The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1910. THE FUTURE OF THE EMPIRE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 876, 23 July 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1910. THE FUTURE OF THE EMPIRE.

Most intelligent people in the British Empire occasionally ask themselves, What will the future of the Empire bet Not the immediate future, of course—few people trouble themselves about that, but the ultimate future, the position of two or three or five or ten centuries hence. For those who love speculation on vast questions of this kind- there is no limit to the. writings that may be consulted, but the subject is so large and difficult that nobody can say that the last word, or, indeed, that more than the first word, haa been said upon it. At the same time, since natural curiosity anda Jove of truth are in serious Imperialists accompanied'by a desire to do in this age what is best for the Empire of our.very distant children, there will never want an interested audience for any sincere and thoughtful rediscussion of the problem. Itis not surprising, therefore, that universal attention was given in Great Britain to Mil. Roosevelt's Romanes Lecture at Oxford last month upon "Biological Analogies in History." That there is, in Me. Roosevelt's words, "a certain parallelism between the .birth, growth, and death of sneciea

in the animal world and the birth, growth, and death of man," is obviously true, but it is easy to push tho parallel too far, and this Me. Roosevelt recognised. He accordingly set himself to give a brilliant littio discourse upon the known causes of the rise and fall of several civilised States and to deduce some general principles for the guidance of the British and American peoples to-day. The first disintegrating force which he mentioned in his lecture is not the most important, perhaps, but it is the one most presently interesting. This is the development of the healthy spirit of local self-government into "mere particularism, into inability to combine effectively for achievement of a common end." Poland and certain Republics of the Western Heniisp'here are tho standard examples of failure of this kind, and the Jnited States might have ranked with them had not the Civil War run the spirit of union like a steel girder thrbugh the States. Holland also fell from her greatness largely through the development of a decentralisation that permitted the separatist, the particularist, spirit of the provinces to rob the central authority of all efficiency. In Holland's case, however, the supreme weakness was "that- so common in rich, peace-loving societies, where men hate to think of war as possible, and try to justify their own reluctance to face it either by high-sound-ing moral platitudes, or else by a philosophy of short-sighted materialism. The Dutch were very wealthy. They grew to believe that they could hire others to do their fighting for them on land; and on sea, where they did their own lighting, und fought very well, they refused in time of peace to make ready fleets so efficient as either to insure them against the peace being broken or else to give them the victory in time of war." Here, surely, are points to which the friends of the Empire must pay special heed.

No discussion of the present place and the future of our Empire is possible without a comparison with the Roman Empire, and in this passage of his lecture Me. Roosevelt emphasised one very important 'difference between the two cases. When Rome attained to he,r greatest power there were left for her to contend with only decaying civilisations and raw barbarisms. The British Empire; however, has grown to greatness during centuries that have seen other mighty Powers rise and flourish. "It is," said Mr. Roosevelt, "as if Rome, while creating and keeping the Empire she won between the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan, had at the same time held her own with the Nineveh of Sargon and Tiglath, the Egypt of Thothjies and Raheses, and the Kingdoms of Persia and Macedon in the red flush of their wurriur dawn." Mil. Roosevelt, however, did not draw from the difference between the circumstances of the two Empires the conclusion that the menace to Britain is this web of outside forces. Instead, he feels that oven to the British Empire, happy in having to work against the grain, as it were, ruin may come, as it came to Rome, through internal ills. "While," he bays, "we should, be vigilant against foes from without, yet we -need never really fear them so long as wo safeguard ourselves against the enemies within our own nouseholds; and these enemies are our own passions and follies." Mr. Roosevelt names ■iomo of these enemies which he seeb at work—the growth in luxury, in love of case, in taste for vapid and frivolous excitement, the diminution of the birth-rate. He realises at the same time the great advance in ethical standards, and in that advance he sees a great eource of strength. To a robust and vigorous optimist like Mr. Roosisvelt it would probably be of little use to suggest Lhat the strengthening of what may roughly be called the "humanitarian" spirit may conceivably be hos'tile to the growth of national strength. Yet nis speech, a few days, before his Oxford lecture, upon the position of Britain in Egypt was in effect a strong indictment of the "humanitarian" spirit as displayed in the anxiety of the Little Englanders to weaken the power of Britain in Egypt and India. Although Mr. Roosevelt has .on this point not thoroughly cleared his ground, he was magnificently logical and uncompromising when he came to give something like a practical explanation of what he meant by his recommendation of "peace and strength" as the only life-sustaining principle of government. The precise form of' government, he thinks, is not of the first importance. It is "the tool" with which a nation works: "It is important to have a good tool. But, even if it is the best possible, it is only a tool. No implement can ever take the place of the guiding intelligence that wields it." Each nation must _ deal with its problems, and especially the problem of riches and poverty in its own fashion, and yet success requires that the problem shall be tackled with a hard head as well as with a soft heart. He proceeded to particularise in a passage composed of a set of excellent practical maxims which we wish some of,our public men would get by heart: "As in war to pardon the coward is .to do cruel wrong tu'tlio brave man whose life his cowardice jeopardises, 60 in civil affairs it is revolting td every principle of justice to give to the lazy, the vicious, or even the feeble or dull-witted, a reward which ■ is really tho robbery of what braver, wiser, iibior jrnrn liavn earned. The only effective waj to help any man is to help him to help bimself; and the worst'lesson to teach him • is that he can be permanently helped at the expciisu of someone else. True liberty shows itself to ©st advantage fa protecting the rights i't' others, and especially of imnoritiGd. Privilege should not be tolerated because it is to the advantage of it minority; nor yet because it is to the advantage of a majority. No doctrinaire theories of vested rigntti or freedom of contract can stand in the way of our cutting out abuses from tho body politic. Just as little can wo afford to follow the' doctrinaires of an impossible— and, incidentally, of a highly undesirable—social revolution, which, in. destroying _ individual rights—inolmliiiß property rights—and the family, would destroy tho two chief agents in the advance of mankind, and the two ohief reasons why either the advance or tho preservation of mankind is worth whilo, it is an evil and a dreadful thing to be callous to sorrow and suffering and blind to our duty to do all things "possiblo fnr the betterment of sooial conditions. But it is an unspeakably foolish thing to strive for this betterment by means so destructive that they would leave no' social conditions to better. In dealing with nil these mietal prublems, with tho intimate relations of tho family, with wealth in private use and business nee, with labour, with poverty, the one prime necessity is to remembev . that though hardness of h«wt is a groa£ evil il; is no greater an evil than softness of head." Those are the conclusions of a statesman who has thought'long and' intensely upon the lessons of history and who has had a.long practical experience of the work of government. It is easy for anybody their soundness, but the weight of Mr. Hoosevelt'b authority cannot bo

moved excepting by a very long and strong lever of logic. Our .Radicals, whoso touching faith in the beneficence of State action is in contradiction of every word in the passage we have quoted, might not do. very much immediate damage to the Empire were their theories put gonerally in practice, but they would sow the seeds of a future ruin as they wero sown in Rome when, again to quote Me. Koosevelt, "the mass of the citizens grew to depend, not upon their own exertions, but upon the State, for their pleasures and their very livelihood."