n interest, not directly concerning the great Dominions; nor did
the problems of imperial defence appear very pressing or urgent. But
now all have realised that not merely their interests, but their very
existence, may depend upon the wise conduct of foreign relations; and
now all have contributed the whole available strength of their manhood
to support a struggle in whose direction they have had no effective
share. These things must henceforth be altered; and they can be altered
only in one or other of three ways. Either the great Dominions will
become independent states, as the American colonies did, and pursue a
foreign policy and maintain a system of defence of their own; or the
Empire must reshape itself as a sort of permanent offensive and
defensive alliance, whose external policy and modes of defence will be
arranged by agreement; or some mode of common management of these and
other questions must be devised. The first of these solutions is
unlikely to be adopted, not only because the component members of the
Empire are conscious of their individual weakness, but still more
because the memory of the ordeal through which all have passed must
form an indissoluble bond. Yet rashness or high-handedness in the
treatment of the great issue might lead even to this unlikely result.
If either of the other two solutions is adopted, the question will at
once arise of the place to be occupied, in the league or in the
reorganised super-state, of all those innumerable sections of the
Empire which do not yet enjoy, and some of which may never enjoy, the
full privileges of self-government; and above all, the place to be
taken by the vast dominion of India, which though it is not, and may
not for a long time become, a fully self-governing state, is yet a
definite and vitally important unit in the Empire, entitled to have its
needs and problems considered, and its government represented, on equal
terms with the rest. The problem is an extraordinarily difficult one;
perhaps the most difficult political problem that has ever faced the
sons of men. But it is essentially the same problem which has
continually recurred in the history of British imperialism, though it
now presents itself on a vastly greater scale, and in a far more
complex form, than ever before: it is the problem of reconciling unity
with liberty and variety; of combining nationality and self-government
with imperialism, without impairing the rights of either. And beyond