has established an immense naval port in
the Norwegian fiords and thence poured the Tartar and Cossack hordes
over our islands. Let us imagine anything that might leave some dominant
Power supreme in London and reduce us for the sixth or seventh time to
the position of a subject race. Where should we feel the difference
most? Let us suppose that the conqueror retained our country as part of
his empire, just as we have retained Ireland, India, Egypt, and the
South-African Dutch republics; or as Russia has retained Poland,
Georgia, Finland, the Baltic Provinces and Siberia, and is on the point
of retaining Persia; or as Germany has retained Poland and
Alsace-Lorraine; or as France has retained Tonquin and an enormous
empire in north-west Africa and is on the point of retaining Morocco; or
as Austria has retained Bohemia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and many
other nationalities, and is constantly plotting to retain Albania. Let
us only judge of what might happen to us by observing what is actually
happening in other instances at this moment.

* * * * *

The dominant Power--let us call it Germany for short and merely as an
illustration--would at once appoint its own subjects to all the high
positions of State. England would be divided into four sections under
German Governor-Generals and there would be German Governor-Generals in
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Germans would be appointed as District
Commissioners to collect revenue, try cases, and control the police. A
Council of Germans, with a proportion of nominated British lords and
squires, would legislate for each province, and perhaps, after a century
or so, as a great concession a small franchise might be granted, with
special advantages to Presbyterians, so as to keep religious differences
alive, the German Governor-General retaining the right to reject any
candidate and to veto all legislation. A German Viceroy, surrounded by a
Council in which the majority was always German, and the chief offices
of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Commander-in-Chief of the army, and so
forth, were always filled by Germans, would hold a Court at Windsor or
at Balmoral in summer and Buckingham Palace in winter. We should have to
undertake the support of Lutheran Churches for the spiritual consolation
of our rulers. We should be given a German Lord Mayor. German would be
the official language of the country, though interpreters might be
allowed in the l