Page:The empire and the century.djvu/867

 arise. There the labour problem may be, and in some instances has been, greatly simplified by a recognition that the Empire is one, and that all British subjects are at home where they are protected by the British flag. To enable them to move from one field of labour to another involves at present the difficult questions of indentured and imported labour. But need these questions always remain difficult? Would it not be possible to approach them without passion, in a spirit of enlightened common-sense, and apply in a great sense to all our native subjects that freedom to carry their labour to the most advantageous market which was only conferred upon the English labouring poor when the Settlement Acts were repealed about the year 1884. Up to that time local English labour was not allowed to migrate freely beyond the call of its own village bells. It was considered a terrible innovation when the new Poor Laws were passed, and every man could become, if he chose, a pauper upon the neighbouring parish; but it is difficult to imagine how the Empire could have been made if the old Poor Laws had been maintained. So now it seems to many minds a terrible thing to contemplate that labour should be really free to circulate within the Empire. But can the greater Empire be made unless means are found to render this circulation of labour harmless through such parts as urgently require it?

The question with regard to the tropical Colonies is one of method. How to approach them, how to develop them? It is not a question to be recklessly answered, but neither does it seem in its nature to be unanswerable. It needs to be fairly considered. Englishmen in India and elsewhere have not shown themselves to be deficient in administrative ability. And if the whole body of men now engaged in administering the British tropics were to have their attention directed to the end of promoting industrial development under conditions consonant with good English traditions, it is hardly conceivable that such a direction of their