omely pictures of our unity that cannot
fail to strike the imagination. It has been our privilege to meet
thousands of men from the Overseas Dominions. How many times have boys,
whose forefathers emigrated from England or Scotland, who were
themselves born in Australia, or on the Western plains of Canada, said,
"I have been wanting to come _home_ all my life"? These islands are the
"home" of the Empire, and there is no more wonderful word in the
language.

Or think of Botha and Smuts, within the memory almost of the youngest of
us, fighting with all their heart and mind against the Empire, and,
to-day, dominant personalities proclaiming their loyalty, and proving it
in unrivalled service.

Or picture, if you can, young India, pouring out her life-blood with
pride and ready sacrifice, in France, in Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, for
the "British Raj." The most moving scene in the history of the British
Commons was on that evening in 1915, when the princes of India stood
amidst the representatives of the people of the homelands and paid their
homage.

How much such things mean will depend on the vision of those who hear
them; but they have in them the stuff that holds the future.

This ghastly war, not of our choosing, has transferred the seats of
learning for young Britain from their peaceful sites to the battlefield.
If the object of education is the cultivation of the power of thought
and observation, the kindling of imagination, and the extension of
knowledge; then "over there" is a University set in full array, with
ghostly as well as human tutors, a curriculum without precedent, and
such a body of undergraduates as Cambridge or Oxford might covet.

It is not for nothing, as regards the Empire, that your sons, the
children of the East End, and the boys of Canada, Australasia, and South
Africa, are meeting and mingling with Gurkha and Sikh, and with each
other. They are sharing a common discipline, a common adventure, making
sacrifice together. They are seeing each other with eyes from which the
scales are falling, and knowledge and understanding are growing out of
their contact. The farthest reaches of Empire have been brought nearer
to the Empire's heart by this brotherhood in arms, and the barriers
between classes have been lowered until a man can step across them
without climbing. The distance between East and West has been
immeasurably shortened, whether we are thinking in terms of London, or
of the Empire.