As any institution, evolved for whatever purpose, becomes established and customary, there develop other bonds between it and the people involved in it, which may be incidental to its main function, but which are nonetheless real, and tend to become powerful factors in support of its conservation.

The empire did more for people than merely profit them: some of them it gave jobs to, or honours, or their authority, or a mythology, or a sense of purpose or a feeling of pride and superiority; these had not been significant motives for acquiring the empire in the first place, but they could be strong reasons for not wanting to abandon it.

It was the empire which had created these needs, visions and ideals in the first place; having been created, they in turn needed the empire to satisfy them.

How far this symbiosis went -- just how emotionally and vocationally necessary the empire was to how many people -- was never easy to gauge. It was some time, and perhaps only when the connexion had weakened a little, before the social effects of breaking it could be even hazily observed.

But it was clear in 1905 that the empire had bitten fairly deeply into certain sections of the British society ...

[p196]