ABSTRACT
'The maintenance of the British Empire makes it possible, at a cost which is relatively small, compared with the whole number of British subjects, to secure peace, good order, and personal freedom throughout a large part of the world. In an age, further, of huge military States it is of the highest importance to safeguard against foreign aggression one of the two greatest free commonwealths in existence.' So wrote A. V. Dicey in 1905. 1 'The day of small States appears to have passed. Great empires are as much a necessity of our time as are huge mercantile companies.' Here was the voice of the 'new imperialism' of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, which produced a world-wide spread of new colonial empires, French, Russian, German, Belgian, Italian, and - most extensive of all - British. By 1901 the British Empire covered some 12 million square miles, more than one-fifth of the world's land surface: over 4 million square miles in America, 3 million in Australasia, and (with large recent additions) 3 million in Africa. The population of the empire now totalled about 400 million, of which nearly three-quarters lived in India. The population of the United Kingdom stood at 41,500,000, of Canada 5,400,000, of Australia 3,800,000, and of New Zealand 800,000. So only about one-eighth of the empire's citizens were white-skinned.
