RELIGION
COLONISING ¢& TRADE

CHAPTER 1

By ‘ The Expansion of England,” by the name as well
as by the substance of his famous book, Sir John
Seeley, nearly half a century ago, gave a notable lead
to correct understanding of the British Empire. The
lesson by this time has been fully learnt that our
singular British Commonwealth is the outcome of
growth ; that the Empire, with all its endless diversities,
1s an immensely enlarged version of an island in which
all the elements of diversity were, and are still, to be
found. Early in the book are the often quoted words
that we seem, as it were, to have conquered and
peopled half the wotld in a fit of absence of mind.’
Perhaps it would be more strictly accurate to say that
we did what we did by instinct, the instinct of growth
and self-defence ; but, at any rate, premeditated design
was wholly wanting. Yet, in the making of the
Empire, as in the making of everything human,
individual men and women have been concerned, and