younger generation were all wishing to turn the potential riches of the soil into tangible wealth, but the harsh commercial laws of the mother country prevented them. North and south were indeed strongly opposed to one another in feeling, but in the middle as a buffer came the more cosmopolitan New York states.

Every politician of the middle eighteenth century should have seen that a confederation of all the colonies must sooner or later have been formed; and it should have been the business of British statesmen to provide that that confederation came about naturally in the process of time, and was not forced by external events; above all, it should have been their business to see that when it came, the American colonies remained within the Empire, and were not driven outside it.

British statesmen, however, did nothing of the sort. They ordered where they should have advised. They repressed where they should have conciliated. They abused, most unjustifiably, the cowardice of the Americans, when they should rather have praised the courage that was shown by the New Englanders in the invasion of Canada. By such means they effectually completed the work of alienation; and the colonies, albeit with many jarrings, with much conflict of interests, and after a disastrous war, seceded from the Empire.

of the

Modern

We may cast a hasty glance forward at British colonial policy as it has been since that time. Almost immediately there was an improvement. Within a very few The Policy years of the loss of America a constitution was given to Canada, thanks to the liberal school of Empire. thought which saw that self-government was as necessary for the English overseas as for the English at home. Federation was encouraged, sometimes with excessive zeal; the liberties of the colonies were emphasised, occasionally in a tone which seemed to indicate that Britain would be glad to see the imperial connection severed altogether. 'Friends indeed, but better friends if we were parted,' was the burden

of many speeches; there was a disposition to enlarge on the burdens of empire and to forget its advantages. But a great step forward was made when the first Colonial Conference was called in the later years of the nineteenth century: it was a further advance when the idea naturally developed into an Imperial Council: it will be a still greater evidence of progress when that idea has taken full root among our peoples.

The ideal of British imperial policy at the beginning of the twentieth century was the exact opposite of that which obtained when the American colonies revolted: it was elastic where it formerly was fixed; it gave freedom ungrudgingly where in the old days chartered rights were denied ; it accepted no contributions save voluntary ones where revenue used to be exacted.

Too often, indeed, the ideal was not reached. Too often, it must be confessed, did those whom the swing of the electoral pendulum had placed in power at home misunderstand the basis of colonial rule. British politicians at home were sometimes apt to forget that the British Parliament had no more right to interfere in the internal affairs of the colonies possessing responsible government than those colonies had to interfere in the affairs of the mother country. From motives doubtless well meant but certainly mistaken, they were known to advocate a paternal rule over the colonies, which they would have been the first to resist had they themselves been colonists.

There was even yet at times a disposition to overlook the wide distinction between the oversea states of the empire, between the colonies with responsible, representative or Crown government, and the great protectorates populated by alien races. The first we may advise as a sister; the second we may counsel as a mother does a daughter on the verge of womanhood; the third we must rule, lovingly but firmly, as a parent does a child whose career is yet undecided, but whom it is

hoped will be trained to walk firmly in the footsteps of its guardian.

But with the reservation that among many persons at home ignorance of the outer empire is still colossal; with the acknowledgment that even now we frequently show a lack of sympathy with colonial aims; with the admission that we sometimes push to illogical lengths principles which may be suited to Britain, but would be detrimental elsewhere: with these shortcomings granted, it must be admitted that the ideal of empire has advanced immeasurably from what was considered good enough for the colonies immediately before the great American wars of the eighteenth century.

Book V

THE EVOLUTION OF A LARGER

SYNTHESIS:

CHAPTER I

1713-63

THE PEACE OF EXHAUSTION: 1713-42

THE Peace of Utrecht in 1713 gave a breathing time to Europe. At a period when nations were more often at war than at peace, a few years' truce-it can hardly be called by a different name-acquired importance as a means of recuperation. The terrific struggles, protracted from one decade to another, wore out every one but the kings and generals whose trade it was. To them a peace was a little longer holiday than usual before the next campaign.

The plan of this work enables, or rather forces us to dismiss in a few sentences, projects, negotiations, and campaigns that held the attention of mankind for years. The internal affairs of Europe are not our concern; nevertheless, it is convenient to summarise those events on the continent which had so great an influence on the outside world. The justification of the War of the Grand Alliance was the overpowering strength of France, which pressed upon the other members of what one may be pardoned for calling the commonwealth of Europe. The justification of the War of the Spanish Succession was the fear of the union of the French and Spanish crowns on one head or in one family— a scheme that remained a favourite one at Paris, even under the Second Empire in the nineteenth century. Both wars

246

closed with the Peace of Utrecht in 1713; and in both the decision was deferred till a later period. France was still a menace to her neighbours; the Court of Madrid was still under her influence. The long duel with England was yet to

come.

The struggle that was concluded at Utrecht was but one of a series; but it was the first of a new series. The older struggles of the Middle Ages had been important

The Con

only as they affected the states which waged tinental them. The wars of the Reformation, of which Struggle. religious differences were the real cause, had come to an end. The wars of which that of the Grand Alliance was the first, were political struggles: and if not national in the sense in which the word is used at present, they were at least national in the sense that a higher ideal of nationality was produced as they continued their weary course through the century. As we look back on them, we can see what was hidden from most of the participants at the time: the evolution of the larger synthesis which has resulted in the great homogeneous powers of the modern world, in place of the little states of the Middle Ages.

The people of the different nations concerned had indeed small voice in the matter. The disputes of the time were conducted with little or no reference to the popular wishif indeed it can be conceded that there was a popular wish, or that it could find expression. Provinces were carved out as suited the convenience of diplomats. Rulers were given to states, of whom the inhabitants had never heard. Monarchs undertook the government of people, of whose language, thought and sentiment, they were ignorant. Nations seemed made for the king, not the king for the nation. But still, in the wars of the eighteenth century, united nations were being hammered out of a number of jarring provinces as the iron is hammered out of its original shapeless mass on the anvil, unconscious of the higher end to be achieved, but