36 THE BRITISH ISLES. 



fluctuations of commerce ; there that disputes between masters and workmen 

 have assumed the largest proportions, and the workmen's trades unions dispose 

 of the most considerable forces. Not an event takes place in Europe but its 

 effects are felt in the workshops of England. Not a change can be made in the 

 wages of the English factory hands without the labour markets of the whole world 

 immediately feeling the effect. 



In addition to the direct influence which England brings so powerfully to 

 bear upon the destinies of other nations, it exerts, through its distant colonies, 

 an indirect influence of the utmost importance. Unhappily English colonisa- 

 tion has not always proved a benefit to the aboriginal populations whose countries 

 have been occupied. Where the English colonist sets his foot, the days of nomadic 

 tribes of fishermen and hunters are numbered, and even agricultural tribes do 

 not always survive contact with the civilisation foi'ced upon them. True there 

 still exist nations beyond the pale of Europe at once too numerous and too far 

 advanced in civilisation to make us fear their extermination ; but the white man 

 has nevertheless violently intervened in their history, and none more decisively 

 than the Englishman and his American kiusman. It was they who forced the 

 people of Japan to take part in the movement of Western civilisation, and broke 

 down the barriers behind which China had entrenched herself. The vast multi- 

 tude inhabiting the peninsula of India obey the orders of the Empress-Queen seated 

 upon the banks of the Thames. A deep gulf still separates the haughty Englishman 

 from the timorous Hindu, and the time when the two will be able fully to enter 

 into each other's thoughts is probably very remote. Yet the presence of the 

 European conqueror has wrought greater changes in the material and social con- 

 ditions of the population of India than the twenty centuries which preceded his 

 reign. Railways, schools, and printing-presses have totally overthrown this 

 ancient world, and a new life is penetrating a society formerly strictly regulated 

 by caste and tradition. If ever the peoples of that beautiful peninsula should 

 learn to govern themselves, and to live side by side in peace and the enjoyment of 

 liberty, the first impulses will have come from England. 



The increasing extension of the English language in civilised and barbarous 

 nations cannot fail to spread English ideas amongst men of various races. 

 M. Alphonse de Candolle, in a well-known book,* develops an idea already 

 expressed before him by various authors, and insists upon the importance which 

 English must, in course of time, acquire as a universal language. It is spoken 

 not merely in the British Isles, but also in America, in Australia, in every centre of 

 commerce, and even in the most remote islands of the Pacific. In reality it 

 is the mother tongue of some 77,000,000 of human beings ; t but if we include 



* " Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis deux siècles." 



t Distribution of persons whose mother tongue is English : — 



In Europe 34,000,000 



In the United States 35,000,000 



In British North America 3,300,000 



In Australasia 2,750,000 



In South Africa 300,000 



In other English Colonies 1,620,000 



76;970,000 



