It is so large, indeed, that considered as a group or community of men living together it has no sensible degree of homogeneity in any of their material circumstances or interests; nor is anything more than an inconsiderable fraction of the aggregate population, territory, industry, or daily life known to any one of these patriotic citizens except by remote and highly dubious hearsay.

The one secure point on which there is a (constructive) uniformity is the matter of national allegiance; which grows stronger and more confident with every increase in aggregate mass and volume.

It is also not doubtful, e.g., that if the people of the British Dominions in North America should choose to throw in their national lot with the Union, all sections and classes, except those whose pecuniary interest in a protective tariff might be conceived to suffer, would presently welcome them; nor is it doubtful that American nationality would cover the new and larger aggregate as readily as the old.

Much the same will hold true with respect to the other countries colonised under British auspices.

And there is no conclusive reason for drawing the limit of admissible national extension at that point.
So much, however, is fairly within the possibilities of the calculable future; its realisation would turn in great measure on the discontinuance of certain outworn or disserviceable institutional arrangements; as, e.g., the remnants of a decayed monarchy, and the legally protected vested interests of certain business enterprises and of certain office-holding classes.