There is nothing greater as yet than London, and whether there ever will be is a question. I hope not. Men, women and children are all very well, but they thrive best where they have room to develop. Four millions of them together on so small a piece of ground dwarfs them. They do better on the prairies.
England is an enormous octopus, whose feelers, armed with very strong and sharp claws, embrace the world, and London, the mouth and stomach of the monster, is sucking its prey steadily and mercilessly. The animal lost one feeler which America cut off in 1776, and her grasp is weakening elsewhere, but she has enough. India contributes its life blood, China contributes, the islands of the sea contribute, and pretty much the whole world gives more or less.
England comes by her characteristics honestly. The human being we call an Englishman, half merchant and half soldier, the soldier element being purely piratical, never could have been developed out of one race. Each race has some peculiar quality which distinguishes it and marks it everywhere. The Scotchman is noted for his hardiness, thrift, and stubbornness; the Dutchman for his steadiness, boldness, and quiet daring; the Irishman for emigrating to New York and getting on the police force in a month, and so on. But the man we call an Englishman is a composite institution.
The old Saxon was a stolid fellow, with flashes of temper. He never could control things, for he was too lazy and sensual; but he had qualities that mixed well with others. You have to have hair in plaster. But when the Dane, who was a born sea pirate, swooped down upon Britain, and the Norman, who was a born land pirate, came also, and mixed with the Saxon, there was a new creation, and that is the Englishman of to-day. He is a born trader and a born soldier, with a wisdom that the rest of the world has not. His fighting power is made subject and subordinate to his trading power.
When England wants anything she does not stop to ask any questions as to the right or wrong of the thing—she quietly goes and takes it, that is, if she is stronger than the party she desires to capture. If the other party objects, a few armies are sent out and the country is brought to reason immediately. Your bayonet is a rare persuader.
Can a country afford to fit out costly armaments and maintain vast armies for such purposes? Certainly, if it is done on England’s plan. England, after spending some millions in subjugating a country, simply assesses the cost of the operation with as many millions for interest as she thinks the subjugated party can bear without destroying it, and makes it pay. She never destroys a country entirely, for she has further use for it. She wants the inhabitants, once subjugated, to go on and labor and toil and sweat, for all time to come, to furnish her with raw material, and then to buy it back again in the shape of manufactured goods, which, as she buys cheap and sells dear, makes a very handsome profit, besides furnishing employment to her vast merchant marine in the carrying trade.
And then her merchants manage to interest a certain portion of the natives with her in plundering their neighbors, and so her rule is made tolerably safe and inexpensive. This is about the size of it. She conquers a country, and after reimbursing herself, calls a convention of native Princes and says: “Here, now, we are going to hold this country, anyhow. We are going to have the trade and the revenues, and you see we can do it. You fellows may as well have your whack in it.” (These, of course, are not the exact words used, but I am writing what a New York politician would say. A ring man’s words mean exactly what diplomatic language does, and they are always more to the point.) “Now you help us keep the others down, and you shall keep your own places and shall have yourselves fifty per cent. of what you can grind out of your people, and as we shall stand behind you with our power, that fifty per cent. will be more than you could possibly screw out of them alone and unaided.”
TWO POLICIES.
The native Prince sees the point, for he is as merciless and cruel as an Englishman, and I cannot say more than that, and he assents. Immediately there is a rush of native Princes, all anxious to join in for their plunder, and England apportions to each his share, according to his importance, and in less than no time she has a native army, officered by English, to keep the people down to the proper level, and to collect taxes and protect traders, and all that sort of thing, and London draws in the money and lives royally.
And, then, if any Prince, or people, or soldiery, or anybody else, fancy they have rights of their own, and question the right of the foreigner to tax them and grind them, they blow a few thousands of them from the mouths of cannon, to teach them the beauty of obedience.