rcise such ever-growing political authority.
It was regulated, and in the end abolished, by act of Parliament; its
possessions were taken over by the Crown; the conquests were extended
and completed, and India today is a gem in the crown of the British
empire.

What justifies Britain, as far as she has justification, is the
remarkable wisdom and generosity with which she has extended, not
onlylaw and order and protection to life and property, but freedom and
autonomous self-government, to her colonies and subject populations,
with certain tragic exceptions, about as fast as this could safely be
done. It is that which holds the British empire together. Great
irregular empire, stretching over a large part of the globe: but for
this it would fall to pieces over night. It would be impossible for
force, administered at the top, to hold it together. The splendid
response of her colonies in this War has been purely voluntary. That
Canada has four hundred thousand trained men at the front, or ready to
go, is due wholly to her free response to the wise generosity of
England's policy, and in no degree to compulsion, which would have been
impossible. This justification of the British empire is, nevertheless,
as in the case of Rome, after the fact, and does not justify morally the
building up of the empire.

Our own hands are not entirely clean. It is true we came late on the
stage of history, and, starting as a democracy, were instinctively
opposed to empire building. Thus our brief record is cleaner than that
of the older nations. Nevertheless, there are examples of claim-jumping
in our history. The most tragic of all is a large part of our treatment
of the American Indians. It is true, with Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy, we
tried to make every steal a bargain. Many an expanse of territory has
been bought with a jug of rum. The Indian knew nothing about the
ownership of land; we did. So we made the deed, and he accepted it.
Then, to his surprise, he found he had to move off from land where for
generations his ancestors had hunted and fought, with no idea of private
ownership. So we pushed him on and on. Of late decades we have become
ashamed, tried in awkward fashion to render some compensation for the
wrongs done, but the larger part of the story is sad indeed.

There is, of course, another side to all this: the more highly developed
nations do owe leadership and service in helping those below to climb
the path of civili