If we pass from Russia to the other great human combinations, we shall
find the principle of Home Rule far more extensively and powerfully
developed. Take China, a combination of 400,000,000 of human beings,
now changing before our eyes from an absolute monarchy to a
constitutional republic. But whether as a monarchy or a republic, China
has always rested her rule on gigantic and almost autonomous provinces,
under separate Viceroys. Those provinces have doubtless been subject to
the same autocratic control as China herself, but with the change in
her central government they will probably pass by an easy transition
into Home Rule provinces. Or come nearer home to an Empire which most
Englishmen imagine to be the most centralised in the world--the German
Empire. That Empire rests upon a basis of twenty-six autonomous
governments, varying from autocracies at one end to republics at the
other. The German Empire contains within it every form and shape of
human community, varying from sheer mediaevalism to extreme modernism.
But whatever the form or shape of these separate governments, they are
all alike in having control over their own local affairs. Most of the
great states of Germany still possess control even over their own
railways. They have their own Parliaments, their own judges, and, in
many cases, their own reigning sovereigns. It was part of the wisdom of
the founders of the German Empire that they made no attempt to
interfere with these local powers. They contented themselves with
combining all those forces for common defence, including them under a
common tariff, and giving to them a common vote for a common assembly
at the centre. In other words, Germany rests upon the two principles of
unity and division, and in that combination lies its strength.

THE UNITED STATES

Or turn to the United States. There you have another of those powerful
human governments resting on a basis of forty-six State authorities,
each with its own legislature, and even with its own little army. Each
of those state governments has control over such great matters as
criminal and civil law, marriage and divorce, licensing, education,
game laws, and the regulation of labour. They have the right to place a
direct tax upon property. They have their own governors and their own
ministries. And yet they all work harmoniously within the central
authority of the Federal States. Probably by no other means could that
great combination be held