The merits of England, no less than her defects, tended to alienate the North American colonies. It is possible that, if she had made a larger and more sweeping demand, she would have been more successful. Her requisition was so moderate, that it seemed to be petty, and might well have aroused suspicion that there was more behind; that what was actually proposed was an insidious preliminary to some far-reaching scheme for oppressing the colonies and bringing them into subjection. It has been held, too, that, if the Stamp Act had been passed without delay, there would have been less opposition to it than when it had been brooded over for many months. In other words, the fairness of dealing, which gave full warning and full time for consideration of a carefully measured demand, was turned to account against the mother country. But after all what was in men’s minds, when the American colonies began their contest for independence was, speaking broadly, the feeling, right or wrong, that a mother country ought to pay and colonies ought not. Men argued then, and they still argue, from the analogy of a family. The head of the family should provide, as long as the children remain part of the household. The analogy of family life suggests a further view of the relations between a mother country and its colonies, which accounts for the possibilities of friction. A colonial empire consists of an old community linked to young ones. The conditions, the standards, the points of view, in politics, in morals, in social and industrial matters, are not identical in old and young communities. Young peoples, like young men, do not count the cost, and do not feel responsibility to the same extent as their elders. They are more restive, more ready to move forward, more prompt in action. Their horizon is limited, and therefore they see immediate objects clearly, and they do not appreciate compromise. The problems which face them are simple as compared with the complicated questions which face older communities, and they are impatient of the caution and hesitation which come with inherited experience in a much wider field of action. The future is theirs rather than the past, they have not yet accumulated much capital and draw bills on the coming time. Most of all, being on promotion, they are sensitive as to their standing, keenly alive to their interests, and resent any semblance of being slighted. It is impossible to generalize as to the comparative standards of morality in old and young communities, either in public or in private life, but, as a matter of fact, political life, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was much purer in the North American colonies than in England: whereas at the present day, in this respect, England compares favourably with the United States. The North American colonies were a group of young communities, whose citizens were, at any rate in New England and Pennsylvania, of a strong, sober, and very tenacious type: