These are the union ensigns of the self-governing Dominions of the outer Empire, which have been adopted in succession in each, as a Union Parliament for their Dominion has been created, to embrace the several Provinces or States of their continent, and endowed with powers from the Union Parliament of the Parent Realm.
As in the sixteenth century the forces of the Percys raised the cross of St. George in their ensign (Pl. III., fig. 1), to show that of whatever district they might be they were all _Englishmen_, so the younger nations of the Britains over the seas raise the Union Jack in the upper corner of their _Dominion Union Ensigns_ to tell that their bearers are all _Britons_, sons and daughters of the Family, loyal to the British Crown.
When the Canadian sees the union crosses displayed on his Canadian ensign, or the distant brother colonist on that of his colony, it speaks to each, not only as his own native flag, but yet more as his sign of brotherhood in an empire wider than his own home, broader than the continent on which he lives, for it is the visible evidence of his citizenship in the Empire of Great and Greater Britain.
The fervid eloquence of Daniel Webster, in 1834, described that empire as "a power dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."[196]
If this heart-rousing testimony of the majesty of the empire, of which the dominions and colonies form a part, had been given by one of ourselves, it might have been tinged with the suspicion of self-glorious boasting; but springing from the lips of so distinguished a citizen of the United States, its fervid utterance is the candid acknowledgment of a nation wider than his own, whose grandeur compelled his admiration.
If over half a century ago this ascription was true, how much more so is it in these later days when the ideal of the "morning drum-beat" has been transmuted into actual fact in the "continuous and unbroken strain" of the "_Diamond Anthem_" of the rejoicings at the Jubilee of Queen Victoria,[197] when, commencing at Suva at 4 p.m. on that Sunday afternoon, the National Anthem was taken up in the assemblies in almost every place in the outer British Dominions as the sun came over them in succession around the world, until it had come back again to Fiji on the following day.