242 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



initiative to benefit their fortunes without any help from government. 

 Though the Empire has come into being by an unpremeditated proc- 

 ess, it is to Britain a token of her essential justice that issuing from 

 this home, spring, and source, a spirit has interpenetrated the diverse 

 parts and made them one. The Empire is not run by machinery. 

 It is a body politic. 



But what is it that creates the spirit of this Commonwealth ? 

 Why is the British Empire greater to-day than it was before the 

 United States seceded ? To answer these questions, it is necessary 

 first to answer another. Why did the United States secede one 

 hundred and forty years ago ? In many respects Virginia had closer 

 relations with Old England than with New England. The States 

 would not unite even for their own interests. And yet in spite of 

 intercolonial jealousies these communities combined to revolt from 

 the Motherland, and that too under the leadership of Washington, 

 who possessed the best qualities of an English gentleman, and is now 

 regarded by British and Americans as an outstanding representative 

 of the Anglo-Saxon race. Only very radical causes could have created 

 a union for revolt out of such discordant States, especially as their 

 action would not at that time seem to have been worldly- v/ise. 



Of course no single motive is sufiicient to explain this break from 

 Great Britain. The character of the immigration, both the original 

 and the later, was always a factor that produced dissidence from the 

 ruling classes in England. The Puritan fathers of the northern col- 

 onists flung away from England under persecution, and doubtless 

 their descendants had little sympathy with their overseas kinsfolk; 

 a large and more recent immigration from Scotland and Ireland had 

 brought with them the memory of grievances which persisted and 

 caused them to harbour dislike for England as she was then governed. 

 Moreover, the colonies had been losing their pure English quality as 

 streams of German and Huguenot settlers had poured into new lands. 

 Diverse though these elements were, soon a common system of educa- 

 tion produced a type of average man difl'erent from the Englishman; 

 and as time went on the American fashioned for himself powers of 

 government and a political system unlike that which existed in 

 England. Though the institutions within the several States did not 

 resemble the British Parliament with its responsible government they 

 gave rise to independence and self-reliance. There was no class in 

 the Motherland which quite corresponded to the American colonist; 

 those who governed England belonged to an order which for the most 

 part could not understand him. It is not a matter for surprise that 

 these peoples separated by the ocean, environment and social customs 

 were time and again at cross-purposes, but unfortunately it too often 



