Mr. Balfour then defended the Education Bill, and forecast a
scheme for London, hinting that it would be based on the new municipalities, and incidentally paid a just compliment to the Metropolis. It might lack the self-conscious corporate life of Paris, but it never lacked the memory of being the Metropolis of an Empire "which contains such varied interests, such different populations, the remains of such different civilisations, such different forms of government." Let our readers note care- fully the words we have italicised, for they throw light on Mr. Balfour. The remainder of his description might have been uttered by any statesman, but only a most thoughtful one would have remembered that the fading away of old civilisations within its confines is one of the marked peculiari- ties and greatest difficulties of the British Empire.
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