Mr. Grant Duff was very graphic in his description of
what the Empire means of which the pseudo-Imperialists talk so much at random :—" The blood-and-thunder school of Im- perialists never seem to comprehend what that Empire is which they are so anxious to increase, by foul means as well as by fair. Let me try to bring it home to you in a few sen- tences. British India is, you know, as big as England, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Turkey, and, to cut a long story short, the whole of Europe put together, with the exception of Russia. Well, but British India is about the size of the single colony of Western Australia ; and the Australian island con- tinent, every inch of which is ours, is about three times as big as Western Australia ; and if you could take up the whole of that huge island continent and put it down on the top of the Dominion of Canada, to which have been added, since we came into office, all the North-American -dominions of the Crown• Which did not already belong to it, except Newfoundland, it could stand, colossal as it is, like a cup upon a saucer. And after you have put aside the Dominion of Canada and the five gigantic colonies which make up Australia, you have still some forty colonies over and above, ranging from mere specks, like
Heligoland, which would make a moderate gentleman's park, through places like many of the West India Islands, which are about the size of a good nobleman's estate, up to New Zealand, which is somewhat bigger than Britain, and South Africa, an which you might drop New Zealands about, and yet have plenty of room to spare." It is not amiss to have a Colonial Under-Secretary who clearly realises all this. No wonder he is moderate in his wishes for extended empire, and thinks the true Imperial spirit ought to be concentrated in making the best of what we have, and not in acquiring more.
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