When we speak of Empire, it is in no spirit of flag-wagging...we feel that in this great inheritance of ours, separated as it is by the seas, we have yet one home and one people...great as the material benefits are, we do not look primarily to them. I think deep down in all our hearts we look to the Empire as the means by which we may hope to see that increase of our race which we believe to be of such inestimable benefit to the world at large; the spread abroad of people to whom freedom and justice are as the breath of their nostrils, of people distinguished, as we would fain hope and believe, above all things, by an abiding sense of duty. If ever the day should come when an appeal to that sense of duty falls on deaf ears among our own kin, that day indeed would be the end of our country and of our Empire, to which you and I have dedicated our very lives.

We who have inherited this Empire are proud of it, and it is right that we should be proud. With our pride there should mingle gratitude to those who have gone before us, by whose efforts this Empire has grown. In a world still suffering from the shock of war, the British Empire stands firm as a great force for good...It stands in the sweep of every wind, by the wash of every sea, a witness to that which the spirit of confidence and brotherhood can accomplish in the world.

You must bear in mind that we are above parochial and provincial patriotism, for patriotism in itself is worthy of a wider and nobler conception of Imperial life, which it behoves us all to cultivate. These times are critical and creative times. On what is done now the future of South Africa depends. Every one may contribute, according to his means and opportunity, to secure the greatness of the union. A new nation is now springing up and growing under our eyes to be a great free nation under the British flag. (Cheers.) Do not forget the Empire. Do not forget the motherland that bore you and in your time of stress and difficulty came to your aid. She may yet need your support. You must be prepared at all costs to give it. (Loud cheers.) What an Empire it is for which we are all responsible! It is the greatest in extent that the world has ever known, with a population of four hundred million inhabitants, which includes hundreds of different races, which embraces every climate, and which produces every necessary and luxury of life. (Cheers.) What a heritage! You are co-heirs with us in its privileges and its glories. Are you going to be content to be sleeping partners? (Cries of "No.") You must claim your share in all that the Empire represents; you must claim as an honour and a privilege your share in its burdens and obligations; you must join with us to do everything to maintain the union and confirm the strength, power, and influence which I believe in the future you will find to be the greatest force in civilisation and in the peace of the world.

The last piece of advice I shall venture to offer the Liberal party is this, that they shall not dissociate themselves, even indirectly or unconsciously, or by any careless words, from the new sentiment of Empire which occupies the nation. To many the word "Empire" is suspect as indicating aggression and greed and violence and the characteristics of other empires that the world has known; but the sentiment that is represented now by Empire in these islands has nothing of that in it. (Cheers.) It is a passion of affection and family feeling, of pride and of hopefulness; and the statesman, however great he may be, who dissociates himself from that feeling must not be surprised if the nation dissociates itself from him. (Cheers)

We may also, I think, congratulate ourselves on the part that the British Empire has played in this struggle, and on the position which it fills at the close. Among the many miscalculations of the enemy was the profound conviction, not only that we had a "contemptible little Army," but that we were a doomed and decadent nation. The trident was to be struck from our palsied grasp, the Empire was to crumble at the first shock; a nation dedicated, as we used to be told, to pleasure-taking and the pursuit of wealth was to be deprived of the place to which it had ceased to have any right, and was to be reduced to the level of a second-class, or perhaps even of a third-class Power. It is not for us in the hour of victory to boast that these predictions have been falsified; but, at least, we may say this—that the British Flag never flew over a more powerful or a more united Empire than now; Britons never had better cause to look the world in the face; never did our voice count for more in the councils of the nations, or in determining the future destinies of mankind. That that voice may be raised in the times that now lie before us in the interests of order and liberty, that that power may be wielded to secure a settlement that shall last, that that Flag may be a token of justice to others as well as of pride to ourselves, is our united hope and prayer.

Our Empire grew from the adventurous spirit of our fathers. They went forth, urged by the love of adventure, by the passion for discovery, by the desire for a freer life in new countries. Wherever they went, they carried with them the traditions, the habits, the ideals of their Mother Country. Wherever they settled they planted a new homeland. And though mountains and the waste of seas divided them, they never lost that golden thread of the spirit which drew their thoughts back to the land of their birth. Even their children, and their children's children, to whom Great Britain was no more than a name, a vision, spoke of it always as Home. In this sense of kinship the Empire finds its brightest glory and its most essential strength. The Empires of old were created by military conquest and sustained by military domination. They were Empires of subject races governed by a central power. Our Empire is so different from these that we must give the word Empire a new meaning, or use instead of it the title Commonwealth of British Nations...I am sure that none among us can think upon this Commonwealth of British nations, which men and women of our own race have created, without a stirring of our deepest feelings.

You are invited to share the privileges and glories of the Empire which is yours as well as ours, and was made by your forefathers as well as ours; and you are also asked to share the burdens of Empire. If I have ever been in any doubt as to what answer you would give it has been removed by my experiences since I have been in South Africa. There is a small minority in the United Kingdom and elsewhere which is apt in great questions of policy to haggle about the cost. A conception of empire will not be gained if treated in a huckstering spirit. (Loud cheers.) The Empire is a great and priceless possession which we cannot weigh in the balances, putting so much empire against so much gold. My opinion is that the peoples of the Colonies will resent any imputation on their loyalty to this great ideal, and will feel no sacrifice too great to maintain their fundamental position. A Canadian statesman has said that the British are now one people, animated by one spirit, and that they shall in future stand shoulder to shoulder in support of their common interests and common rights. (Cheers.) That is the tone in which the matter should be treated. I call on all the colonies to sustain it to the end. If this be achieved I venture to predict that the British Empire, standing four-square to all the winds that blow, will carry down the distant ages these ideals of humanity, justice, and freedom on which they have been based.

[W]e believe in the British Empire because it stands for liberty; because it has given us all that we have; because it has protected us all our lives; because it now protects us; because we know that without its protection in this war we should long ago have become a German colony; that our lot would have been that of Belgium. We are for the Empire because the Empire is at once our sword and our shield. It is the greatest guarantee of the world's peace, of true civilisation. We are for the Empire because we are true to Australia, to liberty, to ourselves.

In empire, you believe in that which you preserve, you preserve that which you are entitled to, and you are entitled to that which you have accumulated. ... That is the religion, the animating spirit, of empire.

There is no precedent for the British Commonwealth of Nations...we have wrought for ourselves a common tradition which transcends all local loyalties and binds us as one people. The Empire of our dreams, if not always of our deeds, is compacted of great spiritual elements—freedom and law, fellowship and loyalty, honour and toleration...To-day when we think of Empire we think of it primarily as an instrument of world peace.

There are not wanting those who say that in this Jubilee year our Empire has reached the height of its glory and power, and that now we shall begin to decline, as Babylon, Carthage, Rome declined. Do not believe these croakers but give the lie to their dismal croaking by showing by our actions that the vigour and vitality of our race is unimpaired and that our determination is to uphold the Empire that we have inherited from our fathers as Englishmen (cheers), that our flag shall fly high upon the sea, our voice be heard in the councils of Europe, our Sovereign supported by the love of her subjects, then shall we continue to pursue that course marked out for us by an all-wise hand and carry out our mission of bearing peace, civilisation and good government to the uttermost ends of the earth. (Loud cheers.)

This is Empire Day, and we lift up our eyes beyond our immediate surroundings and our everyday tasks to behold the great inheritance which is ours. Our feet are set in a large space, and if the Titan has known moments of weariness, if our burdens are heavy, our shoulders are yet broad, and they have long been fitted to bear the vast orb of our fate.

Pride in one's own race-and that does not imply contempt for other races-is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilisations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own. They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilisation to which we belong. Indeed, I believe the more steadfast the Chinese and the Japanese remain in their pride of race, the easier I shall find it to get on with them.

The war-party is assuredly right in affirming and reaffirming that the martial virtues, although originally gained by the race through war, are absolute and permanent human goods. Patriotic pride and ambition in their military form are, after all, only specifications of a more general competitive passion. They are its first form, but that is no reason for supposing them to be its last form. Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection. But who can be sure that other aspects of one's country may not, with time and education and suggestion enough, come to be regarded with similarly effective feelings of pride and shame? Why should men not some day feel that is it worth a blood-tax to belong to a collectivity superior in any respect? Why should they not blush with indignant shame if the community that owns them is vile in any way whatsoever? Individuals, daily more numerous, now feel this civic passion. It is only a question of blowing on the spark until the whole population gets incandescent, and on the ruins of the old morals of military honor, a stable system of morals of civic honor builds itself up. What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise. The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.