These are the liberties which the Union Jack signals in all parts of the British Empire to all the varied nations, with varied tongues, which have come beneath its sway. It is the consciousness of such liberty and the enjoyment of such equal rights that impelled Canada, Australia, New Zealand and all the colonies of the empire to send their sons to the field of contest in South Africa as a free-will offering to defend their fellow-men and to spread the blessings of Liberty and Freedom to the peoples of that continent.
From this has come that most recent acknowledgment of its incomparable liberties that the peoples of South Africa, the Boers of Dutch and French descent, so recently warring with their British neighbours of Cape Colony and Natal, have now[170] united together and, meeting as brothers, have raised it as the union sign of their united liberty in the fourth[171] daughter Parliament of the Britains beyond the seas in our united empire.
The world over it is the free-will Flag of Liberty.
[CHAPTER XXV.]
THE UNION JACK AS A SINGLE FLAG.
This Union Jack, so spread abroad, is in its single form a declaration and an evidence of British nationality, and is raised every day from sunrise to sunset over every one of the garrisons of the British peoples which surround the world. It is the flag which is raised and saluted whenever formal possession of any new territory is taken in the name of the Sovereign of Great Britain, and was thus raised at Khartoum, Bloemfontein, and Pretoria, to signify the success of the British arms and the accession of British rule, just as its predecessors had been in Newfoundland, on the shores of America, and all other colonies and conquests around the seas when each was first occupied.
Some considerable discussions have taken place as to whether it should be called the "Union Jack" or the "Union Flag."
This latter is the name usually given in the Official Regulations respecting the official use of a three-crossed flag of this description. There is in the navy the rank of "Admiral of the Fleet," corresponding to the rank of Field Marshal in the army. The Admiralty Regulations state that the proper flag of an Admiral of the Fleet is the "Union Flag," to be worn at the top masthead, and an Admiralty memorandum further states: "A Jack is a flag to be flown only on the 'Jack' staff, i.e., a staff on the bowsprit or forepart of the ship."