12 
EXPANSION OF ENGLAND. 
[lect. 
estimate the Empire not by population but by territorial 
area. Ten millions of Englishmen beyond the sea,—this 
is something ; but it is absolutely nothing compared with 
what will ultimately, nay with what will speedily, be seen. 
For those millions are scattered over an enormous area, 
which fills up with a rapidity quite unlike the increase of 
population in England. That you may measure the im 
portance of this consideration, I give you one fact. The 
density of population in Great Britain is two hundred and 
ninety-one to the square mile, in Canada it is not much 
more than one to the square mile. Suppose for a moment 
the Dominion of Canada peopled as fully as Great Britain, 
its population would actually be more than a thousand 
millions. That state of things is no doubt very remote, 
but an immense increase is not remote. In not much more 
than half a century the Englishmen beyond the sea— 
supposing the Empire to hold together— will be equal in 
number to the Englishmen at home, and the total will 
be much more than a hundred millions. 
These figures may perhaps strike you as rather over 
whelming than interesting. You may make it a question 
whether we ought to be glad of this vast increase of our 
race, whether it would not be better for us to advance 
morally and intellectually than in mere population and 
possessions, whether the great things have not for the 
most part been done by the small nations, and so on. But 
I do not quote these figures in order to gratify our national 
pride. I leave it an open question whether our increase is 
matter for exultation or for regret. It is not yet time to 
consider that. What is clear in the mean time is the 
immense importance of this increase. Good or bad, it is 
evidently the great fact of modern English history. And it 
would be the greatest mistake to imagine that it is a merely