Finally, in this empire there has never been any attempt to impose a uniformity of method or even of laws upon the infinitely various societies which it embraces; it not only permits, it cultivates and admires, varieties of type, and to the maximum practical degree it believes in self-government. It includes among its population representatives of almost every human race and religion, from the Australian Bushman to the subtle and philosophic Brahmin, from the African dwarf to the master of modern industry or the scholar of universities. Almost every form of social organisation known to man is represented in its complex and many-hued fabric. It embodies some of the most democratic communities which the world has known. It finds place for the highly organised caste system by which the teeming millions of India are held together. It preserves the simple tribal organisation of the African clans. To different elements among its subjects this empire appears in different aspects. To the self-governing dominions it is a brotherhood of free nations, co-operating for the defence and diffusion of the ideas and institutions of freedom. To the ancient civilisations of India or Egypt it is a power which, in spite of all its mistakes and limitations, has brought peace instead of turmoil, law instead of arbitrary might, unity instead of chaos, justice instead of oppression, freedom for the development of the capacities and characteristic ideas of their peoples, and the prospect of a steady growth of national unity and political responsibility. To the backward races it has meant the suppression of unending slaughter, the disappearance of slavery, the protection of the rights and usages of primitive and simple folk against reckless exploitation, and the chance of gradual improvement and emancipation from barbarism. But to all alike, to one-quarter of the inhabitants of the globe, it has meant the establishment of the Reign of Law and of the Liberty which can only exist under its shelter. In some degree, though imperfectly as yet, it has realised within its own body all the three great political ideals of the modern world. It has fostered the rise of a sense of _nationality_ in the young communities of the new lands, and in the old and once decaying civilisations of the most ancient historic countries. It has given a freedom of development to _self-government_ in a variety of forms, to which there is no sort of parallel in any other empire that has ever existed. And by linking together so many diverse and contrasted peoples in a common peace it has already realised, for a quarter of the globe, the ideal of _internationalism_ on a scale undreamt of by the most sanguine prophets of Europe.