gathered strength is that of the Empire as a single united whole, a great world-State, composed of equal and independent yet indissolubly united States. Every unit of this great federation is as essential to the whole as any part of the United Kingdom. To the true Imperialist Canada and South Africa are in every sense as real and essential parts of his country, of the State which claims his patriotic allegiance, as Scotland, Wales, or Kent Each State of the British Empire is as essential to the whole as are the States of the American Union. This may not yet perhaps be the attitude of every Englishman, or of every Canadian, or South African, but it is an attitude which is becoming more general, and one that is growing in strength. How rapidly it has grown is shown by the South African War. That war was in its essence a war of secession, an attempt on the part of certain semi-dependent States to wrest themselves, and not only themselves, but the whole of South Africa, out of the Imperial system. The Colonies sent their contingents to oppose that attempt, not so much from any affection for the United Kingdom, as from the determination that the British Empire should be preserved intact.
Closely connected with the internal change in the Empire have been the changes in its external surroundings, which have again made the question of defence vital, and through the aspect of defence have helped on the movement for unity. Europe took much longer to recover from the great crisis of the Napoleonic? wars than England. A constant series of conflicts between the different States, and between the different classes in those States, retarded their economic development. Gradually, however, a measure of internal and external equilibrium was arrived at, and was followed by a stage of rapid economic development. Prussia, pursuing a policy in its spirit closely akin to that of England in the eighteenth century, made defence—through education, through efficiency of administration,
