we should still have to remain the leading naval nation, or cease to be an independent Power.
Whether the British Empire stands or falls, Canada, Australia, the West Indies, perhaps South Africa, could insure the safety of a subordinate existence by entering the American Union, and making their preferential trade arrangements with the United States upon the Cuban model. This Country, her day of glory gone, might be taken into the same system on terms. In such an Anglo-American conception of Imperial destiny painlessly extinguished by Republican patronage, some excellent Free Traders profess to find a comforting reassurance. Do they leave a veil of vague optimism floating across the background of their reflections, or do they think the question through? Their solution means the death of the English idea. The American idea is potent, but it is not the English idea. The two things are as different as was Shakespeare's London from Modern Chicago. Slav and Italian emigration is pouring into the United States a tide of alien blood, diluting more and more the original spirit of that society. Nelson's name means less to the Great Republic than does the name of Admiral Dewey, and the centenary of Trafalgar is not so moving as the anniversary of Manila Bay:
'It is not to be thought of that the Flood
Of British freedom, which to the open sea
Of the world's praise from dark antiquity
Hath flowed "with pomp of waters unwithstood,"
Should perish, and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever.'
The life of the English idea depends upon the maintenance in separate identity and power of the Imperial Commonwealth under the Crown. Sentiment and interest in the case of nations we can no more separate than soul from substance in a living body. If we wish the Colonies to desire with sufficient intensity this future, and no other, we must give them a far more direct and
