solely to the colonists. It is true that, nominally, this country had similar advantages in the colonial markets as against the foreigner, but, as a matter of fact, England at the time practically had a monopoly owing to being the first to take advantage of the industrial revolution in manufactures, and there was no need of restrictions.

Naturally, then, such being the popular idea of the working of this preference-and-control system, people in this country began to ask wherein lay the benefit of colonies to the mother country? This was a very old question, going back, as Dr. Cunningham has so well shown, to the very beginnings of colonies1 in the seventeenth century.

The colonies also, in spite of the preferences, saw that in some cases they might gain more by trade with other countries, notably the United States. Accordingly the attempt to bind together the home country and the colonies by a system of commercial preferences and political restrictions had the opposite effect to what was intended; it created mutual jealousies between the various parts of the empire. The reciprocity was, in Davidson's phrase, a reciprocity of disadvantage. And this constant looking to trade and commercial connections as the true basis of union rather tended to stifle than to enkindle other sentiments.2

Recently attempts have been made to show that the preferential system had its advantages, and that

1 Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 333.

2 Cf. Davidson, pp. 51-52 n., for summary of the history of the preferential duties.

its abandonment was resented by the colonies; but, at any rate, the fact remains that by 1854 the system had been practically given up, and the last vestige, the preference on timber, disappeared in 1860.

§ 3. View of present Position of Imperial Union : a Contrast.

This complete abandonment of the colonial preferences, which in theory had been a sort of compensation for the political control by the mother country, naturally led to a still further development of selfgovernment in the case of the free colonies. And, as a consequence, at the present day we are left, so far as they are concerned, with the "minimum of empire," or, conversely, they are practically independent. Especially is this the case with regard to the organisation for defence, which by Adam Smith is placed first in the requirements of a real, as distinct from an imaginary or nominal empire.

When Adam Smith wrote, it was a matter of general belief that the home country, in return for undertaking alone the expense of defence, obtained, in some way or other, an equivalent in the monopoly of trade. And certainly the monopoly was sufficiently exclusive, even if less exclusive than that of other colonising nations; and the monopoly embraced India as well as the British colonies. Adam Smith, indeed, maintained that the gain to the country by this monopoly was illusory; but the general opinion was exactly the opposite; and the people of the mother country, at any rate, believed that, in return

for their sacrifices in blood and treasure, they had a veritable gold mine in the monopoly of trade.

§ 4. "Not an Empire but the Project of an
Empire."

But when we look to the present position, we find that every shred of this monopoly of trade has vanished; so that as a nation we have not even the consolation of this doubtful privilege. "This empire," said Adam Smith, "has hitherto existed in imagination only. It has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire." It has been only a "golden dream." Judged by the tests which he was bold enough to apply, our present empire, in like words, must be called a dream within a dream.

In the course of little more than half a century, the free colonies have, in effect, become free nations, under a nominal sovereignty; we have adopted the old Greek plan, without even providing for freedom of commerce a scheme of empire which was rejected by Adam Smith, even with the provision of commercial treaties which were supposed to endure for centuries. Fortunately, we have succeeded in proportion as we have relaxed the ties of empire in strengthening the bonds of affection; and above all, the self-governing colonies have followed the mother country in political freedom, and the crown colonies and dependencies, if governed by this country, are governed for the benefit of the respective peoples. And yet, if from the point of view of organised military power the British empire, in the words of Adam

Smith, is still only "a golden dream," from the point of view of the civilisation of the world it has been, and remains one of the greatest realities in progress.

At the same time, it must be admitted that neither the statesmen nor the peoples of the most civilised countries have yet come within sight of the acceptance of a cosmopolitan political ideal, which shall subordinate the interests of the nation to the interests of civilisation in general. As with Adam Smith, so now, home is the centre of political attraction, and the unit of civilisation is still the independent political society. The long continuance of the horrors of the Congo, and of similar, if lesser, barbarities in different parts of the world, is proof sufficient of the overwhelming domination of national compared with cosmopolitan sentiment. And, again to quote Adam Smith, our love of country is not derived from our love of mankind in general.

§ 5. What at present are the National Advantages of Empire?

If, then, still taking up the national standpoint, we ask, as Adam Smith asked, What are the special national advantages which we as a nation derive from our extended empire, if we separate, as he did, the cosmopolitan from the peculiar national advantages, the answer is the old answer that there are no actual advantages, but only possibilities of advantage.

What are the national economic advantages, apart from the increase of military force or revenue, which, under modern conditions, might be expected to be

obtained by the mother country from the extension of empire? There is, first of all, a wider field for the settlement and employment of the people of the country. Every old country from the beginnings of history has felt the need of finding room for an expanding population.

At the present time Germany feels a pressing need for the expansion of her overseas dominion in view of the growth of population. The territorial expansion of the British empire, on the other hand, has been so rapid and extensive that we have reached the point of satiety.

But although we have apparently provided an unlimited field for the emigration of our surplus population, we have taken no pains to put the surplus labourers into that field; we have left them to overcrowd our own cities, or to seek new homes in foreign states, as their ignorance or inclination directed. "From 1853 to 1898 the total emigration of persons of British or Irish origin was 8,549,569 persons, of whom, 5,690,712 went to the United States." Conversely, the people of other nationalities are welcomed to our colonies, and recently, for example, the immigration into Canada of foreigners (including those from the United States) has far exceeded that from the United Kingdom. It is also said that the emigrants to Canada from Europe have, for the most part, a lower standard of comfort than the British, and as a consequence they are much more quickly in a position to be able to equip land and to become the real owners of land out of their savings.