INTRODUCTORY

5

The Liberalism, which predominated during the political (4.) The life of the sixties, was very far from declaring on the housetops {^"zenith that our Colonies must separate. There was, however, a very and general feeling that such separation was merely a question of of time ; that, when it occurred, no great harm would ensue, and aller that, meanwhile, all that could be done was to ensure that the P rma P les - euthanasia of the Empire should be as mild and dignified as possible. The theories of laissez-aller never, however, commended themselves to the English people, and from 1870 onwards we note a tendency amongst public men to repudiate the logical conclusions of their own words and actions. Moreover, a new chief actor had been entering upon the scene; the democracy was taking its place beside the middle classes and the governing families in the working out of English history. What would be its attitude towards the Empire ? In other words, What would be its Colonial policy ?

It must be remembered that those Colonies had expanded (5.) Period into great democratic communities, and in many ways ap- B r i^ a r ^ ater pealed more to the democracy than they could to the fastidious taste of the Whig oligarchy. Again, new facts had to be considered. The latter half of the nineteenth century has seen an immense recrudescence of militarism amongst the Continental powers of Europe. Nearly fifty years after the great Exhibition, which was to open out an era of peace, Europe presents the amazing spectacle of an armed camp. Face to face with this unexpected phenomenon, England has either to yield her place among the nations—and whatever the nature of the “economic man,” prestige will always be dear to nations no less than to individuals—or else adapt herself in new ways to the new circumstances. But a world-empire, sea-girt, and resting on the command of the sea, is a spectacle at least as imposing as the nations-in-arms of the Continent ; and this seems the ideal which England at last is realising. Other causes have been also at work to act upon our Colonial policy. Our chief concern, said Cobden, with foreign nations is to trade with them, but the chief concern of foreign nations appears to be not to trade with us. By dint of protective duties upon