human progress (as it is) and the growth of the
British Empire as a mere succession of wanton and brutal outrages on
helpless and benighted peoples, that the immediate impulse of the vast
majority of American readers will be to treat a comparison between the
two with ridicule. Minnesota Massacres and the Indian Mutiny--Cetewayo
and Sitting Bull--Aguinaldo and the Mahdi--Egypt and Cuba; the time
will come when Americans will understand. It is a pity that prejudice
should blind them now.

And if the American reader will refer to the map, which presumably lies
open before him, he might consider in what part of the world it is that
England is now bent on a policy of aggression--where it is that
collision with any Power threatens. In Asia? England's course in regard
to Afghanistan and Thibet surely shows that she is content with her
present boundaries, while her alliance with Japan and the
_rapprochement_ with Russia at which she aims should be evidences enough
of her desire for peace! In Africa? Where is it that spheres of
influence are not delimited? That there will be disturbances, ferments,
which will have to be suppressed at one time and another at various
points within the British sphere is likely--as likely as it was that
similar disturbances would occur in the United States so long as any
considerable number of Indians went loose unblanketed,--but what room is
left for anything approaching serious war? With the problem of the
mixture of races and the necessity of building up the structure of a
state, does not England before all things need peace both in the south
and north? In America? In Australia? With whom? That perils may arise at
almost any point--in mid-ocean even, far away from any land--of course
we recognise; but Americans can hardly fail to see, with the map before
them, that England cannot seek them, but must earnestly desire to avoid
them as she has avoided them with any European Power for this last
century. To borrow a happy phrase, Great Britain is in truth a
"Saturated Power." She has been compelled to shoulder burdens which she
would feign have avoided, to assume obligations which were not of her
creating and which she fulfils with reluctance. And she can assume no
more, or, if she must, will do it only with the utmost unwillingness.
What she needs is peace.

And now one must go as delicately as is compatible with making one's
meaning clear.

* * * * *

There is one