[3] 'No community which is not primarily charged with the ordinary business of its own maintenance and defence is really, or can be, in the full sense of the word, a free community. The privileges of freedom and the burdens of freedom are absolutely associated together. To bear the burden is as necessary as to enjoy the privilege, in order to form that character which is the great necessity of freedom itself.'--Mr. Gladstone before the Colonial Committee, 1859. {59} CHAPTER III. DEFENCE. IN beginning his elaborate study of the Empire and its capacity for defence, the author of 'The Problems of Greater Britain' says:-- 'The danger in our path is that the enormous forces of European militarism may crush the old country and destroy the integrity of our Empire before the growth of the newer communities that it contains has made it too strong for the attack.' In closing he says: 'The result of this survey of Imperial Defence is to bring before the mind a clearer image of the stupendous potential strength of the British Empire, and of an equally stupendous carelessness in organizing its forces. ... Our ambition is not for offensive strength, and not only home-staying Britons, but our more energetic colonists themselves, decline to accept such organization of our power, with the temptations that it would bring. We wish only to be safe from the ambition of others, and the first step towards safety must be the arrangement of consistent plans for supporting the whole edifice of British rule by the assistance of all the component parts of the Empire. As all have helped to raise the fabric, so may all combine {60} to secure it by the adoption of a settled plan of Imperial Defence.' The defence of common interests has been, in the past, the primary bond which has held federations together. It must be put in the very forefront among the arguments for British unity. Taken by itself it seems to furnish more than sufficient reason why Great Britain and her colonies should present a united political front to the world. Common interests so vast no nation or union of nations has ever before had in the history of the world. The foundations of British greatness rest in the creative power of industry, and that interaction of industry or exchange of products which we call commerce. Industry and commerce have combined to make our nation the richest in the world. We are a race of workers and of traders. It is in virtue of our working and trading instincts that we hold today the foremost place among the nations of the world. In following them we have won Empire; it seems capable of proof that to satisfy their necessities we must maintain Empire, for what we have been in the past such we are manifestly to be on a much larger scale in the future.