The islands of Great Britain and Ireland had ceased to represent the dominions under the rule of the British king. In the West Indies new islands had been added to his colonial possessions. In the East Indies he had become master of an imperial domain far surpassing the mother country in size and population, and with untold possibilities of wealth. In North America the great colony of Canada was growing in population and prosperity. Island after island was being added to his possessions in the Eastern seas. Among these was the continental island of Australia, then in its early stage of colonization. The possession of Gibraltar and Malta, the protectorate over the Ionian Islands, and the right of free navigation on the Dardanelles gave Great Britain the controlling power in the Mediterranean. And Cape Colony, which she received as a result of the Treaty of Vienna, was the entering wedge for a great dominion in South Africa. [=The Wars of the World-Empire=] Thus Great Britain had attained the position and dimensions of a world-empire. Her colonies lay in all continents and spread through all seas, and they were to grow during the century until they enormously excelled the home country in dimensions, population, and natural wealth. The British Islands were merely the heart, the vital centre of the great system, while the body and limbs lay afar, in Canada, India, South Africa, Australia and elsewhere. But the world-empire of Great Britain was not alone one of peaceful trade and rapid accumulation of wealth, but of wars spread through all the continents, war becoming a permanent feature of its history in the nineteenth century. After the Napoleonic period England waged only one war in Europe, the Crimean; but elsewhere her troops were almost constantly engaged. Now they were fighting with the Boers and the Zulus of South Africa, now with the Arabs on the Nile, now with the wild tribes of the Himalayas, now with the natives of New Zealand, now with the half savage Abyssinians. Hardly a year has passed without a fight of some sort, far from the centre of this vast dominion, while for years England and Russia have stood face to face on the northern borders of India, threatening at any moment to become involved in a terrible struggle for dominion. And the standing of Great Britain as a world power lay not alone in her vast colonial dominion and her earth-wide wars, but also in the extraordinary enterprise that carried her ships to all seas, and made her the commercial emporium of the world. Not only to her own colonies, but to all lands, sailed her enormous fleet of merchantmen, gathering the products of the earth, to be consumed at home or distributed again to the nations of Europe and America. She had assumed the position of the purveyor and carrier for mankind. [=Manufacturing and Inventive Activity=]