and character, the Empire is safeguarded from the danger alike of developing national exclusiveness on the one hand, or of degenerating into a Cæesarian despotism on the other. It stands there before us as the living embodiment of a new political conception which transcends nationality without dwarfing or disabling it, which preserves all that is good in it, leaves it all its rights, but makes it subservient to a higher and more comprehensive ideal.
IX.
Will the Empire, however, last? Does it rest on permanent foundations, or is it only a political organism in a certain stage of decomposition? Will the younger nations as they grow to maturity be content to remain within it, or will they ultimately go the way of the American Colonies before them, as was thought to be inevitable a generation ago? Obviously the Empire is in a state of transition, and if it is to endure, its constitution must undergo great modifications. The political ties between the 'five free nations' resolve themselves at present, as we have already seen, into little more than a common throne and a common citizenship; but they have also certain great common interests that must be provided for. They have, in the first place, a common interest in their own defence, and especially in the retention of the command of the sea, and in the safety of their maritime communications. At present, however, the burden of furnishing the fleets by which the command of the sea is held falls almost exclusively upon the shoulders of the Mother Country, and one of the problems before us is how best to enlist the energies and resources of the daughter States in the performance of what should be a common duty. A common policy of defence, moreover, implies a common front towards the outside world, and that, in turn, requires a foreign policy, which, not directed by one of the partners to the exclusion of the others, shall be the reflection of the interests, and the resultant of the influence, of all in their due measure and
