The own lives and work out their own salvation, that no one race and no one continent should overawe the others by force of arms, that coloured men should not be reared and trained to be the chattels of Europeans-that was the meaning of the war, and that is why the British Empire made the war its own. In the first weeks of the war, from all quarters of the messages world came evidences, one or another, of United Empire. to the Do It was as when in the Mother island in bygone days from and India. hill to hill the beacon fires gave the danger signal, or as minions when, on the call to war, the fiery cross sped from clan to clan in the Highlands of Scotland. But there was this difference. The answer came from overseas before any call went forth. The Sovereign of the Empire had not to summon; he had only to respond. The newspapers of the 10th of September 1914 gave to the public the following Royal message which had been sent to the Dominions and India: To the Governments and Peoples of My Self-governing Dominions During the past few weeks the peoples of My whole Empire at Home and Overseas have moved with one mind and purpose to confront and overthrow an unparalleled assault upon the continuity of civilization, and the peace of mankind. The calamitous conflict is not of My seeking. My voice has been cast throughout on the side of peace. My Ministers earnestly strove to allay the causes of strife and to appease differences with which My Empire was not concerned. Had I stood aside when, in defiance of pledges to which My Kingdom was a party, the soil of Belgium was violated, and her cities laid desolate, when the very life of the French nation was threatened with extinction, I should have sacrificed My honour and given to destruction the liberties of My Empire and of mankind. I rejoice that every part of the Empire is with Me in this decision. Paramount regard for treaty faith and the pledged word of rulers and peoples is the common heritage of Great Britain and of the Empire. My peoples in the Self-governing Dominions have shown beyond all doubt that they wholeheartedly endorse the grave decision which it was necessary to take. My personal knowledge of the loyalty and devotion of My Oversea Dominions had led Me to expect that they would cheerfully make the great efforts and bear the great sacrifices which the present conflict entails. The full measure in which they have placed their services and resources at My disposal fills Me with gratitude, and I am proud to be able to show to the world that My peoples oversea are as determined as the people of the United Kingdom to prosecute a just cause to a successful end. The Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Dominion of New Zealand have placed at My disposal their naval forces, which have already rendered good service for the Empire. Strong Expeditionary Forces are being prepared in Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand for service at the front, and the Union of South Africa has released all British troops and has undertaken important military responsibilities, the discharge of which will be of the utmost value to the Empire. Newfoundland has doubled the numbers of its branch of the Royal Naval Reserve and is sending a body of men to take part in the operations at the front. From the Dominion and Provincial Governments of Canada large and welcome gifts of supplies are on their way for the use both of My naval and military forces and for the relief of the distress in the United Kingdom, which must inevitably follow in the wake of war. All parts of My Oversea Dominions have thus demonstrated in the most unmistakable manner the fundamental unity of the Empire amidst all its diversity of situation and circum stance. The message to 'The Princes and Peoples of My Indian Empire' repeated the first part of the above 1 and then continued as follows: Among the many incidents that have marked the unanimous uprising of the populations of My Empire in defence of its unity and integrity, nothing has moved Me Down to the paragraph 'My peoples in the Self-governing Dominions, &c.' But there were two textual alterations. In the message to India, for the words' pledges to which My Kingdom was a party' was substituted 'Pledges to which My Empire was a party'; and for the words 'common heritage of Great Britain and of the Empire' the words 'common heritage of England and of India'. more than the passionate devotion to My Throne expressed both by My Indian subjects, and by the Feudatory Princes and the Ruling Chiefs of India, and their prodigal offers of their lives and their resources in the cause of the Realm. Their one-voiced demand to be foremost in the conflict has touched My heart and has inspired to the highest issues the love and devotion which, as I well know, have ever linked My Indian subjects and Myself. I recall to mind India's gracious message to the British nation of goodwill and fellowship, which greeted My return in February1912 after the solemn ceremony of My Coronation Durbar at Delhi; and I find in this hour of trial a full harvest and a noble fulfilment of the assurance given by you that the destinies of Great Britain and India are indissolubly linked. 1 The messages were 'To the Governments and Peoples', 'To the Princes and Peoples.' In the words of the prophetess Deborah-though her song was sung when the fight was over and the victory won-'the people willingly offered themselves', and the Princes 'offered themselves willingly among the people'. White Books followed the publication of the messages 1 showing how prompt and wide and practical was the effort of the Empire. It was but the beginning of infinitely greater effort, of sacrifice beyond all that reason could predict or imagination picture. And yet the Princes and Governments and peoples of the Empire counted the cost, or at least were prepared to pay the price to the uttermost farthing. For it is impossible to go back to the opening of the war, and study the record of the first rally to the cause, without conviction that in some strange way an instinct was awakened throughout the manifold races and peoples who looked to the King as their overlord, and to the Commonwealth, which the King personified, as the communion into which their lot had been cast, that the final challenge had come, that the question for the Empire was to be or not to be. The South African War had been ruled to be a white man's war; a far greater issue was now at stake, and a far wider view was demanded and taken. The strength of India was at once Cd. 7607, September 1914; Cd. 7608, September 1914; Cd. 7624. thrown in, never so welcome and never so sorely needed as in the first critical months of the war. At a very early stage New Zealand Maories volunteered, and a contingent was accepted for service overseas. The outlook went on widening as the war went on. As the needs increased, and the issues became more imperative and more clearly defined, distinctions of race and colour receded more and more into the background; more and more the sole question came to be where and how, from a military point of view, every unit of the Empire, all its men and all its resources, could be best utilized in the interests of the whole. But from the first, in greater or less degree, equality in citizenship was in evidence in offers from all quarters, made and received without the touch of haggling which accompanied the first stages of the war in South Africa. Taken as a whole, the uprising of the British Empire, when war was declared on Germany, cannot be matched in history. For it was an uprising in the fullest sense. It was not merely a general acquiescence in the declaration of war, a general recognition of a common danger. It was a kind of self-assertion by each of the component parts of the Empire, a pronouncement that this was a matter which was their primary concern no less than that of the other parts, an enterprise in which they ought to have a hand and meant to have a hand, not in a secondary degree but as their own war. It was little short of a new birth of the Empire. There will be critics to say that this picture of a commonwealth of peoples inspired by a common purpose, answering to a common call, is overdrawn. It may be argued that the bedrock feelings and minds of men are not to be found out at moments of excitement and crisis, not at the beginning of a long war, when initial enthusiasm has not had time to cool, when the evil days have not yet drawn nigh, and the loss and misery, which follow in the train of war, are still in the future. It may be said again, that rulers and princes and governments and the classes-whatever the classes may mean-who are in touch with the Powers that be, and whose interests lie in upholding existing conditions, are not the people: that for the real feelings of the peoples of the Empire we must look elsewhere, we must ask the backveld Boer of South Africa, the French-Canadian habitant, or, nearer home, the intransigent Irishman, what is his measure of loyalty to the Empire: or, if we turn to the coloured races, we must sample the views of the modern generation of educated natives, with advanced opinions, and we shall draw another conclusion than that which is gleaned from White Papers, from loyal telegrams and set speeches. The first answer is, that the strain and the agony of a long-drawn war tested whether the utterances and the actions, which the early days of the War called forth, were or were not genuine; and proved to demonstration that the often-quoted Australian pronouncement, 'To the last man and the last shilling', was no idle word, that it interpreted aright the mind of the Empire. The second answer is, that it is true that there were exceptions to the general rule, due to particular local conditions, to special racial temperament, to sinister influences applied to the conditions and to the temperament. How could it be otherwise in an Empire covering more than a fifth of the globe? It is true that in some few provinces or districts the people, or sections of the people, were passively indifferent or actively disaffected. It is true, again, that disloyal opinions may have been here and there ventilated by young men, who had swallowed but not digested unwholesome doctrines; but the minds of the people, of the dumb, toiling millions, are not to be interpreted from this source. All these exceptions not only prove the rule, but explain why it is the rule. In no other so-called Empire, since the world began, could it be said, in anything like the same sense as in the British Empire, not only that a man may speak the thing he will', but that almost beyond reasonable limit—a man may do the thing he will. Because this has been and is so, discordant voices always have made, and always will make, themselves heard; but, because it has been and is so, the vast majority of the voices and |