y is only one of the
acquisitions or instruments of England, and we know no reason why that
particular element of growth should be singled out as overtopping the
other elements that made it so important as it is. It is not the mere
multiplication of a race, nor its diffusion over the habitable globe
that sets its deepest mark on the history of a state, but rather those
changes in idea, disposition, faculty, and, above all, in institution,
which settle what manner of race it shall be that does in this way
replenish the earth. From that point of view, after all, as
Tocqueville said, the greatest theatre of human affairs is not at
Sydney, it is not even at Washington, it is still in our old world of
Europe.

That the secession of the American colonies was a stupendous crisis,
Mr. Seeley recognises, but his dislike of the idea that their example
may be followed by other colonies seems to show that he does not agree
with many of us as to the real significance of that great event. He
admits, no doubt, that the American Union exerts a strong influence
upon us by 'the strange career it runs and the novel experiments it
tries.' These novel experiments in government, institutions, and
social development, are the most valuable results, as many think, of
the American state, and they are the results of its independence. Yet
independence is what Mr. Seeley dreads for our present colonies, both
for their own sake and ours. If any one thinks that America would be
very much what she now is, if she had lost her battle a hundred years
ago and had continued to be still attached to the English crown,
though by a very slender link, he must be very blind to what has gone
on in Australia.[2] The history of emigration in Canada, of
transportation in New South Wales, and of the disastrous
denationalisation of the land in Victoria, are useful illustrations of
the difference between the experiments of a centralised compared with
a decentralised system of government. Neither Australia nor Canada
approached the United States in vigour, originality, and spirit,
until, like the United States, they were left free to work out their
own problems in their own way. It is not the republican form of
government that has made all the difference, though that has had many
most considerable effects. Independence not only put Americans on
their mettle, but it left them with fresh views, with a temper of
unbounded adaptability, with an infinite readiness to try ex