DEMOCRACY AND EMPIRE 325 



dent nationalities : they are bound to the 

 Imperial Government, not by democratic feelings 

 but by respect, and if this be lost, their allegiance 

 is lost also, unless a motive can be found for it in 

 some other impulse. Germany possesses a stable 

 government, and it is possible to imagine Berlin 

 as the effective head of a large colonial empire. 

 For London no such prospect was conceivable, and 

 the British over-sea dominions have accordingly 

 been entirely emancipated from control. In 

 effect they are united to the British Isles by 

 nothing more substantial than an alliance, 

 warmed no doubt by sentimental and patriotic 

 ideas, but cemented by the advantages which 

 they derive from the investment of British 

 capital and the protection of the British fleet. 

 Since long time past the Irish have lost all 

 respect for the British Parliament : its vacilla- 

 tions of policy, which to Englishmen appear 

 natural, to them appear absurd, and they have 

 turned for discipline to the Church, to despotic 

 societies, or to autocratic leaders of their own 

 selection. There is a serious danger that India 

 may also lose all respect for British rule if its 

 vision, with growing acuteness, should pierce 

 through the ranks of the officials who have so far 

 represented consistency of purpose in the State 

 authority. 







Political convictions are in great measure based 

 upon habit, and it is a matter for some surprise 

 that a party which is once secure in office should 

 ever be driven from it by a change of views that 

 cuts away its majority. Educated men, when 

 past the enthusiasms of youth, rarely shift their 

 allegiance : conversion is hardly respectable. 

 Indeed we take it for granted that Liberalism 

 and Conservatism run in families, and our 



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