208 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



A vast competition ensued to see which 

 State, which prince, could do most for 

 the Empire. Faction ceased ; grievances 

 were put on one side ; discontent was 

 smothered. When the news came that 

 the King-Emperor would use the valor 

 of his Indian subjects, the whole penin- 

 sula rang with joy. 



All this in the first month of the war. 

 Soon the stream became a mighty tor- 

 rent fed from every corner of the Em- 

 pire. All the fruits of the earth, all the 

 products of the factory, all the resources 

 of public treasures and private purses, 

 all the accessories of war that individual 

 generosity could furnish, were lavished 

 without stint upon the government in 

 London. 



Time and again the Colonial office had 

 to refuse gifts that it felt would be put- 

 ting too great a strain on the donors. 

 From the seamstresses and market- 

 women of the Bahamas, with their offer- 

 ings of two or three shillings, to the Ni- 

 zam of Hyderabad, with his initial gift 

 of $2,000,000 ; from East African chiefs, 

 with their contributions of bullocks and 

 goats, to the millions forwarded in money 

 and goods from the self-governing do- 

 minions — one common passion to give 

 and spend swept through the Empire. 



If it had been confined to men and 

 women of British blood and origin, it 

 would still have been wonderful enough ; 

 but what gave and gives it — for the tide 

 still runs flood high — its preeminent sig- 

 nificance is that the native rulers and peo- 

 ples have been everywhere foremost in 

 words and deeds. They hastened as one 

 man to show their gratitude for what 

 British justice and British government 

 had done for them ; and the more they 

 knew of Prussian rule the more quickly 

 they hastened. 



Not in a thousand years could the Ho- 

 henzollerns earn such touching and un- 

 forced tributes of loyalty and affection as 

 Sir Hugh Clifford on the Gold Coast and 

 Sir Frederic D. Lugard in Nigeria — to 

 mention but two instances — have been 

 privileged to receive. 



And what have the men of the domin- 

 ions and of India achieved in the war? 

 They have seized the German possessions 

 in the Pacific : they have conquered Togo- 



land and German Southwest Africa and 

 the Cameroons ; they hold virtually the 

 whole of German East Africa in their 

 grip ; they made an end of the Bmden; in 

 Flanders and the Dardanelles, at the head 

 of the Persian Gulf, in Egypt, in Arabia, 

 and along the course of the Tigris and 

 Euphrates, Indians and New Zealanders, 

 Australians and Canadians, have shed 

 their bravest blood. 



Before the war is ended the Empire 

 overseas will have thrown into the strug- 

 gle well over 1,000,000 men, unsurpassed 

 the world over in physique, intelligence, 

 and the qualities of daring initiative. 



It is a superb record. No Britisher 

 can even think of it without a feeling of 

 awe mingling with his pride. Far beyond 

 any material strengthening, it has brought 

 to the motherland the inspiration of the 

 real sense of oneness that underlies all 

 the peoples of the Empire. 



This w r ar will change many things ; on 

 the structure and machinery of the Brit- 

 ish Empire its mark will be indelible. No 

 one after the experience of the first two 

 and a half years can think it possible to 

 maintain much longer the arrangement 

 by which policies that affect the govern- 

 ments and peoples of the entire Empire 

 and involve them in unlooked-for perils, 

 sacrifices, and responsibilities are decided 

 in London by the leaders of a single Brit- 

 ish political party, without any consulta- 

 tion whatever with the statesmen of the 

 dominions. That is an anomaly which 

 will have to go. But to uproot it means 

 not merely to alter, but to revolutionize, 

 the constitution of the British Empire. 



AS IF AMERICA SHOULD RAISE 11,500,000 

 TROOPS 



Meanwhile to make the rounds of any 

 of the British fronts at any of the thea- 

 ters of war is to view a microcosm of the 

 Empire. It is, indeed, the climax to all 

 our other services and achievements that 

 we should have turned ourselves into a 

 military power of the first order. People 

 talk of Great Britain being slow to wake 

 up to the realities of the Avar. So we 

 were in some ways. But 2,000,000 men 

 enlisted in the first year of the war, 

 which seems to show a certain conscious- 

 ness that at any rate something unusual 



