ts; and she was giving an
altogether new significance to the word 'Empire.' Above all, she was
half-blindly laying the foundations of a system whereby freedom and the
enriching sense of national unity might be realised at once in the new
and vacant lands of the earth, and among its oldest civilised peoples;
she was feeling her way towards a mode of linking diverse and free
states in a common brotherhood of peace and mutual respect. There is no
section of the history of European imperialism more interesting than
the story of the growth and organisation of the heterogeneous and
disparate empire with which Britain entered upon the new age.

This development appeared, on the surface, to be quite haphazard, and
to be governed by no clearly grasped theories or policy. It is indeed
true that at all times British policy has not been governed by theory,
but by the moulding force of a tradition of ordered freedom. The period
produced in Britain no imperialist statesman of the first rank, nor did
imperial questions play a leading part in the deliberations of
parliament. In fact, the growth of the British Empire and its
organisation were alike spontaneous and unsystematic; their only guide
(but it proved to be a good guide) was the spirit of self-government,
existing in every scattered section of the people; and the part played
by the colonists themselves, and by the administrative officers in
India and elsewhere, was throughout more important than the part played
by colonial secretaries, East Indian directors, parliamentarians and
publicists at home. For that reason the story is not easily handled in
a broad and simple way.

Enjoying almost a monopoly of oversea activity, Britain was free, in
most parts of the world, to expand her dominions as she thought fit.
Her statesmen, however, were far from desiring further expansion: they
rightly felt that the responsibilities already assumed were great
enough to tax the resources of any state, however rich and populous.
But, try as they would, they could not prevent the inevitable process
of expansion. Several causes contributed to produce this result.
Perhaps the most important was the unexampled growth of British trade,
which during these years dominated the whole world; and the flag is apt
to follow trade. A second cause was the pressure of economic distress
and the extraordinarily rapid increase of population at home, leading
to wholesale emigration; in the early years of the century