Page:The empire and the century.djvu/601

With the colonist it is quite otherwise. His national traditions unaltered, and his national affections unshaken, he goes forward, building his future on his past, changing the outward circumstances indeed, but only as normally happens to every man in the course of progression from the nursery, through kindergarten, school-days, and University or apprentice life, to the occupation of manhood. Migration from one part of the Empire to another should involve no greater uprooting, no further loss of English sentiment to a colonist, than the transference of residence from London to, say, the depth of a Hertfordshire village. In either case the principles of national tradition, feeling, and policy remain unaffected; in either case the outward surroundings and daily happenings of life would be immensely altered. When, from our overcrowded industrial centres, efforts are made to transfer fit persons to Canada, to Australia, to South Africa, it is fundamentally a mistake to call such movement 'emigration.' It ought to be considered not emigration—a 'going out of' the country—but rather a home-flitting to another part of the same land, where opportunities of labour are greater, the surroundings better adapted to the rearing of a healthy family, and the chance of serving the Empire a hundredfold increased. The average Englishman, especially of the less-educated class, is too apt to assume that patriotism means soldiering and naval service only. It is, indeed, obviously true that every citizen of the Empire should be so trained to the use of arms and to the meaning of strict discipline as to be capable of efficient service either on sea or land in time of need; but that in no way affects the indisputable fact that he who devotes his life to the development of the Empire as a successful colonist is not less a patriot than he who accepts death in the national defence. To belittle the devotion of the soldier is ingratitude and inappreciation beyond contempt; to underrate the Imperial service involved in colonization indicates lack of intelligence amounting to childishness.