TENDENCY IN ENGLISH HISTORY. 11
than the population of Switzerland. This makes a total
of ten millions and three quarters, or about ten millions
of English subjects of European and mainly English blood
outside the British Islands.
The population of the great dependency India was
nearly a hundred and ninety-eight millions, and the native
states in India which look up to England as the paramount
Power had about fifty-seven millions in addition. The
total makes a population roughly equal to that of all
Europe excluding Russia.
But of course it strikes us at once that this enormous
Indian population does not make part of Greater Britain
the same sense as those ten millions of Englishmen who
jive outside of the British Islands. The latter are of our own
, ood, and are therefore united with us by the strongest tie.
•The former are of alien race and religion, and are bound to
ns only by the tie of conquest. It may be fairly questioned
whether the possession of India does or ever can increase
°nr power or our security, while there is no doubt that it
vastly increases our dangers and responsibilities. Our
colonial Empire stands on quite a different footing; it has
some of the fundamental conditions of stability. There aro
111 general three ties by which states are held together,
community of race, community of religion, community of
interest. By the first two our colonies are evidently
bound to us, and this fact by itself makes the connexion
strong. It will grow indissolubly firm if we come to
recognise also that interest bids us maintain the connexion,
an d this conviction seems to gain ground. When we in
quire then into the Greater Britain of the future we
ought to think much more of our Colonial than of our
Indian Empire.
Ibis is an important consideration when we come to