es
deliberately planned to take the Philippines; that Englishmen were as
content to leave the Transvaal and the Orange Free State alone as ever
Americans were to be without Hawaii or Puerto Rico. Egypt was forced
upon Great Britain precisely as Cuba is being foisted on America
to-day--and every Englishman hopes that the United States will be able
to do as much for the Cubans as Great Britain has done for the
Egyptians.

Great Britain would always vastly prefer--has always vastly
preferred--to keep a friendly independent state upon her borders rather
than be compelled to take over the burden of administration. The former
involves less labour and more profit; it retains moreover a barrier
between the British boundaries and those of any potentially hostile
Power upon the other side. England has shown this in India itself and in
Afghanistan. She tried to show it in South Africa. She has shown it in
Thibet. More conclusively than anywhere perhaps she has shown it in the
Federated Malay States--of which probably but few Americans know even
the name, but where more, it may be, than anywhere are Englishmen
working out their ambition--

"To make the world a better place
Where'er the English go."

It might happen that, under a weak and incompetent successor to
President Diaz, Mexico would relapse into the conditions of half a
century ago and the situation along the border be rendered intolerable
to Americans. Sooner or later the United States would be compelled to
protest and, protests being unheeded, to interfere. The incompetence of
the Mexican Government continuing, America would be obliged to establish
a protectorate, if not over the whole country, at least over that
portion the orderly behaviour of which was necessary to her own peace.
Thereafter annexation might follow. Now, at no stage of this process
would Englishmen, looking on, accuse the United States of greediness, of
bullying, or of deliberately planning to gratify an earth-hunger. They,
from experience, understand. But when the same thing occurs on the
British frontiers in Asia or South Africa, Americans make no effort to
understand. "England is up to the same old game," they say. "One more
morsel down the lion's throat."

I am well aware of the depth of the prejudice against which I am
arguing. The majority of Americans are so accustomed to consider their
own expansion across the continent, and beyond, as one of the finest
episodes in the march of