have of late years greatly
declined from their former prosperity. The English demand for cheap
sugar has encouraged the importation of beet-root sugar from Germany
and France. This has reduced the market for cane sugar to so low a
point that there has been but little, if any, profit in raising it in
the West Indies;[1] but fruit is a success.

[1] See Brooks Adams's "America's Economic Supremacy."

619. England's Change of Feeling toward her Colonies.

One of the most striking features of the "Diamond Jubilee" celebration
(S607) was the prominence given to the Colonial Prime Ministers.
There was a time, indeed, when the men who governed England regarded
Canada and Australia as "a source of weakness," and the Colonial
Office in London knew so little of the latter country that it made
ridiculous blunders in attempting to address official despatches to
Melbourne, Australia.[2] Even as late as the middle of the last
century Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote to Lord
Malmesbury in regard to the Newfoundland fisheries, "These wretched
colonies will all be independent, too, in a few years, and are a
millstone around our necks."

[2] See Traill's "Social England," VI, 684.

Twenty years afterwards Disraeli, later Lord Beaconsfield, declared
that one of the great objects he and his party had in view was to
uphold the British Empire and to do everything to maintain its unity.
That feeling has steadily gained in power and was never stronger than
it is to-day. Canada, Australia, and the other governing colonies
(S625) have since responded by actions as well as words, and "Imperial
Federation" has become something more than a high-sounding phrase
(SS625, 626).

620. The Condition of Ireland; International Arbitration.

But to make such federation harmonious and complete, the support of
Ireland must be obtained. That country is the only member of the
United Kingdom whose representatives in Parliament refused, as a rule,
to take part in the celebration of the Queen's reign. They felt that
their island had never been placed on a true equality with its
stronger and more prosperous neighbor. In fact, the Royal Commission,
appointed to inquire into the relative taxation of England and
Ireland, reported (1897) nearly unanimously that "for a great many
years Ireland had paid annually more than 2,000,000 pounds beyond her
just proportion of taxation."[1] It has been estimated that the total
excess obtained duri