THE POSITION OF WOMEN 85 



have another special point in common with the great 

 empires, such as Rome and Spain, which have passed 

 away. There is a constant drain of men of high spirit, 

 good character, and administrative ability to the out- 

 lying provinces of the Empire. In England, this drain 

 has been going on for nearly two hundred years. Too 

 often these men are not permanent settlers or colonists 

 in the distant countries, but are deputed to spend the 

 best years of their lives in what are frequently unhealthy 

 tropical dependencies, where white life is often cut off 

 prematurely. There are many difficulties in the way 

 of taking out a wife and rearing a family in suitable 

 conditions. Again, in other colonies South Africa for 

 instance the presence of a large semi-barbarian native 

 population and the sparse European settlement create 

 conditions of some danger and considerable hardship 

 and anxiety for the English settlers. Many parents 

 are willing that their sons should face privations which 

 are deemed impossible for women of equal social 

 standing. Hence we lose, year by year, to our colonies 

 and tropical dependencies, as Rome and Spain did 

 before us, an appreciable fraction of our most valuable 

 young men. Hence we are left, year by year, from 

 another source besides the two we have enumerated, 

 with an increasing number of superfluous women, who 

 are debarred by the logic of mere force of numbers 

 from taking up their natural avocation. 



Nor does the evil end at home. The direct out- 

 come of our scruples is seen in the large half-caste 

 populations, that exist in many of our dependencies, 

 and form the chief part of the inhabitants of some of 

 the South American republics, the least satisfactory of 



