LAND AND WATER 
July 24, 1915. 
and determined answer defines once for all the deepest 
instinct in the British character and the only one on 
which it is safe to count. 
But the Britisli Empire consists of Dependencies as 
well as Colonies, and in both cases our experience has 
been curiously similar. If India, like the Colonies, is 
ficrhting on our side to-day, it is because our Indian rule 
has undergone the same change as our Colonial rule. 
India, in the Iiast India Company days, was treated as 
an English perquisite, delivered into our hands to be 
exploited and ransacked for our own advantage. There 
followed the Mutiny. The Indian Mutiny was in the 
East what the .American revolt was in the ^\'est — a 
furious protest against tyranny. And it had the same 
effect, ^^'e learnt in both cases tlie same lesson; but we 
learnt it in the same way. That is to say. we learnt it as 
a matter of practical experience, not as a matter of 
tliought and reason. This method was all very 
well as far as it went, but it did not encourage 
the investigation of principles. The broad fact 
which our Imperial history has to teach us is that 
liberty is so truly the cement of the Empire that when- 
ever it has been violated the Empire has shown signs of 
splitting asunder, and whenever it has been vindicated 
the Empire has closed solidly up. This is the leading 
and most salient fact which emerges out of our Imperial 
record, the significance of which it Avould seem impos- 
sible to miss. And yet we are apt to miss it. We miss 
it because we have not built our Em.pire in that way — 
with any thought of the inward idea it was embodving — 
but simply as a practical affair with demands of its own 
which it is expedient to gratify but not necessarv to 
analyse. 
We are all proud of tiie Empire, and not only 
that, but we are proud of the way in which it 
seems to have grown of its own accord, rather 
like one of our great mediaeval cathedrals, not 
planned and prearranged, but increasing as prac- 
tical needs and necessities arose. But still this 
kind of Empire-building has the drawback that, never 
having thought of the Empire as the incarnation of anv 
coherent thought at all, we find ourselves, in a crisis like 
the present, somewhat at a loss in regard to the spirit 
which animates it. Thus we still incline, in quite 
the old way, to emphasise the English or national aspect 
of the matter, and that to such an extent that we even 
credit our Colonists with the same kind of devotion to 
England that we feel ourselves. When shall we learn 
that patriotism is not Imperialism ? Patriotism is devo- 
tion to a concrete object. Imperialism is devotion to an 
Star or the Southern Cross, hold in common. Reallv if 
we forget this, if we allow ourselves to figure Eno-land 
herself as the Imperial inspiration, we are, so far as 
thinking is concerned, back in the old American revolt 
days again, and making the old mistake as to what 
the bond of Enijiire resides in. Tlie American revolt 
should have tauglit us, if anything could teach us, in 
what that bond did and did not consist. And what was 
true then is true now. Liberty is the motive, tyranny 
the enemy, now as then. It cannot be too forcibly slated 
tliat the Canadians and Australians, who fought with 
sucii heroism at xN'euve Chapelle and Gallipoli, were 
fighting in precisely the same cause and for the same 
reason as the .American recruits who charged the British 
infantry at Bunker's Hill. 
To-day the position is this. A Power has arisen in 
Europe, profoundly hostile to liberty, and of such 
formidable strength and resources as to menace its very 
existence. This new Power is inspired by a very clear- 
cut and intelligible order of ideas. It knows its own 
nature, can give a clear account of itself, and is perfectly 
aware of what it wants, and how it means to get it. It 
encounters a body of nations, inwardly indeed united, 
but imperfectly cognisant of the nature of their union. In 
England, especially, it meets sometliing that knows not 
whether it is an Empire or a nation. Others know. The 
world knows; Germany especially knows best of all. It 
is not for an island in tiie Nortli Sea that Germany re- 
serves the purer essence of her hate, but for an Empire 
which is the realisation of all that is most antipathetic to 
her own Empire as site imagines it and will try to make 
it. And the weaker States of South-Eastern Europe, 
watching the conflict with anxiety and dread and secret 
hope— -they, too, know what meaning for the world, and 
especially for the small nations of the world, is contained 
in the British Empire. But we somehow are in doubt. 
We talk of the Empire ; yet owing to our persistent habit 
of reverting to the national point of view, we fail to 
realise the Empire. It is doubtful if any country in- 
terested in the war is so uncertain as to England's 
Imperial mission as England herself is. 
This is the need which the present crisis lays upon 
us. It is time England emerged out of tiie old insular 
order of ideas into one of greater intellectual grandeur 
and more universal concern to mankind. The world is 
waiting for her to take this step. Let her take it, and 
there will pass over the land a wave of consciousness, 
a realisation of our Imperial position, wliich will not only 
fuse the British race into a solid unit in this quarrel, but 
will inspire and hearten every hesitating Slate that is 
groping after the same ideal.' Whether we know it or 
not, and whether we act on it or not, we stand in this 
conflict in the position of leader. The fact of the exist- 
ence of the Empire places us in an opposition to Ger- 
many more definite and absolute than any of our Allies. 
People talk of England's share in the struggle and 
whether or not she is doing it. I know not what Eng- 
land's share may be, but the share of the British Empire 
is German V. 
THE VOLUNTEER. 
By J. D. Symon. 
THE man in our midst, who wears the grev-green 
jacket (which is not exactiv khaki) and'the red 
brassard, is one of the most significant pro- 
ducts of the present time, and potentiallv of 
considerable value to the nation, although hi^ 
valtie IS, perhaps, still held to be problematic. Like his 
predecessor of 1859 and 1800, he is a self-made man as far 
as mil.tarv qualifications go, and he cannot escape son-.e 
of the disabilities of the parvenu. Into these disabilities 
we do not propose to enter here; thev are discussed and 
understood bv a central organisation which is daily im- 
proving the \olunteer's position. In these safe hands 
all grievances and hindrances nuiv for the moment be 
left. 1 he present remarks will reflect no grumbles, carp 
18 
at no authority, but simply endeavour to present the new 
Volunteer and his work as they are in themselves, and to 
stiow a remarkable Force-in-Being. 
1 he Volunteer's first usefulness, both now and in 
1859. has been his vicarious contribution to the gaietv of 
nations. Half a century ago John Leech saw the possi- 
bilities of the civilian soldier as a vehicle for humour, 
and he gave us tlie Brook-Green \"olunteer, a figure so 
droll and wh.imsical in its manifest extravagances that 
for once ridicule did not kill. To-dav it is the same. 
Once more Mr. Punch indulges in sly weekly digs at a 
new civilian army, without in any wav discouraging the 
v.-earers of the red-flannel brassard. ' Nav, rather^ our 
National Jester, who is also a serious person, is tlie whole- 
