Neither new relations with foreign lands across the sea nor new-old
relations with the United States bulked as large in these later years
as relations with the other parts of the British Empire. The question
of the Empire's future was a constant theme. It was a time of
unparalleled progress in each and all the British states. Great
Britain's vast strides towards social justice, Canada's growth and
economic activity, the similar, if lesser, expansion of Australia and
New Zealand, the unification of South Africa, all bespoke the strength
and soundness of each of the Five Nations. The steady growth of
community of feeling and of practical co-operation in many fields bore
witness that progress did not mean disunion.

Yet there were many at home, and in Great Britain and the other lands
overseas, who were far from content with the trend of events, who {271}
were convinced that the Empire was drifting to eternal smash unless
some change in policy should be effected. To some it was Britain's
free-trade policy that was the danger; to others it was the steady
growth of self-government in the Dominions. Imperial preferential
trade, political federation, colonial contributions to a central army
and navy, were all vigorously urged as remedies. Not one of these
things came to pass in the years under survey, and yet when the
testing-time arrived the Empire proved one in heart and soul.

Great Britain's free-trade policy was first called in question.
Scarcely ended were the Boer War and the disappointing Conference of
1902 when Mr Chamberlain, fresh from a tour through South Africa,
launched his great campaign for imperial preferential trade. Though
protection and retaliation later became more important phases of the
tariff-reform movement, at the outset it was its imperial side which
was emphasized. The colonies and the mother country, it was urged,
were certain to drift apart unless bound by links of material interest.
Give the colonies a preference on their wheat or wool in Britain, give
British {272} manufacturers a real preference in colonial markets, and
the Empire would cease to be merely a sentiment.

Once committed to setting up a protective tariff in order to make
reductions in favour of such colonies as would reciprocate, Mr
Chamberlain and his followers went on to find in it other great
advantages. It would aid British agriculture and British industry,
would protect both farmer and manufacturer from the com