EYEND all doubt, the extension of Great Britain's over-sea posses sions is the most impressive to ternal observers of alltheachievements of the Victorian Age. Within, the Empire itself, strangely enough, its supremacy of interest is not unquestioned. The monarch's advisers cannot be sid to have provided themselves with a colonial policy until the last twenty years at the most. The American province of the British Empire was acquired by "gentlemen adventurers," whom government at home looked upon as, exceedingly compromising people. James I illustrated "little Englander" principles at the ex-pause of Sir Walter Raleigh. As the American colony insisted upon growing, officialdom ab home was obliged at length to force it into revolt. 'That dependency being' satisfactorily disposed of, we proceeded: to.show what we thought of the others by. filling them with convicts. As even this did not prevent their development, British statesmen have at length been forced to.cultivate the colonies, and even to talk about Imperial Federation. There is an Indian Museum at South Kensington and an Imperial Institute, while the Royal Colonial Institute breaks the lines of the great hotels in Northumberland Avenue. Still the British Empire remains essentially non-Imperial. Every atom in itis an atom to itself, attached to the others only by virtue of. its common interests. It is certain that no empire of such size could continue to. cast upon: any other basis—wherefore "we may conclude that the past inactivity of British statesmen in colonial matters: really deserved the title of maasterly.".- The British fleet has enabled the "gentlemen adventurers " to fight and conquer and perish without the fear of aggrandising an alien race, and that, at all events, counts for something. But it must be confessed a curious thing that it is only since 1854 that the government machinery of the British Empire has included 3 Secretary of State for the Colonies. of the" Bri jople was never more The singularly un-Chauvinistic character
strikingly illustrated than in its attitude towards India. In spite of the fiercest attacks upon its administration, a company of traders continued to exercise all the functions of government: in-that territory during 274 years. Until only four years before the beginning of the present reign, the East India Company still held the monopoly of commerce with the East. No doubt "Sohn Company " furnishes not only One of the most successful, but also one of the most admirable, examples of the capacities of private enterprise ever afforded. But it had reached the zenith of its power when the Queen ascended the throne. In
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.