tion, and when the English Government adopted the
policy of withdrawing its garrisons from the colonies, when the North
American colonies, with the full assent of the mother-country, formed
themselves into a great federation, and when a movement in the same
direction sprang up in Australia, it was the opinion of some of the
most sagacious statesmen and thinkers in England that the time of
separation was very near.[6]

On the whole, however, these predictions have hitherto been falsified.
The federation of North America and, at a later period, the federation
of Australia have been followed by an increased and not a diminished
disposition on the side of the colonists to draw closer the ties with
the mother-country, while in England the popular imagination has been
more and more impressed with the growing magnitude and importance of
her colonial dominions. The tendency towards great political
agglomerations based upon an affinity of race, language and creed,
which has produced the Pan-Slavonic movement and the Pan-Germanic
movement, and which chiefly made the unity of Italy, has not been
without its influence in the English-speaking world, and it is felt
that a close union between its several parts is essential if it is
fully to maintain its relative position under the new conditions of
the world. The English-speaking nations comprise the most rapidly
increasing, the most progressive, the most happily situated nations of
the earth, and if their power and influence are not wasted by internal
quarrels their type of civilisation must one day become dominant in
the world.

Whether their harmony and unity are likely to be attained is one of
the great problems of the future, but the ideal is one which every
patriotic Englishman should at least set before him. It is not one
which can be called an assured destiny, and to many the chances seem
on the whole against it. Unexpected collisions of interest or passion
or ambition may at any time mar the prospects, and in great
democracies largely influenced by demagogues and by an irresponsible
and anonymous Press there are always powerful agencies that do not
make for peace. Immediate party interests both at home and in the
colonies too frequently blind men to distant and ulterior
consequences, and the many ill-wishers to the British Empire are sure
to direct their policy largely to its disruption. The natural bond of
union of a great Empire is economical unity, binding its several pa