This is due to the nationalist movement in India
and Egypt, to the growing power of Islam, to the agitation for
independence in the great colonies, as well as to the supremacy of the
Low-German element in South Africa.

Turkey is the only State which might seriously threaten the English
position in Egypt by land. This contingency gives to the national
movement in Egypt an importance which it would not otherwise possess; it
clearly shows that England intensely fears every Pan-Islamitic movement.
She is trying with all the resources of political intrigue to undermine
the growing power of Turkey, which she officially pretends to support,
and is endeavouring to create in Arabia a new religious centre in
opposition to the Caliphate.

The same views are partially responsible for the policy in India, where
some seventy millions of Moslems live under the English rule. England,
so far, in accordance with the principle of _divide et impera_, has
attempted to play off the Mohammedan against the Hindu population. But
now that a pronounced revolutionary and nationalist tendency shows
itself among these latter, the danger is imminent that Pan-Islamism,
thoroughly roused, should unite with the revolutionary elements of
Bengal. The co-operation of these elements might create a very grave
danger, capable of shaking the foundations of England's high position in
the world.

While so many dangers, in the future at least, threaten both at home and
abroad, English imperialism has failed to link the vast Empire together,
either for purposes of commerce or defence, more closely than hitherto.
Mr. Chamberlain's dream of the British Imperial Customs Union has
definitely been abandoned. No attempt was made at the Imperial
Conference in 1911 to go back to it. "A centrifugal policy predominated.
.... When the question of imperial defence came up, the policy was
rejected which wished to assure to Great Britain the help of the oversea
dominions in every imaginable eventuality." The great self-ruled
colonies represent allies, who will stand by England in the hour of
need, but "allies with the reservation that they are not to be employed
wrongfully for objects which they cannot ascertain or do not
approve." [A] There are clear indications that the policy of the
dominions, though not yet planning a separation from England, is
contemplating the future prospect of doing so. Canada, South Africa, and
Australia are developing, as mentioned in Chapter IV.