The only other connecting links are those of law and
finance. The Privy Council acts as a Court of Appeal in certain causes,
and Colonial Governments borrow money in the London market. These
communities widely seperated in geography and in temperament, have no
common fiscal policy, no common foreign policy, no common scheme of
defence, no common Council to discuss and decide Imperial affairs. Now
this may be a very wise arrangement, but you must not call it an Empire.
From the point of view of unity, if from no other, it presents an
unfavourable contrast to French Imperialism, under which all the oversea
colonies are represented in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris. In the
English plan the oversea colonies are unrelated atoms. You may say that
they afford all the materials for a grandiose federation; but if you
have flour in one bag, and raisins in another, and candied peel in
another, and suet in another you must not call them a Christmas pudding
until they have been mixed together and cooked. Those areas of the
globe, coloured red on the maps, may have all the resources requisite
for a great, self-sufficing, economic unit of a new order.
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