Page:The empire and the century.djvu/90

 may be in locomotives, railway plant, steel-work, mining machinery, water-pipes, or electrical equipment. This brings home to our minds the true Imperial meaning of many exports which seem dull and lifeless when grouped in lists and valued in pounds, shillings, and pence. Here we see they are the things which make life possible in new countries; they are the visible signs and accompaniments of Imperial expansion. In a thousand ways they are imparting new life to an Empire which covers one quarter of the earth's surface. We call them loans from England to Greater Britain, and are sometimes alarmed at the great debts the Colonies have piled up during the last fifty years. And yet this is the branch of Imperial trade of which we have, perhaps, the best right to be proud; for debts such as these are not like the old-world national debts—the outcome of destructive wars—they have left the Colonies something tangible and solid to show for them, thousands of miles of railway, deepened harbours, roads and bridges, waterworks. Government offices, courts of justice, schools, libraries, universities, museums, lighthouses, and innumerable other public, municipal, and private works. In the words of a colonial statesman, 'They are a solid investment of capital applied to eminently reproductive purposes, yielding not only in most cases a substantial monetary return in the shape of interest actually earned, but yielding also, in a measure that cannot be expressed by figures, benefits of incomparable value to the Empire at large.'

Enough has been said to show the power which Great Britain's possession of vast loanable capital has given her in the work of Empire-building. In the modern world, with its large affairs, its immense undertakings, finance often plays a decisive part. What is above all to be desired is that British finance should always go hand-in-hand with British industry, that the one should consciously support the other, and both should, as far as possible, be guided in the interests of a great Imperial trade policy. Probably