Page:Problems of Empire.djvu/12

PREFACE such decisions are made. The cause of National Unity has had no more sincere, earnest, or strenuous advocate than Mr. Brassey. To this great idea he has consecrated no small portion of his time and thought for many years. The knowledge gained in wide travel throughout the Empire has been laid under constant contribution to this end. During the years in which we have worked together, I have constantly admired the way in which he subordinated his own interest and his feelings as a Party politician to the broad principle and purpose of a United Empire.

It is natural that a candidate for Parliamentary honours in this country should wish the constituents whose support he seeks, to have a full opportunity to know the conclusions at which he has arrived on public questions, and the path along which his mind has travelled in arriving at these conclusions. This is especially true in a time of political upheaval, such as that through which this country is now passing, when new lines of cleavage have been introduced into public life, and numbers of sincere thinkers on both sides of politics have been compelled with anxious thought to reconsider the ground of their party allegiance. These essays and addresses mark the movement of a sincere mind, earnestly seeking, under the varying phases of political development, after truth in regard to the conduct of national affairs. The author would himself probably be the last to say that between his first utterances upon the question and the last, there is absolute fixedness and consistency of statement. Not only do conditions change, but the range of vision widens. Experience alone sometimes teaches the lines of least resistance. Some of the speeches or articles viii