y; but
for the rest she has meddled very little; she has allowed her
settlements to develop much as they please, and has given, in practice
if not in theory, the fullest powers to her governors. It is
astonishing, in the history of the British Empire, how large a part of
its greatness is due to the independent action of individual
adventurers, or groups of emigrants, or commercial companies, almost
wholly unassisted and uncontrolled by the Government at home. An
Empire formed by such methods is not likely to exhibit much symmetry
and unity of plan, but it is certain to be pervaded in an unusual
degree, in all its parts, by a spirit of enterprise and self-reliance;
it will probably be peculiarly fertile in men not only of energy but
of resource, capable of dealing with strange conditions and
unforeseen exigencies. England in the past periods of her history has,
on the whole, been singularly successful in adapting her different
administrations to widely different national circumstances and
characters, and governments of the most various types have arisen
under her rule. Nothing in the history of the world is more wonderful
than that under the flag of these two little islands there should have
grown up the greatest and most beneficent despotism in the world,
comprising nearly two hundred and thirty millions of inhabitants under
direct British rule, and more than fifty millions under British
protectorates; while at the same time British colonies and settlements
that are scattered throughout the globe number not less than fifty-six
distinct subordinate governments.

This system would have been less successful if it had not been for two
important facts. The original stuff of which our Colonial Empire was
formed was singularly good. Some of the most important of our colonies
were founded in the days of religious war, and the early settlers
consisted largely of religious refugees--a class who are usually
superior to the average of men in intellectual and industrial
qualities, and are nearly always greatly superior to them in strength
of conviction, and in those high moral qualities which play so great a
part in the well-being of nations. Besides this, in those distant
days, the difficulties of emigration were so great that they were
rarely voluntarily encountered except by men of much more than average
courage, enterprise and resource. These early adventurers were
certainly often of no saintly type, but they were largely endow