A very emaciated John Bull, stretched on his bed, is just struggling back to consciousness and life. On a table by his side stands a bottle labelled "Hampden's U. L. Mixture," to which he owes recovery. On the walls one sees various maps which depict a remarkably Little England indeed. Some sagacious economist, in search of a strip of canvas with which to hold together a broken model of a black man, has torn off the greater part of South Africa for the purpose. Over India a spider has been left to spin a web so that scarcely any of the Empire is now to be seen. Upper Egypt is lost behind a squab of ink which an irresponsible urchin has mischievously taken the opportunity to fling. Every colony and possession shows signs of some ill-usage.
"Say, John," "Uncle Sam," who has looked in, is represented as saying, "you've had a bad touch of the 'sleeping sickness.' You'd better take things easy for a spell to recuperate. I'll keep an eye on your house while you go to the seashore."
That was to be England's proud destiny for the next few years—to take things easy and recuperate! There is nothing else for the pale and shaken convalescent to do; but the man who has delighted in his strength feels his heart and soul rebel against the necessity. Fortunate for England that she had good friends in that direful hour. The United States, sinking those small rivalries over which cousins may strive even noisily at times in amiable contention, stretched a hand across the waters and astonished Europe by the message, "Who strikes England wantonly, strikes me": a sentiment driven home by the diplomatic hint that for the time being the Monroe Doctrine was suspended west of Suez.
France—France who had been so chivalrously true to her own ally in that stricken giant's day of incredible humiliation—looked across The Sleeve with troubled, anxious eyes, and whispered words of sympathy and hope. Gently, very tactfully, she offered friendship with both hands, without a tinge of the patronage or protection that she could extend; and by the living example of her own tempestuous past and gallant recovery from every blow, pointed the way to power and self-respect.
Japan, whose treaty had been thrown unceremoniously back to her many years before, now drew near again with the cheerful smile that is so mild in peace, so terrible in war. Prefacing that her own enviable position was entirely due to the enlightened virtues of her emperor, she now proposed another compact on broad and generous lines, by which England—a "high contracting Power," as she was still magnanimously described—was spared the most fruitful cause for anxiety in the East.
"You didn't mind allying with us when you were at the head of the nations," said Japan. "We come to you—now. Besides, all very good business for us in the end. You build up again all right, no time."
Japan's authority to speak on the subject of "building up" was not to be disputed. The nations had forgotten the time, scarcely a quarter of a century before, when they had been amused by "Little Japan's" progressive ambitions. And when Japan had taken over the "awakening" arrangements of a sister-nation on terms that gave her fifty million potential warriors to draw upon and train (warriors whom one of England's most revered generals had characterised as "Easily led; easily fed; fearless of death"), non-amusement in some quarters gave way to positive trepidation.
The sympathetic nations spoke together, and agreed that something must be done to give "Poor England" another chance; as, in the world of commerce, friendly rivals will often gather round the man who has fallen on evil days to set him on his feet again.
So England was to have a fair field and liberty to work out her own salvation. But she was not to wake up and find that it had all been a hideous dream. Egypt had been put back to the time of the Khalifa. India had lost sixty years of pacification and progress. Ireland was a republic, at least in name, and depending largely on Commemoration Issues of postage stamps for a revenue. South Africa was for the South Africans. There were many other interesting items, but these were, as it might be expressed to a nation of shopkeepers, the leading lines.
If the worst abroad was bad enough, there was one encouraging feature at home. With the election of the new government industries began to revive, trade to improve, the money market to throw off its depression, and the natural demand for labour to increase: not gradually, but instantly, phenomenally. It was as though a dam across some great river had been removed, and with the impetus every sluggish little tributary was quickened and drawn on in new and sparkling animation. It was not necessary to argue upon it from a party point of view; it was a concrete fact that every one admitted. There was only one explanation, and it met the eye at every turn. Capital reappeared, and money began to circulate freely again. Why? There was security.