em. That is the
Nemesis of conquest. Rome annexed Etruria; and Etruscan Maecenas,
Etruscan Sejanus organised and consolidated the Roman Empire. Rome
annexed Italy; and the _Jus Italicum_ grew at last to be the full Roman
franchise. Rome annexed the civilised world; and the provinces under
Caesar blotted out the Senate. Britain is passing now through the
self-same stage. One inevitable result of the widening of the electorate
has been the transfer of power from the Teutonic to the Celtic half of
Britain. I repeat, we are no longer a Celtic fringe: at the polls, in
Parliament, we are the British people. Lord Salisbury may fail to
perceive that fact, or, as I hold more probable, may affect to ignore
it. What will such tactics avail? The ostrich is not usually counted
among men as a perfect model of political wisdom.

And _are_ we, after all, the conquered peoples? Meseems, I doubt it.
They say we Celts dearly love a paradox--which is perhaps only the
sensible Saxon way of envisaging the fact that we catch at new truths
somewhat quicker than other people. At any rate, 'tis a pet little
paradox of my own that we have never been conquered, and that to our
unconquered state we owe in the main our Radicalism, our Socialism, our
ingrained love of political freedom. We are tribal not feudal; we think
the folk more important than his lordship. The Saxon of the south-east
is the conquered man: he has felt on his neck for generations the heel
of feudalism. He is slavish; he is snobbish; he dearly loves a lord. He
shouts himself hoarse for his Beaconsfield or his Salisbury. Till
lately, in his rural avatar, he sang but one song--

"God bless the squire and his relations,
And keep us in our proper stations."

Trite, isn't it? but so is the Saxon intelligence.

Seriously--for at times it is well to be serious--South-Eastern England,
the England of the plains, has been conquered and enslaved in a dozen
ages by each fresh invader. Before the dawn of history, Heaven knows
what shadowy Belgae and Iceni enslaved it. But historical time will serve
our purpose. The Roman enslaved it, but left Caledonia and Hibernia
free, the Cambrian, the Silurian, the Cornishman half-subjugated. The
Saxon and Anglian enslaved the east, but scarcely crossed over the
watershed of the western ocean. The Dane, in turn, enslaved the Saxon in
East Anglia and Yorkshire. The Norman ground all down to a common
servitude between the upper and nether millstones