Page:A Short History of the World.djvu/406

386 A Short History of The World province, occupied and administered jointly by the British and by the (British controlled) Egyptian Government ; Then a number of partially self-governing communities, some British in origin and some not, with elected legislatures and an appointed executive, such as Malta, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Bermuda ; Then the Crown colonies, in which the rule of the British Home Government (through the Colonial Office) verged on autocracy, as in Ceylon, Trinidad, and Fiji (where there was an appointed council), and Gibraltar and St. Helena (where there was a governor) ; Then great areas of (chiefly) tropical lands, raw-product areas, with politically weak and under-civilized native communities, which were nominally protectorates, and administered either by a High photo ,- C Sinclair^ GIBRALTAR Commissioner set over native chiefs (as in Basutoland) or over a chartered company (as in Rhodesia). In some cases the Foreign Office, in some cases the Colonial Office, and in some cases the India Office, ias been concerned in acquiring the possessions that fell into this last and least definite class of all, but for the most part the Colonial Office was now responsible for them. It will be manifest, therefore, that no single office and no single brain had ever comprehended the British Empire as a whole. It was a mixture of growths and accumulations entirely different from any- thing that has ever been called an empire before. It guaranteed a wide peace and security ; that is why it was endured and sustained by many men of the " subject " races — ^in spite of official tyrannies and insufficiencies, and of much negligence on the part of the " home " public. Like the Athenian empire, it was an overseas empire ;