6 APRIL 1907, Page 27

Lectures on British Colonisation and Empire, 1600-1673. By F. A.

Kirkpatrick, M.A. (John Murray. 2s. 6d.)—Professor Egerton—he beide the Chair of Colonial History at Oxford— introduces these lectures, as being, together with a similar set on "Empire Builders," the "literary first-fruits of the League of the Empire." It is intended that they should be used for the diffusion of truly Imperial ideas, and for this purpose a set of slides which may illustrate them has been prepared. We warmly commend to our readers this well-thought-out plan. Chap. 1 describes the early days of discovery, followed by what Mr. Kirk- patrick calls "artificial colonisation." The great example of "spontaneous" colonisation is that of the Puritan emigration to New England. This quality is, indeed, characteristic of British enterprise. A colony, whether in the Greek or the Roman sense, had more or less of the artificial about it. It is the Briton who has built up an Empire without meaning it. Five of these lectures are occupied with the New World ; the other deals with India, where the straggle between France and Great Britain was conducted on remarkably similar lines to that which was carried on in Canada.