power is
entrusted to a corporate body, for, as Turgot once said, "La morale des
corps les plus scrupuleux ne vaut jamais celle des particuliers
honnetes."[11] In both cases, public opinion is relatively impotent. In
the case of direct Government action, on the other hand, the views of
those who wish to uphold a high standard of public morality can find
expression in Parliament, and the latter can, if it chooses, oblige the
Government to control its agents and call them to account for unjust,
unwise, or overbearing conduct. More than this, State officials, having
no interests to serve but those of good government, are more likely to
pay regard to the welfare of the subject race than commercial agents,
who must necessarily be hampered in their action by the pecuniary
interests of their employers.

Our national policy must, of course, be what would be called in statics
the resultant of the various currents of opinion represented in our
national society. Whether Imperialism will continue to rest on a sound
basis depends, therefore, to no small extent, on the degree to which
the moralising elements in the nation can, without injury to all that
is sound and healthy in individualist action, control those defects
which may not improbably spring out of the egotism of the commercial
spirit, if it be subject to no effective check.[12]

If this problem can be satisfactorily solved, then Christianity, far
from being a disruptive force, as was the case with Rome, will prove one
of the strongest elements of Imperial cohesion.

3. _Slavery._--It is not necessary to discuss this question, for there
can be no doubt that, in so far as his connexion with subject races is
concerned, the Anglo-Saxon in modern times comes, not to enslave, but to
liberate from slavery. The fact that he does so is, indeed, one of his
best title-deeds to Imperial dominion.

4. _The Pauperisation of the Roman Proletariat._--This is the _Panem et
Circenses_ policy. Mr. Hodgkin appears to think that in this direction
lies the main danger which threatens the British Empire.

"Of all the forces," he says, "which were at work for the
destruction of the prosperity of the Roman world, none is more
deserving of the careful study of an English statesman than the
grain-largesses to the populace of Rome.... Will the great
Democracies of the twentieth century resist the temptation to use
political power as a means of material self-enrichme