◆¹ In the first place, with regard to moral and mental culture, if these are really desired by the individual citizen, they will be included amongst the things which his income will help him to obtain: and an insufficient income certainly tends to deprive him of them. If he wishes to have books, he must have money to buy books: and if he wishes his children to be educated, there must be money to pay for teaching them. In the second place, with regard to the power and greatness of the country, though for many reasons ◆² we are apt to forget the fact, it is the material welfare of the home, or the maintenance of the domestic income, that really gives to them the whole of their fundamental meaning. Our Empire and our power of defending it have a positive money value, which affects the prosperity of every class in the country: and though this may not be the only ground on which our Empire can be justified, it is the only ground on which, considering what it costs, its maintenance can be justified in the eyes of a critical democracy. Supposing, it could be shown to demonstration that the loss of our Empire and our influence would do no injury to our trade, or make one British household poorer, it is impossible to suppose that the democracy of Great Britain would continue for long, from mere motives of sentiment, to sanction the expense, or submit to the anxiety and the danger, which the maintenance of an Empire like our own constantly and necessarily involves. [Sidenote ◆1 Further, patriotism will only flourish in a country which secures for its citizens the conditions of a happy life.] ◆¹ But let us waive this argument, and admit that a sense of our country’s greatness, quite apart from any thought of our own material advantage, enlarges and elevates the mind as nothing else can—that to be proud of our country and proud of ourselves as belonging to it, to feel ourselves partners in the majesty of the great battle-ship, in the menace of Gibraltar stored with its sleeping thunders, or the boastful challenge of the flag that floats in a thousand climates, is a privilege which it is easier to underrate than exaggerate. Let us admit all this. But these large and ennobling sentiments are all of them dependent on the welfare of the home in this way:—they are hardly possible for those whose home conditions are miserable. Give a man comfort in even the humblest cottage, and the glow of patriotism may, and probably will, give an added warmth to that which shines on him from his fireside. But if his children are crying for food, and he is shivering by a cold chimney, he will not find much to excite him in the knowledge that we govern India. Thus, from whatever point of view we regard the matter, the welfare of the home as secured by a sufficient income is seen to be at once the test and the end of Government; and it ceases to be the end of patriotism only when it becomes the foundation of it.