of individuals or by conflict and warfare; they can only be
solved by fair and deliberate statesmanship within the bosom of a single
State, through the recognition by both parties of a higher claim than their
own sectional interest--the claim of a common citizenship and the interest
of civilisation.[1] It is here, in the union and collaboration of diverse
races and peoples, that the principle of the Commonwealth finds its
peculiar field of operation. Without this principle, and without its
expression, however imperfect, in the British Empire, the world would be in
chaos to-day.

[Footnote 1: The most recent example of this is the settlement of the very
difficult dispute between India and South Africa.]

We cannot predict the political development of the various Great Powers who
between them control the destinies of civilisation. We cannot estimate
the degree or the manner in which France, freed at last from nearer
preoccupations, will seek to embody in her vast dominion the great
civilising principles for which her republic stands. We cannot foretell
the issue of the conflict of ideas which has swayed to and fro in Russia
between the British and the Prussian method of dealing with the problem of
nationality. Germany, Italy, Japan--here, too, we are faced by enigmas.
One other great Commonwealth remains besides the British. Upon the United
States already lies the responsibility, voluntarily assumed and, except
during a time of internal crisis,[1] successfully discharged, of securing
peace from external foes for scores of millions of inhabitants of the
American continent. Yet with the progress of events her responsibilities
must yearly enlarge: for both the immigrant nationalities within and the
world-problems without her borders seem to summon her to a deeper education
and to wider obligations.

[Footnote 1: French occupation of Mexico, 1862, during the American Civil
War, when the Monroe Doctrine was temporarily in abeyance.]

But upon the vast, ramifying, and inchoate Commonwealth of Great Britain
lies the heaviest responsibility. It is a task unequally shared between
those of her citizens who are capable of discharging it. Her task within
the Commonwealth is to maintain the common character and ideals and to
adjust the mutual relations of one quarter of the human race. Her task
without is to throw her weight into the scales of peace, and to uphold and
develop the standard and validity of inter-State agreements. It