Presented to the LIBRARY of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by MISS CHARITY GRANT THE BRITISH EMPIRE j0^m. MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. * TORONTO THE BRITISH EMPIRE SIX LECTURES BY SIR CHARLES P. LUCAS K.C.B., K.C.M.G. MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1915 COPYRIGHT TO THE MEMBERS OP THE WORKING MEN'S COLLEGE m JS^ %^7YOFTo€ The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground : yea, I have a goodly heritage. Psalm xvi. 6. Day is as night and night is as day, until we hear that the English are victorious. God knoAvs the right. He will help the right. Extract from a Somali Address to King George, 1914 {Translation). CONTENTS PAGE Introductory ........ 1 CHAPTER I England in thk Making ..... 5 CHAPTER II The Seventeenth Century ..... 40 CHAPTER III The Eighteenth Century . .75 CHAPTER IV The Age of Queen Victoria 110 CHAPTER V The Empire at the Present Day . .160 CHAPTER VI The Meaning and Use of the Empire . 200 INDEX 237 n INTRODUCTORY The British Empire, as seen through German eyes at this time of international bitterness, is a creation of force and fraud, an image with feet of clay, a collection of down- races to rebel in trodden and communities, eager ; short, an evil in the world which ought to be wiped out. No sane Englishman and no sane man in any neutral nation shares this view. But though before the present war knowledge of the realities of the Empire was steadily growing in the United it was still half or less Kingdom, only knowledge ; and, moreover, among a large section of Englishmen there was a suspicion of Empire, both the word and the thing, as implying jingoism, vainglory, and hypocrisy. Hence arose the term of Little Englander. Coupled with this suspicion there was a feeling among some, at any rate, of the working men of England, that the Empire was of no use to them, and that they had no use for the Empire. It might be the luxury of the richer classes, but how, they asked, was the working man of England benefited by the Empire ? It is proposed in the following pages to state as shortly, as simply, and as honestly as the writer can, how into and what it means to this Empire came being, ; explain it is a of force and fraud and to that not mere creation ; try to prove that it is at once the interest and the duty of all Englishmen, poor as well as rich, to maintain it. Two 1 B THE BKITISH EMPIRE comments may be made at the outset, and will bear repe(en- tion later. The first is that it is idle not to recognise that nations, which are communities of men and women, are, like the individual men and women, as a rule guided by mixed motives. Self-interest enters in, as well as moral principle and tradition : nations have an instinct to rise in the world, as men have to rise in life. The second com- ment is that it is impossible to read history aright, if the deeds done in past centuries are judged in the Hght of the present day. Right and wrong are always right and wrong, but they are more right or more wrong in proportion to the stage of civilisation which has been reached. All nations have done evil deeds in ; but, condemning what was done in the past, it is right to remember that the men of the past did not sin against the light to the same extent as if the deeds had been done here and now. The converse is also true. The world-wide indignation against German treatment of Belgium is due, not only to the actual facts, but also to reflection that what would have been bad at any time is infinitely worse for having been perpetrated when the world was supposed to have left barbarism behind it. Empire. The word Empire is responsible for much misunderstand- ing. We are obliged to use it, because we have no other single word which would cover the many and diverse dominions of His Majesty the King. But Empire to many, possibly to most, Enghshmen, implies mihtary domination, despotic rule, aggression on other hberties. This does not represent the facts. Canada and Australia belong to the British are Empire and proud to belong to it, yet nowhere in the world is liberty, government of the people by the people for the people, more fully developed. But, inasmuch as words count for something, it is worth noticing, first that INTRODUCTORY 3 the Latin word from which Empire is derived was not a pm-ely military term^ and secondly that when the word first comes into English history it is used to denote not domina- tion but independence. A celebrated statute was passed in the reign of King Henry the Eighth, which laid down that " This realm of England is an Empire." The statute was dues to the See and the passed against paying Papal ; meaning of the words Empire and Imperial, as explained by the great " commentator, Blackstone, was that our King is equally sovereign and independent within these his dominions, as any emperor is in his empire." Empire denoted the spiritual and temporal independence of England, and it may fairly be said that, at the present day, British Empire connotes British Hberty. CHAPTEE I ENGLAND IN THE MAKING History tells us that nations which acquire overseas Nations possessions acquire them when, and not until, they have Empires, taken final shape at home, not until they have really become nations and entered upon national Hfe. Then the force and the instinct which have completed the home work seek for a further outlet, which in modern times has, as a rule, been found beyond the seas. This law of evolution, for it is no less, can be traced in the history of Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain, and in late years in that of United Germany and United Italy. Nations must be made, before they can grow into Empires. The British Empire, as an actual reahty, only begins with the beginning of the seventeenth century, with the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the accession of King James I.; and it will be noted that it was not until James I. became King of England that the whole island of Britain came permanently under one Crown. Before his time Scotland had been a separate kingdom from England, and when he was called to be King of England as well as of Scotland, he took the new title of King of Great Britain. It is proposed in this chapter to note how England grew The many in her contributed into a nation, and what elements making ^Yie English nation. to the coming Empire. The great point to notice is the 5 6 THE BRITISH EMPIRE CH.1I W\ many strains which have entered into the EngHsh blood. If an amalgam of so many different elements produced such a strong and successful people, it may fairly be argued that the many and great diversities which now exist in the British Empire will, if wisely handled, be ultimately a source not of weakness but of strength. Eoman In ancient times, when civilisation centred round the Britain. Mediterranean, our island was at the furthermost extreme of the known world. It comes into history under the names i of Britain and Albion. Under the name of Britain it be- came a Roman province, being conquered by the Romans as far as the line of the Forth and the Clyde. The Romans held the island for rather less than four centuries, and they left their mark to this day in the Roman Wall in North- umberland, in the traces of old Roman roads, in the founda- I tions of Roman towns which have been unearthed at Silchester and elsewhere. Early in the fifth century a.d. Britain ceased to be a all Roman province ; but, although vestiges of Roman rule disappeared, the island up to the Highlands of Scotland had been more or less united under one Roman administration. Roman blood must have I intermixed with the native Britons, and it is difficult to suppose that the future England did not derive some strength from the wonderful people who gave laws and roads and government to the greater part of the then known world. During the Roman occupation there was a very short interval, between 287 and 296 when Britain a.d., l! became a kind of separate Roman monarchy apart from the Empire. A Roman, Carausius, had command of a strong fleet to safeguard the eastern side of the island against Teutonic pirates, and, gaining command of the sea, pro- claimed himself as an independent prince. His triumph was short-lived, but the historian Gibbon's comment is : 8 THE BEITISH EMPIEE ch. " Under his command Britain, destined in a future age to obtain the empire of the sea, already assumed its natural and respectable station of a maritime power." This was a very early illustration of the importance of sea power to Britain and its inhabitants, but in these far-off days and for centuries afterwards, until the Atlantic was thrown open, the sea for Britain meant the waters round the British Isles, and " notably the Channel— the Narrow Sea." Saxons and In 449 A.D. Teutons to settle in Britain began ; Hengist and Horsa with a band of Jutes came into the Island of Thanet, planting themselves, it will be noted, in an island off an island, for the Isle of Thanet was then an island in the true sense.