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It must be noted that under these two rules the Imperial Parliament does retain , and sometimes exerts the right to legislate in regard to matters which may greatly concern the prosperity of a Dominion , and also does in some respects seriously curtail both the legislative power of a Dominion Parliament and the executive power of a Dominion Cabinet . " 88 Now the doctrine of proportional representation thus interpreted is a dogma to which a fair-minded man may well refuse his assent . " This dogma of natural rights was in England contemned and confuted by Bentham and his disciples.81 The declining influence of the utilitarian school appears therefore to give new strength to this doctrine . Mr. Disraeli at once resigned office without waiting for even the meeting of Parliament . In the eyes , at any rate , of thinkers who share the moral convictions prevalent in most civilised states , it must seem a gain that the Imperial Parliament should have been able in 1834 to prohibit the existence of slavery in any country subject to the British Crown , and should be able to-day to forbid throughout the whole Empire the revival of the Slave Trade , or of judicial torture . But England and English interests , just because Englishmen have identified the greatness of England with the prosperity of the United Kingdom and the greatness and good government of the Empire , are for the moment overlooked . Mr. Freeman gives but one-third of his book to anything as modern as the days of the Stuarts . No unbiased observer who derives pleasure from the welfare of his species , can fail to consider the long and uninterruptedly increasing prosperity of England as the most beautiful phsenomenon in the history of mankind . And England , with the fervent consent of the people of every land subject to the rule of our King , has thus exchanged the prosperity of peace for the dangers and labours of war , not for the sake of acquiring new territory or of gaining additional military glory , for of these things she has enough and more than enough already , but for the sake of enforcing the plainest rules of international justice and the plainest dictates of common humanity . England and the whole British Empire with her have taken up the sword and thereby have risked the loss of wealth , of prosperity , and even of political existence .