heir
sails to each passing breeze of popularity? Such considerations as
these are apt to be forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party
contest; but if history has any meaning, it is such considerations
that affect most vitally the permanent well-being of communities, and
it is by observing this moral current that you can best cast the
horoscope of a nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Pericles and Aspasia._

[2] Jefferson's _Memoirs_, i. 80.

THE EMPIRE: ITS VALUE AND ITS GROWTH

I have been asked on the present occasion to deliver a short address
which might serve as an introduction to the course of lectures and
conferences on the history and resources of the different portions of
the Empire which are to take place in the Imperial Institute. In
attempting to discharge this task my first reflection is one which the
very existence of the Institute can hardly fail to suggest to anyone
with any knowledge of recent history. It is the great revolution of
opinion which has taken place in England within the last few years
about the real value to her both of her colonies and of her Indian
Empire. Not many years ago it was a popular doctrine among a large and
important class of politicians that these vast dominions were not
merely useless but detrimental to the mother-country, and that it
should be the end of a wise policy to prepare and facilitate their
disruption. Bentham, in a pamphlet called 'Emancipate your Colonies,'
advocated a speedy and complete separation. James Mill, who held a
high place among these politicians, wrote an article on Colonies for
the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' which clearly expresses their view.
Colonies, he contended, are very little calculated to yield any
advantage whatever to the countries that hold them, and their chief
influence is to produce and prolong bad government. Why, then, he
asks, do European nations maintain them? The answer is very
characteristic, both of the man and of his school. Something, he
charitably admits, is due to mere ignorance, to mistaken views of
utility; but the main cause is of another kind. He quotes the saying
of Sancho Panza, who desired to possess an island in order that he
might sell its inhabitants as slaves, and put the money in his pocket;
and he maintains that the chief cause of our Colonial Empire is the
selfish interest of the governing few who valued colonies because they
gave them places and enabled them to multiply wars. In more moderate
and dec