“If Britain took a gun in her outings—and she often did—it was to level a place for a home, a shop, or a factory. Where she plants her feet the soil becomes more fertile, and when she meets a savage, he stands more proudly erect—after the first few sermons.
“She is the motherland of America, and, by mutual efforts, the two have become the paragons of civilised progress. She saved old India from the rajahs, robbers, and priests, from famine and pestilence, and made it a paradise—as compared with its former condition. She saved strange, beloved, dreamy, half-mythical old Egypt from rot and ruin, and made it a marvel of hope and progress. She is saving ‘Darkest Africa’ from slavery, superstition, and fratricidal war; and, with diamonds on its golden clasps, she is handing it over to civilisation.
“She gave to civilisation Canada, with its splendid people, its fertile fields, and its stupendous ‘ice-plant’; and she gave to civilisation the seven colonies of Australasia, with the most wealthy, the most commercial, the most progressive, the most advanced, educated, civilised, and free people on the whole outer surface of the planet.
“Then, to show her small respect for dirt, save as a place to fasten down upon—and her marvellous ambition for industrial development—behold! the modern commercial wonders, Hongkong and Singapore! Many nations complain of ‘Britain’s land-greed,’ and that John Bull—as these sturdy Britons are lovingly called—always carries a bucket and a brush, and is everywhere painting the world red; but wherever the carmine shines, liberty and progress are assured. Every inch of soil wrested from darkness by British valour is handed over to civilisation—free to all comers.
“And, marvel of marvels, my children! In her more than a hundred wars—save by her mistake in striving to coerce her own children in America—she has never lost an inch of important dirt by force. And, more glorious still, every inch won from barbarism by her blood and valor, has been handed over to civilisation and human progress.
“But, no! She won much in war, which, to the infinite loss of the world, she gave back in peace.
“She took Cuba in war, restored order, and gave it back in peace. Better for the world had she kept it.
“She took by war, and gave back in peace, the Philippines, Cape Colony, Java, Sumatra, Senegal, Pondicheri, and more than twenty other valuable possessions, all to the loss of the world—and yet she has been accused of territorial avarice—of ‘land hunger.’”
Right! Mr. Oseba, and had the politicians in Downing Street properly backed the sturdy British wanderers, most of Oliffa would have been painted red and done up in a shawl strap long ere this, and the Brito-Yankee race would have been in a position to guarantee peace among all nations.