Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/287

Rh To what is all this really due? Is it not because many of our politicians are uneducated, narrow-minded men who have no knowledge of the needs of the Empire? Have not the people of Great Britain become afraid of risking anything or Opposing any one; blatant in talk of Empire (by which they mean England) yet with no understanding of it; feeble-spirited and short-sighted to a degree? Thelack of spirit and of enterprise is undeniable. In England is no loyalty to the Empire.

[Surely it is but a temporary phase, and that again we may be as of yore? This mighty Empire is the greatest the world has ever seen; its resources are greater than ever, yet nothing almost is made of them, and the huge, unwieldy Empire is drifting—whither? Is it to drift apart, or are its people to wake up and realise that together we stand, sundered we fall, and that each individual part of the Empire, great or small,is as important as any other. “England”—nor even Great Britain—is not the Empire, only part of it. Everything, every climate even, that human beings need, is to be found within this mighty Empire; its splendid harbours, its coaling stations, its mines and minerals, its great lakes and rivers, its food-producing lands, its forests of priceless timber—nothing is lacking save the touch of genius that is to weld it for all time into one mighty whole.

In 1910 the world watched a great political battle being waged in these isles, and during this battle scarcely one understanding word was spoken on either side of Imperial needs; no one could rise above parochial politics and the status of the House of Lords, which, having stood for centuries, could well stand till a more fitting time for the calm revision of its constitution. Half this business