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I write this book in the hope that it may be of service in the present hour. It is a presentation of the British Empire, not for the pageant of its history but for its worth to the world. The Empire is united not by force but by goodwill. It means co-operation, not compulsion. In it we live as free men.

The link of our common history, the bond of our common language, the identity of our outlook hold us closely associated with the United States. With France, the long record of bygone wars that once divided us is now but a common glory. In the hour that is, we share that comradeship in arms which faces a common danger with a united endeavour. Through these associations we may see a vision of a world at peace.

In dealing with the mass of statistical material that goes with the making of such a volume as the present, it is unavoidable that errors and misprints will find their way in. For these I apologize beforehand. For instance, in Chapter III, I stated that the number of hogs in the world is 200,000,000. I now believe this wrong. There seem to be more than that. Reviewers whose one idea of reviewing is to mop up misprints will add more hogs.

My obligation to other authorities, in writing this volume, are too many and too various to permit of enumeration. But I may at least express my thanks to myself for the use of four pages out of a book I wrote on the Empire ten years ago. It was an admirable work but, I fear, only read by the proofreader and, even by him, very hurriedly. I express a similar obligation to myself for permission to reproduce in the last chapter the substance of three or four pages of a recent pamphlet.

Stephen Leacock.

McGill University

April, 1940