Gentlemen, I cannot help thinking that Lord Rosebery was mistaken when, a short time ago, he said that the “Little Englanders” no longer existed among us. A pretty pass we must have come to if the Minister who is responsible for the British colonies is forbidden to speak of their future, of their greatness, of the importance of maintaining friendly relations with them, of the necessity of promoting the unity of the British race, for fear of giving offence. I remember a story of a certain burgomaster in a continental town to whom complaints were made that naughty boys were accustomed to throw mud upon the passers-by. He was asked to intervene, and he issued a proclamation which was to the effect that all respectable inhabitants were requested to wear their second-hand clothes in order not to give offence. I do not so understand the position which I hold. I decline to speak with bated breath of our colonies for fear of giving offence to foreign nations. We mean them no harm; we hope they mean us none. But not for any such consideration will we be withheld from speaking of points which have for us the greatest interest and upon which the future of our Empire depends. Sir James Garrick has kindly attributed to me very creditable motives in seeking the office which has been conferred upon me. He is perhaps not far wrong in thinking that I have long believed that the future of the colonies and the future of this country were interdependent, and that this was a creative time, that this was the opportunity which, once let slip, might never recur, for bringing together all the people who are under the British flag, and for consolidating them into a great self-sustaining and self-protecting Empire whose future will be worthy of the traditions of the race. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF EMPIRE. This speech was delivered in London, March 31, 1897, at the annual dinner of the Royal Colonial Institute. The society and the occasion are sufficiently explained in the opening sentences. What follows is a broad and lucid statement of Mr. Chamberlain’s conception of expansive Imperial policy. At the moment when in the United States the old blood is asserting itself and men are coming to weary of adventures in stocks and raids in pork products, to Americans the pronouncement is of peculiar interest. For the speaker is a practical statesman: he himself has seen working many of the doctrines he here publishes.