se it desired to war against all Christians and to carry on an
unlimited slave trade. It was "independent" under the Mahdi for a dozen
years, and during those dozen years the bigotry, tyranny, and cruel
religious intolerance were such as flourished in the seventh century,
and in spite of systematic slave raids the population decreased by
nearly two-thirds, and practically all the children died. Peace came,
well-being came, freedom from rape and murder and torture and highway
robbery, and every brutal gratification of lust and greed came, only
when the Sudan lost its independence and passed under English rule. Yet
this well-meaning little sonneteer sincerely felt that his verses were
issued in the cause of humanity. Looking back from the vantage point of
a score of years, probably every one will agree that he was an absurd
person. But he was not one whit more absurd than most of the more
prominent persons who advocate disarmament by the United States, the
cessation of up-building the navy, and the promise to agree to arbitrate
all matters, including those affecting our national interests and honor,
with all foreign nations.

These persons would do no harm if they affected only themselves. Many
of them are, in the ordinary relations of life, good citizens. They are
exactly like the other good citizens who believe that enforced universal
vegetarianism or anti-vaccination is the panacea for all ills. But in
their particular case they are able to do harm because they affect our
relations with foreign powers, so that other men pay the debt which they
themselves have really incurred. It is the foolish, peace-at-any-price
persons who try to persuade our people to make unwise and improper
treaties, or to stop building up the navy. But if trouble comes and the
treaties are repudiated, or there is a demand for armed intervention,
it is not these people who will pay anything; they will stay at home in
safety, and leave brave men to pay in blood, and honest men to pay in
shame, for their folly.

The trouble is that our policy is apt to go in zigzags, because
different sections of our people exercise at different times unequal
pressure on our government. One class of our citizens clamors for
treaties impossible of fulfilment, and improper to fulfil; another class
has no objection to the passage of these treaties so long as there is no
concrete case to which they apply, but instantly oppose a veto on their
application when any concre