VENEZUELA AND AFTER 347 



abundance of such warnings availed to stir 

 up jealousy or fear. The grounds of British 

 complacency were, of course, manifold. That 

 the Americans, in assuming dominion over less 

 developed races, would be forced to solve some 

 problems by the same methods that had brought 

 harsh criticism upon the British, was so cer 

 tain as to be a source of some natural satisfac 

 tion. The course of events in the Philippines 

 very quickly confirmed this feeling. Beyond 

 all such reasons, however, the source of British 

 approval of American policy was a genuine 

 joy that through it English institutions and 

 traditions, however modified by transmission 

 through the United States, were to be extended 

 still further in their remarkable progress over 

 the world. 



Meanwhile this progress was reacting in a 

 noteworthy manner on the complex political 

 aggregate known as the British Empire. Till 

 the ninth decade of the nineteenth century it 

 remained the basic conviction of reflecting 

 politicians in England that the destiny of the 

 self-governing colonies was independence. The 

 grip of Cobden s dogma was strong twenty 

 years after he himself had passed away. No 

 way of escape from disintegration of the empire 



