137. Mauretania, 34, 97. Mauritius, 148. Medical Science, 67-71, 164. Mediterranean, 33, 34, 50, 136, 145. Melbourne, 16. Merivale's Histot-y of the Romans under the Empire, 16, 39, 60. Mines, 55-6. Mithridates, 74. Mommsen's Provinces of the Roman Empire, 50, 63-5, 137. Monroe Doctrine, 177. Montreal, 14, 53. Mundaring reservoir, 63. Municipal government derived from the Romans, 95. Municipia, 97, 132. Munro's Seigniorial Si/sfem in Canada, 111 n. N. Nationality, 108-11, 119-21, 149, 170, 172, &c. Native races and problems. See Coloured races. Naturalization, 94-6. Naval Defence, 28, 152-3, 170. Navigation Acts, 121-2. Negroes, 91, 98, 151, 158. New Zealand, 7, 15, 18, 49, 99, 145,152. Newfoundland, 5, 8, 76, 145-6, 152, 157. Niger Territories, 164. Nile, 50, 56, 64-5. Nisnies, 62. Nova Scotia, 146, 157. Ottawa, 53. 0. P. Pacific races, 100, 151. Parkman, Francis, Old Regime in Canada, 116-17. Party government, 88, 160, 168-9, 173. Pasteur, 67. Patria Potestas, the, 23. Pelham's Essays on Roman History, 2, 69, tiotes. Periander, 50. Persians, 33, 40. Plantation, 1, 2, 4. Pliny, 59. Pombal, 84. Pompey, 69. Pont du Gard, 62. Population, 54-7, 78-9, &c. Portugal and Portuguese, 84, 177. Possession, 1. Protectorates, 95, 142, 152-3. Provence, 63. Province, 1, 5, 6. Provinciae (Roman Provinces), 3, 6, 11, 12, 17, 34,37,59,03,69, 74-5, 79, 82, 93, 131-2, 134-7, 150, 154, 161, &c. Ptolemies, 50, 140. Public works, 81, 163. Publicani, 81-3. Q. Quebec, Town and Province, 14, 37, 118. R. Race, 92, 94, 96-101, 103-4, 106-11, 115, 122, 170. See Coloured races, White races. Railways, 37-40. in Canada, 119. Ravenna, 57-8. Red Sea, 50, 56, 137. Religion and Empire, 77-8, 96. IXDKX 183 li.-pieHentativo institutions un- known to Kouiiins/Jl, 93, VS'i. Kfsponsible j^uveinnn-nt, 26 7, 4-J, 121, 123, 140, H'.» r,l, l.VJ, &c. Kicheli.'u, X.'.. Kuu-ls, Uumuu, 12,32 4,37-8,:.0. .jH, 60. Kouuin Kinpire — Artiticiiil cifution, ;iii, 113 10, 123, 134. DL'sputism, II, 21, 23, 92, lol, lOs, 116, 123, 132, 135-G, 111. 1.-.3, 159 GO. Extent of, 33—1, 01 and n. 100,136,140 1. Military character of, 2, 3, 12, 32, .VJ-01, 73-5, 79, 92, 94, 108, 115-10, 123, 135 6, 138-9, 155-0, 158. Towns basis uf. 2, 11-12, 21.09, 75 iuul *i, 94 5, 136. Trailers in, 59, 73 5, 81 3, 155. Unity of, 131-40, 143 4, 150, 155. llonian law, 136. Woman Wall. 01-2. Koraans — Assiniilativo power of, GO, 110, 127-8. 132, 156. Capacity for rule, 21, GO, OS, 135, 154-5, 103. Constructive genius of, 50, 58, 62-5, 159, 170. Continuity of policy of, 88, IGO. Lil)eral i)olicy of. 92-5, 115-10, 131, 133, 103, 170-1. Military element in, 4, 12, 59, 61, 75, 79. And art; itmhr Konum Empire. Not an adventurous people, 2, 11, 12. 10,09, 74. Keligion not a personal ton e among, 77- 8. Konie, city of, 33 4, 37, 57, 02 3, 75,93-5. Komney Marsh, 65. lioss. 8ir H., 07 8 and u. St. Liwrence river, 14, 15, 53. Scientitic inventions, 35-41, 4>^. 52-9, 03 4, 00-71, 104. .Self-government. Stt Responsible government. Senate and Senators, 102 and « ', 134. Seneca's Diahniues, 139. Sicily, 114, 137. Slaves and slavery, 91-3, 98, 103 5,107. Sleejting sickness, G8, 70. Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations, 120. 121 2. South, Kise of the, 47 8, OG. South Africa, 13-15, 1^, 19, 28, 44, 47, 02, 87, 98, 103, 145-7, 149, 152, 109. Spain and Spaniards, 39, 81, 84, 102, 177. Spanish America, 139, 103. State, 1,6. Steam and steam communication, 35, 37-49, 54, 59. ^ Ste|)han, Ilcinrich, 57. Stokes' Cvn^titutiuii of tht liriti.sJt Colonies in Noiih America and the M\sf Indies, 3-5. Sulla, 73. Superior, Lake, 52, 53. Symonds, John Addington, Sk'tches and Slndiiis in Itahj and (hvre, 62-3. Tacitus, 34, 50-1. Talon, 117. Tariffs, 112, 120 3, 137-^, 174-5. Taxes, Farming of, 81 3. Telegraphy, 35, 39-40. Trade and Empire. See Biitish Emi)ire, Roman Empire. Trailes Unions, 104, 108-9. Fit n ** 1 rajan, <.>. Trinidad, 148. Tropic. il dependciK ies and ad- ministration, 44 5, 70 1, 91, 99-100, 142, 140, 14>: 51, 101-0, 176. Tropical iliscases, 67-71. U. United States, 5. 29, 47, 49, lU'J- 11, 119-20, 157, 177. 184 INDEX Victoria League, 90. Virginia, 6-7 and n. W. Wakefield, Gibbon, 79. War of Independence, American, 22, 157. Warde Fowler's Rome, 12, 74, 104 n 2. Water supply, 62-7. West Africa, 71, 148, 158, 164. West Indies, 70, 91, 146, 148, 155, 158, 164. Western Australia, 63, 66. Whigs, 26-7, 30, 112, 174. White races, 44, 46-7, 62, 70, 98- 100, 103, 107-8, 142, 145, 146, 149, 158, 178. Yellow fever, 68, 70. Z. 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