1. NORTH AMERICA. 2. SOUTH AFRICA. 3. AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. 4. INDIA. 5. TROPICAL COLONIES

The cosmic law of action and reaction which produces the swing of the pendulum has been signally illustrated in the three stages of the evolution of our colonial policy. During the first our colonies were held to be politically and commercially necessary, during the next to be politically mischievous and commercially useless; now they have again come to be considered of the first importance both in politics and commerce. Every step in the expansion of England was guided by some motive of political or commercial necessity. The policy of Pitt was based on the belief that the fate of Europe must be decided on the continent of America. The islands of the Caribbean Sea have been the keys of international strategy since the days of Charles the Fifth. Captain Mahan has declared the Caribbean Sea to have been the very domain of sea-power, and its group of island fortresses the greatest nerve-centre in the whole body of European civilisation. It was in the Caribbean Sea, by fleets he had never seen, that Napoleon's power was shattered and the British Empire established in the secure environment of naval supremacy. “England,” said Napoleon at St. Helena, “can never be a Continental Power, and in the attempt must be ruined: let her maintain the empire of the seas, and she may send her ambassadors to the Courts of Europe and demand what she pleases.”