I .

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OUTLINEo/ihe

WORLD TO-DAYVOLUME TWO

THE BRITISH EMPIRE '

Edited byI

. I· Sir HARRY <.JOHNSTONAND

D~ L. HADEN GUEST

LONDON.\

GEORGE NEWNES LIMITEDSOUTHAMPTON ST STRAND we.2

THtE

THEOUTLINE OF

WORLD TO-DAY

CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWOPACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I.

ENGLAND

WALES ..

CHAPTER II.

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73

SCOTLAND, IRELAND AND THE CHANNEL ISLANDS 8I

CHAPTER III.

CANADA III

CHAPTER IV.

NEWFOUNDLAND qo

CHAPTER V.

THE WEST INDIES .. 144

CHAPTER VI.

INDIA

CEYLON ..

CHAPTER VII.

MALAYA, BORNEO AND HONG KONG

CHAPTER VIII.

AUSTRALIA

lSI

I~2

195

2°5

/

,

CHAPTER IX.

NEW ZEALAND

CHAPTER X.

OCEA IA

CHAPTER XI.

SOUTH AFRICA

CHAPTER XII.

EAST, WEST AND CE ITRAL AFRICA

SUPPLEMENTARYCHAPTER XIII.

EGYPT ..

ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN

IRAQ

PALESTINE

SYRIA

PAGE

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268

311

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22 AUG' 19'95Perpnstakaan Negll9

MaJayaja

THE OUTLINEOF THE WORLD

TO-DAYTHE BRITISH:,',:,EMPIRE

INTRODUCTORY.

THE British Empire is only three

hundred .years old, but it has. already outrun all the records of

history, The Roman Empire never reachedone-seventh, the Arab, Mongolian, Spanish and

Chinese· Empires never more ·thanIts Size. one-third, even the Empire of the

Tsars did. not amount to muchmore than one-half of the British Empire,which covers a quarter of the land of theglobe. It is three times greater than Europe,twice as great as South America, a hundredtimes greater than the United Kingdom,

And it has been growing all the time, mostof all since the loss of those plantations nowknown as the United States of America. In1841 Great Britain and Ireland ruled over8t million square miles, which had grown tomore than II millions in IgoI, and to nearly14 millions in 1921. The Great War may havebrought many misfortunes, but it added to theBritish Empire territories eight times as big asGreat Britain. The rule of the Empire nowextends over 450 million souls of every race<j.nd hue, including a majority of the Moslemsof the world, amounting to a quarter of thepopulation of the world, and stretching awayto its remotest corners. Herein lies thedifference between the British Empire andits predecessors. Rome occllpied the Medi­terranean and stretched her tentacles overneighbouring lands; Russia remained a

compact;' ~ass, whereas Britain turned theIndia'n:: O~tan into a British Mediterranean,whence. I~peiial tentacles penetrate everywhere-from Egj,pt right across Africa by an all-redroute to the Cape; right across Asia, throughArabia, Mesopotamia (Iraq),. India .and··theMalay States to New Guinea, Australia ande~ Zealand. But the British.Ernpiie is not

.compact and has not sought compactness. Itdoes not depend on communications by land somuch as on control ·of the world's waters.

Instead of isolating the British islands, theseas have been the arteries and nerves of Empire,transmitting blood and motive power from theheart· to the remotest cells and tissues of theimperial body. By an insular instinct, British

. colonists first sought out islands and shores.In the seventeenth century we began with theisland of Jamaica; in the eighteenth centurythe British Navy occupied the peninsula ofGibraltar; for a hundred years Britain con­tented herself with the coasts of India; duringmost of the nineteenth century she held only afew coastal stations in Africa; she began inCanada with the shores of the St. Lawrence;in Australia with sheltered bays. Other empiresspread overland towards the seas; Britain hasalways secured the seas before attemptingterritorial penetration.

The first impulse to colonisation came fromthe discoveries of the Middle Ages, Vikings hadtravelled to North America much earlier, but thebalance of the civilised world was not disturbeduntil Columbus and Vasco da Gama changed the

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,THE OUTLINE OF THE WORLD TO-DAY

BRITAXi'\IA :l\EEDS NO BULWARKS.As far as the eye can see, a long line of British war-ships expands, racing through the waters amid black

clouds of smoke; a stupendous demonstration of British pomp and power.

centre of gravity, whereupon the remote fringesof a continent-Great Britain, the Low Countries,Spain, Portugal and the coasts of France­were suddenly transfen'ed to the middle of theworld. From insignificance at the end ofnowhere the British Isles found themselvesthrust into a commanding position on the mainhighroad between the Baltic and the Atlantic.

But a hundred years followed the discoveryof America and the Cape route to the Indies

before Britain was ready to bidk~ginnings. for the colonial supremacy of the

world, and then she found allthe best places occupied by the tradingnations of the Mediterranean. Her pene­tration was perforce slow and patient. Sheplanted tobacco in Virginia and sugar-cane inthe West Indies; she sought slaves in WestMrica, spices and cotton in Asia; huge fortuneswere amassed in London, Liverpool and Glasgow.Then came industrial inventions which addedto her wealth still more. The light cotton goodsof the East were ousting the heavy productsof Lancashire, but British manufacturers devisedfiner tissues which were eagerly bought by the

Orientals themselves. British rivals were handi­capped by having to return from distant landswith empty ships, so she beat them by adoptingtriangular routes-British goods were taken toGuinea and exchanged for slaves; these weretaken to the West Indies and exchanged forcargoes which were brought home, and thusprovided three profits on the original investment.So far it was all a question of commerce, andcommerce has always remained a powerfulfactor in British policy, down to the NapoleonicWars.

But British coionisation, unlike that of thePhcenicians and the Dutch, did not remainexclusively commercial. During the middle ofthe eighteenth century profound changes hadbegun to take place in the economy of the Britishcommonwealth; corn-lands were turned intopastures, men were everywhere displaced bysheep, small properties and home industries­declined, the peasantry came to feel.a looseningof the bonds which had united them for centuriesto the soil. Vague yearnings developed intofloods of emigration, the formation of newEnglands beyond the seas, the extension and

THE BRITISH EMPIRE 3----------------------reproduction of the most progressive type ofcivilisation the world has ever known.

Emigration has been attributed to the restive­ness of sects in the seventeenth century, butstatistics show that to be an exaggeration. Thegreat motive cause was purely economical,especially in Scotland, then as always a pioneer.As early as 1771 the men of Cantyre weredisturbed by the formation of sheep-walks anddeparted to settle in Prince Edward's Island;departures for Canada were multiplied everyyear from the Highlands and the Shetlands andthe .Hebrides. During the first half of thenineteenth century, 20,000 people left Ireland

. for the United States every year; after thegreat famine of 1846 the flood of Irish emigrationswelled, and 4,000,000 left between 1850 and1900 . The end of the Napoleonic Wars renderedagriculture unprofitable in England, and inspireda wholesale exodus, which was presently

intensified by the introduction of machineryand Hie consequent discouragement of manuallabour.

Liberty and property and a continuity ofhome conditions-these, with visions of goldmines and other prospects of rapid wealth, werethe baits which drew emigrants from their nolonger happy homes. Between 1815 and 1920

no less than 17,000,000 persons forsook our.shores without any sign of depopulation outsideIreland. The Great. War called a halt, but theproblems of peace have stimulated emigrationonce more.

The three great goals of' British emigrantsare Jorth America, first broached early in theseventeenth century; Australasia, discoveredby British seamen at the end of the eighteenth;and South Africa, taken from the Dutch at thebeginning of the nineteenth, to safeguard th.;highway to India.

\

BUCKINGHA~1 PALACE.

The Palace has a wonderful view down the i'vlall and across St. James's Park. and crowds are attracted every day bytbe changing of the guard. The Royal Standard floats from the flagstaff ,vhen the King is in residence

4 THE OUTLINE OF THE WORLD TO-DAY

The Secretsof BritishSuccess.

§ I

What is the secret of Britain'S greatness?According to Queen Elizabeth, it was an open

Bible. Less empirical observerswould emphasise the reduction ofdistances by land and sea; the

vast irrigation works which have turneddeserts into gardens all over the world; thepower of the purse, derived from the patienteconomies of centuries; .and the paternal interestshown by the application of science t.o everycolonial need, from the development of agri­culture to the repression of tropical disease.But what would the wisest plans have availedwithout the practical energies, the spirit of'self-sacrifice, the benevolent intuitions whichhave inspired the British race to make them­selves the masters of the hearts of mankind?

Colonists, like poets, are born, not made, andthese beri~volent intuitions are the gifts of fairygodmothers to the much-mixed British race.Habits, social conditions, education, psychologyand physical training all combine to make usthe ideal builders of Empire. The British haveevolved a type of their own, and more importantstill, they never lose it when they expatriatethemselves beyond continents and oceans. Asa Latin poet saId, they change their skies butnot their souls when they race across the seas.Unlike the colonists of other lands, they emigratewith t~eirwivesand families and traditions, settledown «s a permanent, dominant race, impregnatethe world with their solid comforts and virtues,their prejudices and their standards of morality.

Their craving for comfort extends to theirclothing and their homes. In the remotestcorners of the country, in the farthest islands ofthe Hebrides, foreigners expecting to find dirtand rags are amazed by the tidiness and cleanli­ness of ~Very tiller of the soil; even the blazing

I

heat of Australian summers has not succeededin dispelling black coats and boiled shirts andsilk hats.' In each jungle and sheep-run andbush where the British settle, they look forwardto permanent residence and hasten to createreplicas of their British homes. They refuseto be separated from their carpets and cupboardsand armchairs and porches and verandahs,above all, from their gardens, for they cherisha tender respect, almost a religious devotion,for' shrubberies and flowers And though there

may be no neighbour to criticise, every hearthand sill and stone must be washed and rubbedby the housewife and made to glisten as brightlyas at home. .

Then, whatever the climate, in torrid wilder­ness or enervating swamp, physical strengthmust be maintained, muscles must be exercised,bodies and minds must be kept fit. Sport, noless than bed and wool, is one of the opensecrets of Britain's greatness. It may take theform of hunting tigers or sticking pigs or ridir,gto hounds, or swimming, or playing with variousballs, or even of patient efforts to play fishwith worms; sedentary or violent, it is basedupon a desire to overcome difficulties or seekdanger for danger's sake; in every case itinvokes for the human frame all the ble'5singsof fresh air.

Another cause. of British greatness is to befound in the English language, the most powerfulbond of union between Great Britain and hercolonies; the most useful vehicle for dissemi­natir:g British ideas. With its supremelysimple grammar, with its wealth of wordsderived from Scandinavian, Germanic andNorman ancestors, and from scholars in Latinand Greek, it is more easily acquired than anyother tongue by the majority of mankind.More than 120,000,000 persons speak Englishoutside the British Isles. The language maypass through changes in America, but it facili~

tates commerce and obviates misunderstandingseven after political bonds have been snapped.In the East Asia and West Africa Englishjargons, known as "Pidjin English," havebecome the sole means of intercourse betweenmen of all colours, and amongst themselvesbetween yellow men of different speech. Englishis now the leading international language andshows signs of supplanting French even as thelanguage of diplomacy. It is to their commontongue that Great Britain and her Dominionsand colonies owe their community of learning,literature, science, and education, their accept­ance of common manners and customs almostas though they were laws of Nature.

The British political point of view has alsobeen transplanted to every clime. "As thelaw of England is the patrimony of every Britishsubject by right of birth," says Blackstone, "hetakes it with him wherever he goes and it follows

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THE OUTLINE OF THE WORLD TO-DAY

Topical.OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.

Even in these democratic days Londoners love shows, and the King's ceremonial procession to \Ve.stminster is alwayspopular. His State coach was designed by Sir William Chambers in 1762, and painted by Cipriani. Note the Beefeatersat the side in their picturesque scarlet costume with halberds over their shoulders.

BritishTradition.

that, if he sets foot on a new and uninhabitedland, he imports English legislation there by that

very fact, and it becomes the lawof the land he has colonised."In 1619, the colony of Virginia,

scarcely twelve years old, had created a repre­sentative assembly to vote supplies and toassociate itself with a Governor and ExecutiveCouncil for the passing of laws. And, ever since,

each colony has adopted or desired some measureof self-government, always on British lines.

Federation has followed without disturbinglocal prejudices' and traditions, and federationhas not always kept to the same lines, partlythrough lack of guidance from British tradition.But federation does not jar on British tradition,and may some day prove a safeguard. againstthe disruption of the British Empire.

I.-ENGLAND

RomanLondon.

LONDON.

§ I.T HE Capital of Great Britain, and ofthe British Empire, is so ancientand comprises so much human

experience and parentage that it may be saidthat it is half the World and half as oldas Time.

The origin of London is beyond the plummetof history. The first mention in literature is

by Tacitus, who describes Lon­dlnium, the Roman London ofA.D. 61, when it was sacked

by Queen Boadicea, as celebrated for itsmerchants and merchandise. London, therefore,was already important, and we may even lookfor a Celtic London. That the name" London"is Celtic there is little doubt; Lyn-din, theLake-fort' or hillock (dune). The name ofthe British King Lud may still survive inLudgate.

The first London Bridge was built aboutA.D. 43, as we may gather from a long seriesof Roman coins discovered in the river-bed, andthe Roman city began at what is now theMansion House. The entire area, probably notgreater than Hyde Park, contained a citadel,forum, baths, amphitheatre, many fine villas,'and a temple to the goddess Diana on the siteof St. Paul's Cathedral. The walls and gates­Aldgate, Newgate, Billingsgate, etc.-were notcompleted until A.D. 360, and can be traced byinference near the Tower,' in St. Martin's-le­Grand, in St. Giles's Churchyard, Cripplegate,and London Wall.

What followed is largely a matter of con­jecture and opposing theories, too complicatedto sketch in outline. Long nights of darknessintercept our view of Saxon London. Even theConqueror never conquered London, though hebuilt the White Tower to guard against disaffec­tion. Greeted and accepted by her citizens, hesaid to them: "I will not suffer that any man

Ph,to: Sfort &' General.

\.yESTMIKSTER ABBEY: HIGH ALTAR.This altar was erected in 1857 with figures representing Moses, St. Peter, St. Paul and Da\·id. The recess behind

contains a Venetian glass mosaic by Salviati, depicting the Last Supper

Photo: H. N. Ki"g.

THE fj:OUSE OF LORDS.The interior of the House is more spacious and luxurious than that of the Commons. I n front of the thrones used

by the King and Queen at the opening of Parliament is a sort of ottoman known as the Woolsack, used by the LordChancellor as chairman.

7