The war is doing us good. It is giving us the beginnings of political
education in a department that has been utterly neglected. It may be
worth while to review the whole situation of to-day, and to ask how the
man in the street can lend a helping hand.

The British Government, primarily representing the people of Great
Britain, has for many years been an affair of party; the dominant idea
of the party leaders has been when out of office to get in, and when in
to stay. The way to manage this was to cajole the man in the street, and
as he was a busy man getting his living and not much concerned about
watching the whole globe, the party leaders made bids for his support;
votes to be distributed on the principle that one man was as good as
another; taxation to be made light for him, and, consequently, as the
money had to be found, heavy for some one else. Each party offered what
it sincerely believed to be for the general good; but the kind of
general good thought of was the personal improvement or comfort of each
individual or of a mass of individuals. While this was going on in
British towns and counties, something was happening on the neglected
globe. There was a large part of the British Nation living on other
continents without votes in any British town or county, yet looking to
the British Government to champion something they loved, which has come
to be called the Empire. There were also great nations emulating the
British in the notion that the world was their inheritance, and that
they would take possession of a fair share of it. Their quarrels had
driven them to perfect their armies and to build navies. Each of them
was annoyed to find that in the scramble for the heritage some one had
been before them. On the best plots the British flag was flying, yet
Great Britain had not much Army and was very careless about her Navy.
The strong powers began to elbow her a little. The British Government
was not disturbed by these hints from the globe. A Government made by a