little island, have now made acquaintance with it. Hundreds of thousands
of the inhabitants of this island to whom the Dominions were strange,
far places, if, after the War, they should be called on to settle there,
will not feel that they are leaving home. I can only hope that the
Canadians and Anzacs think as well of us as we do of them. We do not
like to praise our friends in their hearing, so I will say no more than
this: I am told that a new kind of peerage, very haughty and very
self-important, has arisen in South London. Its members are those
house-holders who have been privileged to have Anzac soldiers billeted
on them. It is private ties of this kind, invisible to the
constitutional lawyer and the political historian, which make the fine
meshes of the web of Empire.

Because he knew that the strength of the whole texture depends on the
strength of the fine meshes, Earl Grey, who died last year, will always
be remembered in our history. Not many men have his opportunity to make
acquaintance with the domain that is their birthright, for he had
administered a province of South Africa, and had been Governor-General
of Canada, He rediscovered the glory of the Empire, as poets rediscover
the glory of common speech. 'He had breathed its air,' a friend of his
says, 'fished its rivers, walked in its valleys, stood on its mountains,
met its people face to face. He had seen it in all the zones of the
world. He knew what it meant to mankind. Under the British flag,
wherever he journeyed, he found men of English speech living in an
atmosphere of liberty and carrying on the dear domestic traditions of
the British Isles. He saw justice firmly planted there, industry and
invention hard at work unfettered by tyrants of any kind, domestic life
prospering in natural conditions, and our old English kindness and
cheerfulness and broad-minded tolerance keeping things together. But he
also saw room under that same flag, ample room, for millions and