Page:The empire and the century.djvu/100



I.

the Empire which is celebrating one centenary of Trafalgar survive for the next? It is a searching question, and, despite the narcotic optimism which is the fashion of the hour, national instinct recognises that the answer is no foregone affirmative. In the opinion of nearly all foreign observers, and of some sincere thinkers of our own, the British political system represents an extent and magnificence of dominion beyond the natural, and unlikely to be permanent To consider what it embraces and implies is to restate those commonplaces of our politics daily repeated which remain above the grasp of imagination. It comprises a fourth part of the habitable globe and almost a third of the estimated numbers of mankind. Its existence implies even more than this, for it depends upon the control of all the sea communications of the world and the possession of a naval superiority, as generations 69