294 POLITICS 



its flagstaff, in the person of the Earl of Cromer, is firmly planted 

 by the Nile, which answers every purpose. It is understood that 

 railway and telegraph concessions to British parties, all the way 

 from Rhodesia to the head waters of the Nile, connect those two 

 British poles of the African continent. Australia and New Zealand 

 were nominally British in 1800, but their erection into veritable 

 membership of the Empire occurred later. 



British rule in India was fairly begun by dive's victory at Plassey, 

 June 23, 1757, but it was rickety till 1798, when Lord Mornington, 

 later the Marquis of Wellesley, became governor-general, with his 

 policy of uncompromising British paramountcy over all native 

 princes, a policy consummated when, at Disraeli's instance, Vic- 

 toria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1877. Since then Upper 

 Burma has been made British, British India thus covering the 

 whole of southern Asia, from Baluchistan, itself a British depend- 

 ency, to the meridian halving the Gulf of Siam. To this add Ceylon, 

 the Straits, and Hong Kong, which are British out and out, and the 

 vast and valuable sphere of British influence in China. Innumerable 

 minor dependencies and protectorates I omit, as of no bearing on 

 my discussion. 



Since the Second Peace of Paris, France has lost Alsace and much 

 of Lorraine, but has gained, and holds with sovereign or some looser 

 tenure, Savoy, Algeria, and Tunis, Madagascar, rather important 

 districts in West Africa, French India and Indo-China, Cochin China, 

 Annam, Cambodia, and Tongking, besides minute islands and main- 

 land patches here and there over the earth. 



The Congo Free State was erected during the eighties, the United 

 States first recognizing its flag in 1884. 



On the Continent of Europe, the Congress of Vienna and the 

 Second Peace of Paris restored the map to about the form it had in 

 1791. The number of states was much reduced, chiefly by quashing 

 ecclesiastical principalities. The Germanic Confederation replaced 

 in a very general way the Holy Roman Empire. Prussia was vastly 

 increased in size, thus put in a way to gain, in 1866 and 1870, still 

 more extensive increments of territory and of power, insuring her 

 the headship, as against Austria, of the new German Empire, which, 

 in 1871, succeeded the confederation. 



The nineteenth century saw the various governments of Italy 

 unite under a single sovereignty for the first time since Justinian; 

 Greece independent of Turkey; Egypt, also all the northern pro- 

 vinces in Europe that were formerly vassals of Turkey, free from 

 their suzerain save in name, or, in some cases, tribute. 



At the Congress of Vienna originated the European concert idea, 

 the system of relegating the weightiest affairs of European politics 

 to the great powers for decision, which has since become a recog- 



