“But, my children,” he continued, “there are often sombre linings to many resplendent clouds, and lest you may all conclude to rush out of Cavitorus to these wonderful islands, I must show you a few of the less attractive pictures.
“Remember, that for modern civilisation among the Outeroos, the world is indebted to the colonial enterprise and success of Britain; but remember, too, that it is not always the ‘colonising nations,’ but the ‘colonists’ of the ‘colonising nations,’ that carry the standard of social progress to advanced grounds.
“The basis of modern colonial success, was, of course, in the fibre of the British race; but for the resistlessness of British colonial enterprise much was due to flagrant faults in Britain’s domestic policy.
“We are land animals—we live on, and from the land, and Britain had but 124,000 square miles of dirt. ‘Room’ was scarce, so people had a ‘far-away look.’ But worse, a very few in the Motherland ‘owned’ most all this meagre surface, so people saw opportunity only in a change—for a deep love of liberty forced the evils of monopoly upon their attention.
“Well these sturdy Britons, with the mixed blood of the rugged Danes, Jutes, Celts, Saxons, Angles and others did not feel at home as guests, serfs or tenants, so they began to roam around.”
The orator said he would present a few little “reasons” why the Shadowas would not care to “flock” to the British Isles, and also a review of conditions that might have had some influence in arousing the spirit of foreign adventure.
“They discovered,” said he, “that of the 76,000,000 acres of dirt on the whole British Isles, one man—great only in his possessions—owned 1,350,000 acres, while another owned 460,000 acres, the two being the born owners of over 2 per cent. of the whole, upon which 40,000,000 men were compelled to live.
“They found that about two hundred families owned about half of all the land; that less than one per cent. of the people owned over 99 per cent. of the land, and that more than 90 per cent. of the people were absolutely landless.
“It is amusing, my children, to hear these sturdy British boast about ‘my country,’ when a few families own so much of all the land on which all must live—if they remain at home. But observing the enormous power enjoyed by the holders of vast estates in the old world, too many sought by cornering the lands, to acquire like advantages in the new, and in the correction of this ancient error, the best statesmanship of the age is still required.”