Note 104 — Chapter XXVII
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The old colonial system is gone. But in place of it no clear and reasoned system has been adopted. The wrong theory is given up, but what is the right theory?—There is only one alternative. If the colonies are not in the old phrase, possessions of England, then they must be a part of England; and we must adopt this view in earnest.
We must cease altogether to say that England is an island off the north western coast of Europe, that it has an area of 120,000 square miles and a population of thirty odd millions.
We must cease to think that emigrants when they go to the colonies, leave England or are lost to England. We must cease to think that the history of England is the history of the Parliament that sits at Westminster, and that the affairs that are not discussed there cannot belong to English history.
When we have accustomed ourselves to contemplate the whole Empire together, and call it all England, we shall see that here too is a United States.
Here too is a great, homogeneous people, one in blood, language, religion and laws, but disposed over a boundless space. We shall see that though it is held together by strong moral ties, it has little that can be called a constitution; no system that seems capable of resisting any severe shock. But if we are disposed to doubt whether any system can be devised capable of holding together communities so distant from each other, then is the time to recollect the history of the United States of America. For they have such a system. They have solved this problem. They have shown that in the present age of the world political unions may exist on a vaster scale than was possible in former times.
No doubt our problem has difficulties of its own, immense difficulties. But the greatest of these difficulties is one which we make ourselves.
It is the false preconception which we bring to the question, that the problem is insoluble, that no such thing ever was done or ever will be done; it is our misinterpretation of the American Revolution. (Expansion of England, by J. R. Seely, M.A., p. 158.)