THE ANNUAL SUMMEE MEETING. 



BEING ALSO 



THE 521st ordinary GENERAL MEETING 



WAS HELD IN 



THE LECTURE HALL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS 

 (BY KIND PERMISSION), ON MONDAY, 26th JUNE, 1911, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



Lieutenant-Gexeral Sir Henry L. Geary, K.C.B., Vice- 

 President, TOOK THE Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 

 An address to the King (see p. 316) was unanimously adopted. 

 The Chairman then introduced Sir Charles Bruce, G.C.M.G., who read 

 the Annual Address. 



THE TRUE TEMPER OF EMPIRE. 

 By Sir Charles Bruce, G.C.M.G. 



BACON in his Essay of Empire wrote : " To speak now of the 

 true temper of Empire : It is a thing rare and hard to 

 keep " ; and, in a speech in the House of Commons, he illus- 

 trated the meaning he assigned to the phrase by reference to 

 Vespasian's eulogy of Nerva : Divus Nerva res olim dissociabiles 

 w.iscuit, Imperium et liber tatem, Nerva did temper things that 

 before were thought incompatible or insociable, Sovereignty and 

 Liberty." Proceeding to compare the Government of Nerva, 

 who " tempered and mingled the sovereignty with the liberty of 

 the subject wisely," with tliat of Nero, who " interchanged it 

 and varied it unequally and absurdly," he led up to the 

 conclusion that the true temper of Empire " is exhibited in the 

 state of things which exists when the two contraries, sovereignty 

 and liberty, are mingled in fit proportions. While I have 

 adopted Bacon's phrase as the text of my address, I do not 

 limit myself to the interpretation of the idea of Empire implied 

 in his essay. He understood by the term " Empire," the 

 sovereignty of an individual over the liberties of the constituent 

 elements of a single administrative unit. " Kings," he observed, 

 " deal with their neighbours, their wives, their children, their 

 prelates or clergy, their nobles, their second-nobles or gentlemen, 

 their merchants, their commons, and their men-of-war; and 

 from all these arise dangers, if care and circumspection be not 



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