back twice the cavalry and four times the infantry that any enemy could bring against it. And except for self-defence England will never arm.

The general tenor of success on their side throughout the whole course of their national existence has made the English people believe themselves to be invincible; and the pride is not yet extinct which makes them assume that, in respect to physical strength and courage, one Englishman is equal to two men of any other country in the world. On the other hand, the peaceful occupation of the nation generally, and their aversion to assume a belligerent attitude, are marked; and all the Continental powers believe that England, in her quiescent state, already shows symptoms of decay. It is scarcely necessary to combat this latter belief. As a country devoted to peaceful occupations, England is naturally averse to take offence; and her first efforts to resent it when given are, as a rule, feeble, ill-directed, and abortive. But, if unprepared at the outset, she soon makes up her deficiencies by her imperturbable fortitude and perseverance; and in all wars she has hitherto always been successful at the end. The conclusion of the Crimean war, in which England figured so unfavourably, found Russia, not humiliated only, but also perfectly exhausted. In France the result was nearly as embarrassing, provision rising in price and capital being withdrawn from internal industry. But England did not suffer from the consequences to any perceptible extent. Her means and appliances were, on the contrary, augmented; and she found herself stronger at the end of the war than she was at the beginning of it. This is not a proof of decline. The preponderating evidence is all on the other

side. It is only under the house of Hanover that England has enjoyed the plenitude of her greatness. After a long trial of courage and patience was this greatness attained. It is yet too early to say that the hour of triumph has passed by. The constitutional liberty of the country and her indomitable energy still remain; and so long as they do remain, there can be no real decline in her power. Other countries, it may be, are gradually coming up to an equality with her; but there is no sign to indicate that her motion has become retrograde, or even that she has come to a halt. She has herself made the greatest noise of her disasters and shortcomings. She has not only detected her own deficiencies, but has made almost a parade of them on all occasions. No other country in the world can afford to do this. But is that a sign of decline, or of the greatest selfcorrecting vigour? In other countries victories are exaggerated, and defeats concealed or palliated. It is in England only that the most indubitable success is severely and even maliciously criticised.

Russia

There is no doubt, however, that old states do become effeminate by efflux of time, and first become stationary, and then begin to decline; while younger states, prompted by greater resources, wants, or energies, gradually rise to an equality with them, and eventually outstrip them in the race. is the youngest of the European communities, and, with her increasing population and limitless territory, is not unlikely to outstrip the older states in time. The United States of America, from similar or still greater advantages, may similarly come to arrogate for themselves a position of pre-eminence. This is not in the power of England, or of any other country, to prevent. But the relative position of

D

the parties has not yet been so changed as to justify any fears of England being thrown backwards soon. The only thing against her is that her greatness is disproportioned to her size and population; but this does not necessarily imply that the time for rectifying the disproportion is at hand. Pitting the British empire as an aggregate against any other power, the preponderance still remains with her, and will do so for a long time to come; though, in the course of ages, it may be her lot to come down to a position nearer equality with a few of her rivals.

The general hatred of England all over Europe and America is well known; and there is no doubt that this has arisen mainly from the arrogance of the English character and the vituperations of the English press. It is also attributable to a feeling of envy common to all nations who see in England an advance too great for them to equal, and who therefore wish heartily that she may go down that they might thereby be enabled to overtake her. The crowing against her comes from every quarter. It is now the Gallic cock that sputters through the mouths of her strutting colonels, and boasts of being able to uproot the British Islands from their foundations in the sea; or it is the staid Prussian general or semi-military politician, who calculates on paper the feasibility of conquering England at this time of the day by invading it again in Norman fashion; or it is the Russian, who complacently praises his own moderation that prevents him from overrunning the diamond-paved shores of India; or it is the tall-talking Yankee who boasts of his ability to whip creation, Canada, and England out of existence. But which of these powers alone is at this moment equal to England? In England it is the genius of the

nation that rules, fights, and acts on every emergency; and the genius of a great nation pitted against the genius of one mind, however great-be it Napoleon's or Bismark's-cannot but be certain of success. No sudden blow, however great, could possibly paralyse the energies of a stubborn people like the English; no French, Prussian, or Russian victory could humiliate England except for the passing hour. A war with the United States would possibly be somewhat different; but, as yet, the old mother is more than a match for the virago that disowns her birth. One thing is certain-that the ruin of England, when it does come, will be a calamity to the world, which will not be remedied by the greatness either of Russia or America, or of any other country yet known to us.

CHAPTER III.

THE DEPENDENCIES OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

COLONISATION is an inseparable adjunct to every great state, but more especially to an insular kingdom of small size like the British Isles, the energies of which are circumscribed within a limited sphere. Every prosperous country has a tendency to become redundantly rich and redundantly peopled, and for these exuberances of wealth and population, new outlets must be found, new lands discovered and reclaimed, and the foundations laid for new communities. The prosperous manufacturer requires a wider sphere for the disposal of his wares than the home market affords; the prosperous merchant more extensive marts for profitable traffic; the wealthy capitalist an opener range for the investment of his superfluous wealth. Colonisation for these ends is the natural remedy of inevitable overgrowth; and the nation that has resort to it, instead of being weakened or impoverished, is only rendered stronger and richer by such depletion.

This has been the case pre-eminently with England. She has extended herself in every direction as widely as it was possible to do so, from the icy regions of the arctic to those of the antarctic circle;