“From the point of view of making England a great military and imperial power, the aristocracies of the past were grand. The Liberals and Whigs have made it a great commercial empire, but our contention is that this is not true greatness, not greatness in the sense that it means the real happiness of the Commonwealth. The greatness of the past has meant the division of spoils amongst the few, and to give them all those positions of privilege that empire means. Empire means war, crises, the burdens of which fall upon the industrial Tommy Atkins. I want all the energy, not to say the heroism, that the governing classes have shown in the subjugation of foreign countries directed and utilised in administration, in industry, and in making happy our fellow-countrymen, which is, after all, no mean ambition.”