United States has not disturbed my countrymen. They have been so few, and the development of their own Colony has taxed their energies so fully, that they have had no time as yet to dream of Empire.
Yet—and here comes the seeming paradox—they are Imperialists; not Imperialists in the sense of men whose vision is to dominate inferior races, rule subject territory, and maintain powerful fleets and armies with which to assert mastery, nor is any very large share of their time and attention devoted to Imperial politics. They are capable of intense outbursts of feeling, as when they despatched ten contingents to South Africa. But the Boer War once over, they turned to their island's affairs. They are Imperialists not because Imperialism tempts them with chances of meddling with other peoples' affairs, but because Imperialism protects them from any interference by outsiders, and safeguards them in the quiet exercise of self-government.
Their Imperial sentiment may be defined as an intense attachment to the Mother Country, and a pride in the Empire to which they belong, though they have no share in its government. The Imperial ideal of the more thoughtful of them is an ultimate confederation of all branches of the Anglo-Celtic race under the British flag. Members of other white races dwelling within the Empire will, they trust, either blend altogether with the British (as do German and Scandinavian settlers in the Colonies), or will be absolutely reconciled to the British Imperialism by justice and liberty, as the French-Canadians have been reconciled.
It may be said the ideals of a community of less than a million whites far away in the South Pacific do not matter to anyone. This article, however, is written on the assumption that the opinions of no division of her Colonies are quite unimportant to England. For her Colonies have a future.
