CHAPTER XXII.
Going home—Retrospect—Alternative courses—Future of the Empire—Sovereignty of the sea—The Greeks—The rights of man—Plato—The voice of the people—Imperial federation—Hereditary colonial policy—New Irelands—Effects of party government.
Once more upon the sea on our homeward way, carrying, as Emerson said, 'the bag of Æolus in the boiler of our boat,' careless whether there be wind or calm. Our old naval heroes passed and repassed upon the same waters under harder conditions. They had to struggle against tempests, to fight with enemy's cruisers, to battle for their lives with nature as with man—and they were victorious over them all. They won for Britannia the sceptre of the sea, and built up the Empire on which the sun never sets. To us, their successors, they handed down the splendid inheritance, and we in turn have invented steam ships and telegraphs, and thrown bridges over the ocean, and made our far-off possessions as easy of access as the next parish. The attractive force of the primary ought to have increased in the same ratio, but we do not find that it has, and the centrifugal and the centripetal tendencies of our satellites are year by year becoming more nicely balanced. These beautiful West Indian Islands were intended to be homes for the overflowing numbers of our own race, and the few that have gone there are being crowded out by the blacks from Jamaica and the Antilles. Our poor helots at home drag on their lives in the lanes and alleys of our choking cities, and of those who gather heart to break off on their own account and seek elsewhere for a land of promise, the large majority are weary of the flag under which they have only known suffering, and prefer America to the English colonies. They are waking now to understand the opportunities which are slipping through their hands. Has the awakening come too late? We have ourselves mixed the cup; must we now drink it the dregs?
It is too late to enable us to make homes in the West Indies for the swarms who are thrown off by our own towns and villages. We might have done it. Englishmen would have thriven as well in Jamaica and the Antilles as the Spaniards have thriven in Cuba. But the islands are now peopled by men of another colour. The whites there are as units among hundreds, and the proportion cannot be altered. But it is not too late to redeem our own responsibilities. We brought the blacks there; we have as yet not done much for their improvement, when their notions of morality are still so elementary that more than half of their children are born out of marriage. The English planters were encouraged to settle there when it suited our convenience to maintain the islands for Imperial purposes; like the landlords in Ireland, they were our English garrison; and as with the landlords in Ireland, when we imagine that they have served their purpose and can be no longer of use to us, we calmly change the conditions of society. We disclaim obligations to help them in the confusion which we have introduced; we tell them to help themselves, and they cannot help themselves in such an element as that in which they are now struggling, unless they know that they may count on the sympathy and the support of their countrymen at home. Nothing is demanded of the English exchequer; the resources of the islands are practically boundless; there is a robust population conscious at the bottom of their native inferiority, and docile and willing to work if anyone will direct them and set them to it. There will be capital enough forthcoming, and energetic men enough and intelligence enough, if we on our part will provide one thing, the easiest of all if we really set our minds to it—an effective and authoritative government. It is not safe even for ourselves to leave a wound unattended to, though it be in the least significant part of our bodies. The West Indies are a small limb in the great body corporate of the British Empire, but there is no great and no small in the life of nations. The avoidable decay of the smallest member is an injury to the whole. Let it be once known and felt that England regards the West Indies as essentially one with herself, and the English in the islands will resume their natural position, and respect and order will come back, and those once thriving colonies will again advance with the rest on the high road of civilisation and prosperity. Let it be known that England considers only her immediate interests and will not exert herself, and the other colonies will know what they have to count upon, and the British Empire will dwindle down before long into a single insignificant island in the North Sea.
So end the reflections which I formed there from what I saw and what I heard. I have written as an outside observer unconnected with practical politics, with no motive except a loyal pride in the greatness of my own country, and a conviction, which I will not believe to be a dream, that the destinies have still in store for her a yet grander future. The units of us come and go; the British Empire, the globe itself and all that it inherits, will pass away as a vision.
ἔσσεται ἠμαρ ὅταν ποτ᾽ ὀλώλη Ἵλιος ἱρὴ
καὶ Πρίαμος καὶ λαὸς ἐυμμελίω Πριάμοιο.
The day will be when Ilium's towers may fall,
And large-limbed[18] Priam, and his people all.
But that day cannot be yet. Out of the now half-organic fragments may yet be formed one living Imperial power, with a new era of beneficence and usefulness to mankind. The English people are spread far and wide. The sea is their dominion, and their land is the finest portion of the globe. It is theirs now, it will be theirs for ages to come if they remain themselves unchanged and keep the heart and temper of their forefathers.
Naught shall make us rue,
If England to herself do rest but true.
The days pass, and our ship flies fast upon her way.
γλαυκὸν ὑπὲρ οῖδμα κυανόχροά τε κυμάτων
ῥόθια πολιὰ θαλάσσας.