made liberty and the
tolerance of differences their most fundamental instincts; it is the
outcome of a series of accidents, unforeseen, but turned to advantage
by the unfailing and ever-new resourcefulness of men habituated to
self-government. There is no logic or uniformity in its system, which
has arisen from an infinite number of makeshifts and tentative
experiments, yet in all of these a certain consistency appears, because
they have been presided over by the genius of self-government. It is
distributed over every continent, is washed by every ocean, includes
half the dust of islands that Nature has scattered about the seas of
the world, controls almost all the main avenues of the world's
sea-going commerce, and is linked together by ten thousand ships
perpetually going to and fro. Weak for offensive purposes, because its
resources are so scattered, it is, except at a few points, almost
impregnable against attack, if its forces are well organised. It
includes among its population representatives of almost every human
race and religion, and every grade of civilisation, from the Australian
Bushman to the subtle and philosophic Brahmin, from the African dwarf
to the master of modern industry or the scholar of universities. Almost
every form of social organisation and of government known to man is
represented in its complex and many-hued fabric. It embodies five of
the most completely self-governing communities which the world has
known, and four of these control the future of the great empty spaces
that remain for the settlement of white men. It finds place for the
highly organised caste system by which the teeming millions of India
are held together. It preserves the simple tribal organisation of the
African clans. To different elements among its subjects this empire
appears in different aspects. To the self-governing Dominions it is a
brotherhood of free nations, co-operating for the defence and diffusion
of common ideas and of common institutions. To the ancient
civilisations of India or of Egypt it is a power which, in spite of all
its mistakes and limitations, has brought peace instead of turmoil, law
instead of arbitrary might, unity instead of chaos, justice instead of
oppression, freedom for the development of the capacities and
characteristic ideas of their peoples, and the prospect of a steady
growth of national unity and political responsibility. To the backward
races it has meant the suppression of unending