I suppose no thoughtful Englishman would attempt to justify, on high moral grounds, the building up of the British empire:  for instance, the possession of Egypt and India by Britain.  How does India happen to be a part of the British realm?  Every one knows the answer.  The East India Company was simply the most adventurous and enterprising trading company then in the world.  It grew rich trading with the Orient, established the supremacy of the British merchant marine, got into difficulties with French rivals and native rulers, fought brilliantly for its rights, as it had every reason to do, conquered territory and consolidated its possessions, ruling chiefly through native princes.  It became so powerful that it did not seem wise to the British government to permit a private corporation to exercise such ever-growing political authority.  It was regulated, and in the end abolished, by act of Parliament; its possessions were taken over by the Crown; the conquests were extended and completed, and India today is a gem in the crown of the British empire.

What justifies Britain, as far as she has justification, is the remarkable wisdom and generosity with which she has extended, not onlylaw and order and protection to life and property, but freedom and autonomous self-government, to her colonies and subject populations, with certain tragic exceptions, about as fast as this could safely be done.  It is that which holds the British empire together.  Great irregular empire, stretching over a large part of the globe:  but for this it would fall to pieces over night.  It would be impossible for force, administered at the top, to hold it together.  The splendid response of her colonies in this War has been purely voluntary.  That Canada has four hundred thousand trained men at the front, or ready to go, is due wholly to her free response to the wise generosity of England’s policy, and in no degree to compulsion, which would have been impossible.  This justification of the British empire is, nevertheless, as in the case of Rome, after the fact, and does not justify morally the building up of the empire.

Our own hands are not entirely clean.  It is true we came late on the stage of history, and, starting as a democracy, were instinctively opposed to empire building.  Thus our brief record is cleaner than that of the older nations.  Nevertheless, there are examples of claim-jumping in our history.  The most tragic of all is a large part of our treatment of the American Indians.  It is true, with Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy, we tried to make every steal a bargain.  Many an expanse of territory has been bought with a jug of rum.  The Indian knew nothing about the ownership of land; we did.  So we made the deed, and he accepted it.  Then, to his surprise, he found he had to move off from land where for generations his ancestors had hunted and fought, with no idea of private ownership.  So we pushed him on and on.  Of late decades we have become ashamed, tried in awkward fashion to render some compensation for the wrongs done, but the larger part of the story is sad indeed.