Greater Britain

“ Britain is laying the foundations of States unborn, civilizations undreamed till now, as Rome in the days of Tacitus was laying the foundations of States and civilizations unknown, and by him darkly imagined. For Justice men turn to the State in which Justice has no altar, [10] Freedom no temple; but a higher than Justice, and a greater than Freedom, has in that State its everlasting seat. ”

“ And as I journeyed, hearkening to the talk of my companions, men much travelled and of many nationalities, my mind was agog for the marvels and wonders I was to see in the workshops of Great Britain. Marvels and wonders I was prepared for, and yet for once how far short of fact were all my fancies!
Britain has done great things in the past; she will, I pray, do even greater in the future; but surely never have mortal eyes looked on an effort so stupendous and determined as she is sustaining, and will sustain, until this most bloody of wars is ended. ”

“ And that work was surely an expansion, an expansion of England. We come once more to our paradox; may it not be that England herself may be expanded by the very cutting short of her dominion? Again, what is England? Do we mean by it simply the dominions of the Crown of England—or rather the dominion of a Crown of whose kingdom the British England is but a part? Or do we mean by it the land of the English folk, wherever they may dwell? ”

“ The day on which we are met is the day that is honoured by a mighty commonwealth of our own blood and speech as the birthday of its founder. It is a day of rejoicing in every home throughout the vastest of English lands, the land where the tongue and laws of England have won for themselves a wider dominion than the Empire of Justinian or of Trajan. ”

“ The dominion of England may be expanded when men found a counting-89house, a barrack, an office of government, a court of judgement, and when they have done their work in one of these, come back to enjoy their wealth or their honours in the land of their birth, the land which they mean to be the resting-place of their bones, the dwelling-place of their children. It is surely the expansion of England only when a new land is won for the English folk as an abiding-place for ever. ”

“ Is it wholly hopeless, with this strange, yet true,84 cry of “Empire” daily dinned into our ears, to rise to the thoughts of the old Greek and the old Phœnician, the thought of an union of scattered kinsfolk bound together by a nobler tie than that of being subjects of one Empire or “peoples” of one sovereign? Will not the memories of this day lift us above this confused babble about a British Empire patched up out of men of every race and speech under the sun, to the higher thought of the brotherhood of the English folk, the one English folk in all its homes? ”

“ But a greater task awaits Britain. Among the races of the earth whose fate is already dependent, or within a brief period will be dependent upon Europe, what empire is to aid them, moving with nature, to attain that harmony which Dante discerned? ”

“ AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS The century closes upon another England than that which was struggling against Napoleon at its dawn. Instead of the "right little tight little island," a compact and self-contained nation, it is now the head of an empire comparable in extent and population with no other since the Rome of Augustus. Canada, Federal Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa form a Greater Britain, while the subject lands and islands dot the globe. ”

“ That such a result would be desirable, would be in the interest of all of our colonies as well as of ourselves, I do not believe any sensible311 man will doubt. It seems to me that the tendency of the time is to throw all power into the hands of the greater empires, and the minor kingdoms—those which are non-progressive—seem to be destined to fall into a secondary and subordinate place. But, if Greater Britain remains united, no empire in the world can ever surpass it in area, in population, in wealth, or in the diversity of its resources. ”

“ Do not mistake me; to annex, to coerce, to hold in bondage, may, in some unhappy state of things, be a solemn and fearful duty; it can never be matter for rejoicing or for boasting. But there is matter of rejoicing, so far as boasting is lawful, there is matter for boasting, whenever the English folk wins a new land, not merely to rule over but to dwell in, a new land in which the speech, the laws, the traditions of England may be as much at home as they are here in this our England in Britain. What is England? ”

“ The area and population of the Empire of India are so great that, in its federal aspect, as the state or canton of India, it will hold a place in the Imperial Federation of Greater Britain at least as overwhelming as Prussia now holds in the Imperial Federation of Germany. Where would Great Britain be, where would Australia or Canada or South Africa be, alongside of such a yoke-fellow? ”

“ Before, then, the defence of the British Empire can be placed throughout on a permanently satisfactory footing, it seems necessary that the great political question of the century should be settled, and that Englishmen all over the world should make up their minds as to the real nature of Greater Britain.' The most ardent Federationist could not wish for a more succinct statement of the national position than this. ”

“ The tale of “the English in America” is now in telling, in most worthy telling, here among us. Some other pens in times to come may write the tale of “the English in Australia,” of “the English in Africa,” and they may have to trace the story after the same pattern. Let Federation grow and prosper, so long as no contradictory adjective is tacked on to a substantive so worthy of all honour. Where there is Empire, there is no brotherhood; where there is brotherhood, there is no Empire. ”

“ Now we, this kingdom of Great Britain, have been for a good while accustomed to hold the same position in the world as the United States of America, and we have been withal accustomed to hold it for a much longer time than the United States of America have. ”

“ It becomes more and more imperative that the foreign observer should distinguish between this narrower, older official Britain and the greater newer Britain that struggles to free itself from the entanglement of a system outgrown. There are many Englishmen who would like to say to the French and Irish and the Italians and India, who indeed feel every week now a more urgent need of saying, “Have patience with us.” The Riddle of the British is very largely solved if you will think of a great modern liberal nation seeking to slough an exceedingly tough and tight skin.... ”

“ The Englishman of Britain shrinks from bestowing the English name on the Englishman of America, lest he should seem to be wounding the national pride of a people the very root of whose political life was the denial of all English political allegiance. ”

“ It is our bad luck at present that there are only two independent English nations, two English nations which parted in anger, and neither of which has quite got over the unpleasant circumstances of the parting. As long as there are only two such English nations, there is almost sure to be somewhat of jealousy, somewhat of rivalry, between the two. ”

“ In short, instead of despising those ancient communities which were the earliest form of European political life, we should rejoice that in many things we have gone back to the earliest form of European political life, that the discoveries of modern times have enabled the free states of old times to arise again, but to arise again, no longer on the scale of cities but on the scale of nations. ”

“ In theory every part of this United Kingdom has equal rights; there are no provinces, no subject lands; there is no favoured city or district whose inhabitants have any claim to bear themselves as the masters of any other. Yet truth82 will out; the corporate Emperor will assert himself in defiance of such pleasing theories. No man says, “We” must govern England, or Scotland, or Wales, or any part of England, Scotland, or Wales ”

“ Great Britain will undoubtedly be led to espouse her true Interest; her Commerce will be extended and established; and we shall become a more flourishing, united, powerful People, than we are, even at present ”

“ The commercial and political concerns and interests connected with these vast portions of the globe, are well known to be immense, and of the first-rate importance, while no European power is so much interested in these as Great Britain. ”

“ The highest-mounted thought, the soul's complete attainment, like the summits of the hills, can be the possession only of the few, but the paths that lead thither this empire shall open to the daring climber. Humanity has left the Calvinist and Jacobin behind. And thus Britain shall become the name of an ideal as well as the designation of a race, the description of an attitude of mind as well as of traits of blood. ”

“ Thus Great-Britain, under the illustrious house of Brunswick, a house that seems to flourish for the happiness of mankind, has found a felicity, unknown in the reigns of the Stuarts. But if once we are separated from our mother country, what new form of government shall we accept, or when shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws, affections, relations, language, and commerce, we must bleed at every vein.
In truth, the prosperity of these provinces is founded in their dependance on Great-Britain ”

“ During the first twenty years of the nineteenth century Great Britain, though possessing the most liberal constitution of any of the powers, was the consistent ally of the absolute monarchies of Europe. ”

“ Years went on and still the power and prestige of Great Britain grew, still its industry and commerce spread and expanded, still its colonies increased in population and new lands were added to the sum, until the island-empire stood foremost in industry and enterprise among the nations of the world, and its people reached the summit of their prosperity. ”

“ Hundreds of years ago, in the ancient boroughs of England, a genius for self-government began to display itself, and it is that to which the greatness of our empire is mainly to be attributed. We not only got the noblest of all Imperial gifts—self-government—but we got more than that. Great Britain gave us another noble Imperial gift—the magnificent continent we possess, with all its resources and all its wealth. ”

“ As its title imports, this History will primarily deal with politics, with the History of England and, after the date of the union with Scotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life of a nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot be understood without taking into account the various forces acting upon it, notices of religious matters and of intellectual, social, and economic progress will also find place in these volumes. ”

“ In modern English history much of the greatness and glory of the country may be learned by noticing the names, characters, and exploits of the eminent persons who pass away from the theatre of life and action. So fruitful is the country in men of renown, and men who deserve renown, that to notice these is to see the mighty position which Great Britain occupies, and is likely to occupy, in the world. ”

“ But—apart from the fact that Great Britain occupies an altogether disproportionately important place in the Empire which the growth of the other elements must drastically correct in time—it is, nevertheless, completely at variance with the history and present prospects of our constitutional evolution. ”

“ Civilization, glory, extent of territory, and material wealth, have all passed over from the one side to the other. Of the Protestant nations, Britain alone is more powerful than the whole of combined Europe in the sixteenth century. ”

“ In the history of past empires, their rise and decline, in the history of this Empire of Britain from the coming of Cerdic and Cynric to the present momentous crisis, there reveals itself a force, an influence, not without analogy to the influence ascribed by Aristotle to Attic Tragedy. ”

“ Oh, wonderful rights! that have lost to Great Britain her empire on the ocean,—her boasted, grand, and substantial superiority,—which made the world bend before her! Oh, inestimable rights! that have taken from us our rank among nations—our importance abroad, and our happiness at home; that have taken from us our trade, our manufactures, and our commerce; that have reduced us from the most flourishing empire in the world, to be one of the most compact and unenviable powers on the globe! ”

“ The history of Great Britain is the one with which we are in general the best acquainted, and it gives us many useful lessons. We may profit by their experience, without paying the price which it cost them. ”

“ Of the Great Powers which between them control the destinies of civilisation Great Britain is at once the freest, the largest, and the most various. If the State is a "cauldron" for mingling "the vigour, the knowledge, and the capacity" of the portions of mankind—or if, to use an apter metaphor, it is a body whose perfection consists in the very variety of the functions of its several members—there has never been on the earth a political organism like the British Empire. ”

“ Consider in contrast with these empires the question—What is the distinction in this phase of human life of the Empire of Britain, of its history? Steadily growing from its first beginnings—shall I say, from that great battle of the Winwaed, where three Kings are in conflict and the slayer of two lies dead—steadily growing, on to the present hour, as in politics so in religion, the effort sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, but persistent, continuous, towards an ever purer, higher, nobler conception of man's relations to the Divine. ”