Cosmo was far too loyal to deny his acquaintance with that fact, but his features showed how little it had occupied his thoughts. Mr Burden paused again and frowned. He went on:
“Now, this trade has never been of value to us ... but I have often thought ... I may have been wrong ... I have often thought that it might have been developed if I had looked more closely into the matter.”
After a full and yet more fruitful pause, the third, but not the last, in the course of this critical discourse, Mr Burden proceeded with astonishing breadth and grasp to develop that theory of commerce which distinguishes us from our less fortunate rivals. Compelled as I am to condense his diction, I am yet careful to repeat his actual phraseology, in a matter of which he was a master and of which I cannot even call myself a novice.
He set forth first that times were not what they had been; that competition was keen; that new markets had to be looked for; our prosperity was indeed increasing, but the ratio of that increase was declining. For a full ten minutes he distinguished in the most lucid manner between actual and comparative growth; finally, he propounded with some hesitation, yet warmly and grandly, as a scheme or suggestion of his own, that the new markets might be expected to arise in new countries.
Cosmo, to whose vigorous if quiet mind original theories immediately appealed, was moved to a whole world of thought and allusion by his father’s sudden insight. He recalled examples of success achieved upon such lines; Australia suggested many, Johannesburg many more, nor did he neglect the Western States of America; but he asked what the M’Korio Delta, known so long, tropical, forgotten, could have in common with these?
It was then that Mr Burden fully delivered himself of the idea which had so long been maturing in his brain; he hoped—he could not tell why—it was but a hope—yet he hoped that the M’Korio Delta might prove one of those undeveloped tracts of an Empire whose future contained almost infinite possibilities.
“This idea of mine,” he added, “has been singularly confirmed by one or two things I have read, and certain chance allusions of travellers in the last few years. I doubt whether our explorers or our journalists have had quite the same opportunities of judging the Delta as myself; and I am not accustomed to form my judgment upon that of other men. Nevertheless, I am struck by the singular way in which all modern research upon the matter seems to converge towards my own original conclusions.”
When Mr Burden had said these things, Cosmo, with a wisdom beyond his years, pointed out the extreme risks attending all colonial experiments. The risk was not perhaps a risk to the nation as a whole; but it was invariably present for the individual speculator. His father nodded rhythmically and wisely as his son betrayed in every phrase an increasing caution, but he cut him short with a firm gesture.
“No one knows that better than I, Cosmo,” he said. “I would not enter into any scheme that did not promise to obtain a very large support from the public, and, I hope, some kind of official recognition.... When you are as old as I am,” he went on, as Cosmo would have interrupted him, “you will know that official recognition, even if it is unofficial,” here he hesitated for a moment, “even if it is informal, is what makes the public come in.”
And with this expression of opinion, Mr Burden permitted to linger upon his lips, a faint smile which showed the importance he justly attached to his knowledge of the world.