i8 
LAND & WATER 
March 8, 1917 
British Empire and the U.J.G 
By the Editor 
IN his latest work War and the Future, AJr. H. G. 
Wells writes : " The ' Empire' idea has been 
cadgiriic; about the British Empire, trying to collect 
enthusiasm and devotion since the days of Disraeli. 
It is, I submit, too big for the mean-spirited, and too 
tawdry and limited for the fine and generous. ... It 
has no compelling force in it. We British are not 
naturallj' Imperialist ; we are something greater — or 
something less." Mr. Wells has an absorbent intellect ; 
he does not speak for himself alone ; his opinions are in 
the air — in other men's minds ; his brain is like a wireless 
installation ; it catches up waves of thought and the 
operator in charge reduces them to writing. What 
he says here about Empire, other thoughtful persons 
are saying ; and if we are not careful, with our curious 
habit of self-depreciation we shall end in agreeing 
imanimously that we are something less — considerably 
less — than imperialist. 
But the writer maintains Empire and British-empire 
are not synonymous terms ; they do not stand for the 
same idea. Earth hunger, lust for power, desire of 
dominance have not created the British empire. We 
have had ambitious leaders whose actions at times have 
belied this saying. But were it the truth that we 
had added province to pro\dnce, territory to territory, 
continent to continent for tempdral and material profit, 
the British empire would have crumbled to pieces in 
these latter j'cars. Had there not been a woman on the 
throne of Britain in Disraeli's daj', there would never 
have been a British Kaiser-i-Hind. 
One must take an active part in Britisn cmpire-build- 
mg — have the traditions of in it one's blood — to under- 
stand what a commonplace business it is for the average 
Briton, with an innate sense of justice, an almost rabid 
love of freedom and withal a genius for discipline. Quite 
the most undisciplined part of the Empire in the years 
before the war where the British Isles. Responsilsility 
towards one's fellow-creatures had slackened ; each one 
thought he had a right to live as he liked, act as he pleased, 
pro\-ided the police-court and the bankruptcy-court 
were avoided, and there were no open scandals. It was 
not so under the Union Jack beyond the seas. The 
Dominions, where they were not engaged in fighting the 
forces of Nature and winning to the service of man wild 
and untamed lands, were teaching that responsibility 
was the first duty of the citizen. In India and other 
dependencies the work forward was of the same nature, 
even as it had been for several generations. 
Are not these things written in the journals of those 
distant countries ? The pity is that they are read at 
home so seldom, and are indeed so inaccessible that even 
those who would peruse them, have few opportunities. 
The suggestion that the Union Jack Club should have 
files of all the journals of the Empire contains the germ 
of a great idea. It would be the finest form of Imperial 
education ; but there would be nothing Imperialist 
in the teaching. All that would be learnt would be how 
new industries are being built up, new acreages sown and 
planted, new railways constructed, new irrigation works 
made. Public agitations in those lands, it would be 
discovered, were not principally concerned with whether 
this or that class had the franchise, but whether 
this or that public work had precedence. Such journals 
in dealing with local affairs have so strong a pride 
that it sometimes outstrips truth where local rivals are 
concerned, but this exuberance of statement is only 
symbolic of the human vigour and energy in seeking 
new outlets it reflects. 
To-day men stop at the Union Jack Club who have not 
only been drawn from all parts of the Empire but from all 
sections of its work and life ; they would study these 
newspapers with understanding and use them to ex- 
plain to their comrades of the homeland how things move 
overseas. It is these small links that bind the British 
empire together ; the wider spread the knowledge, the 
more durable the cohesion. \\'cre the (io\crnmcnt to 
allocate the necessary sum to this Club, money would never 
have been better spent on a wiser scheme of education. 
As the Master of Balliol pointed out in these columns 
a little time ago : " The first thing required for the 
creation of that sound public opinion on which alone 
can a democratic Empire be based is knowledge." *In' 
these newspaper files there would be at first hand know- 
ledge and information available for the best type of 
young manhood — the men of our navy and the army. 
And as new ties with 'the outer parts of the Empire were 
formed in the course of time a desire for more accurate 
and precise information would increase. We are at 
the beginning of things, but if the i^ritish empire idea 
grows as we believe it will and the British empire becomes 
the concrete entity which it promises to be, a great stride 
will have been taken towards the larger Imperialism 
which Mr. Wells has in mind. 
But this idea has first to be grasped, not only by the 
few who have had to contend daily for many years of 
their life with these problems, or by the still fewer who. 
though not brought into personal contact with Imperial 
questions, have worked them out for themselves, but 
by the nation as a whole, and it is on its behalf that this 
appeal for a Literary Fund for the Union Jack Club is 
made in these columns, believing as we firmly do, to 
quote the Master of Balliol 's words again, that " the 
Imperial sentiment is growing imder our very eyes and 
the need and the opportunity to instruct and guide 
our people in it is urgent." With • the spread of 
education there is no better mode of teaching than b\' 
the printed word, the published photograpli. Instruction 
is acquired in this manner almost instinctively. Let 
any busy man pause for a minute and consider how 
much of his own general knowledge of the Emipire has 
been gained in this wa\'. The mistake we have made 
in the past of considering Imperial questions as only of 
concern to a comparatively few must not be persevered in. 
It were foolishness, for public curiosity in the Overseas 
Dominions has been increasing rapidly for the last ten 
to fifteen years. It is to the advantage of the Empire 
as a whole that all parts of it shall be brought nearer 
together. It will then be seen how little there is 
that is either tawdry or mean-spirited in the work, 
how much that constitutes asplencHd illustration of those 
finer qualities of the Anglo-Saxon character with which 
the war is famiHarising us. 
£5,000 is a comparatively small sum for such an impor- 
tant object. As a correspondent pointed out last week, 
this fund should be created as a special and permanent 
memorial to the men from all parts of the British Empire 
who of their own accord have given themselves to 
the cause of freedom and humanity. It will be an 
Imperial memorial of peculiar strength for it will make 
a perpetual appeal to brain and intellect. It will direct 
rivers and streams of thought and facts from all parts 
of the British Empire to the nvnds of the British nax'v 
and army and it will continue for all time. The 
proposal has already received pecuniary support ; 
among the subscriptions received are the following ; 
R. W. Hunt, Esq £25 o 
W. C. Teacher, Esq.. .. .. 20 o 
Miss Houldsworth . . . . i i 
Miss Florence Houldsworth . . 110 
Gerard Bromley, Esq. . . . . 100 
IHnion 3ach Club 
All Contributions to tfie Union Jack Club 
Literary Fund should be Jorwarded to : 
The Editor, 
"LAND & WATER," 
5, Chancery Lane, 
London, W.C. 
Cheques should be drawn in favour of Union 
Jack Club, and crossed j^" Coutts Bank" 
