nt on a larger
scale. We do not condemn Nicaragua because we think Britain ought to
be more Nicaraguan. We do not discourage small nationalities because
we wish large nationalities to have all their smallness, all their
uniformity of outlook, all their exaggeration of spirit. If I differ
with the greatest respect from your Nicaraguan enthusiasm, it is not
because a nation or ten nations were against you; it is because
civilisation was against you. We moderns believe in a great
cosmopolitan civilisation, one which shall include all the talents of
all the absorbed peoples--"

"The Senor will forgive me," said the President. "May I ask the Senor
how, under ordinary circumstances, he catches a wild horse?"

"I never catch a wild horse," replied Barker, with dignity.

"Precisely," said the other; "and there ends your absorption of the
talents. That is what I complain of your cosmopolitanism. When you
say you want all peoples to unite, you really mean that you want all
peoples to unite to learn the tricks of your people. If the Bedouin
Arab does not know how to read, some English missionary or
schoolmaster must be sent to teach him to read, but no one ever says,
'This schoolmaster does not know how to ride on a camel; let us pay a
Bedouin to teach him.' You say your civilisation will include all
talents. Will it? Do you really mean to say that at the moment when
the Esquimaux has learnt to vote for a County Council, you will have
learnt to spear a walrus? I recur to the example I gave. In Nicaragua
we had a way of catching wild horses--by lassooing the fore
feet--which was supposed to be the best in South America. If you are
going to include all the talents, go and do it. If not, permit me to
say what I have always said, that something went from the world when
Nicaragua was civilised."

"Something, perhaps," replied Barker, "but that something a mere
barbarian dexterity. I do not know that I could chip flints as well as
a primeval man, but I know that civilisation can make these knives
which are better, and I trust to civilisation."

"You have good authority," answered the Nicaraguan. "Many clever men
like you have trusted to civilisation. Many clever Babylonians, many
clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me,
in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what
there is particularly immortal about yours?"

"I think you do not quite understand, President, what ours is,"
answ