Taught by bitter experience at home, Anglo-Saxons struck out fresh lines, in the fresh lands where, thanks to the discoveries of adventurous rovers, they could find asylum. The humanities in them got scope; they carried tolerance and liberty ever with them. Take the Puritans who founded New England! Was there ever such a noble band? Again, take the Quakers or the English and Irish Roman Catholics! In some cases, when there was persecution on the Continent of Europe, these British emigrants attracted to them what was persecuted. South Africa was founded in oppression, independently of us as it happened, since the forefathers of the Boers were largely French Huguenots.
It was not enough, that the Anglo-Saxon should rush from starvation and persecution, to a freer home across the seas. No sooner had he found it, than the old oppression might again be clanking its chains at his heels. The stern Mother more than once stretched out her hand to coerce her freer children, forcing them ever to take new ground, and be, so to speak, clear of her clutches. The instance of America occurred during this second stage in the weft and woof of tribulation which was at the root of our growth. The same with the Boers of South Africa, who, by harsh regulations, were forced inland, thus opening up new territory. It had all worked with the precision and force of a Nasmyth hammer.
Naturally, a time would arrive when the liberty and freedom of the Saxon, gone over sea, should react upon the Old World. Sir George held it proven that the inspiration of the New World had, in real measure, been the emancipation of the Old. Very many of the inventions of the nineteenth century, which were the threads of modern progress, were to have their origin in the New World. She would heap coals of fire on the head of the Old.
How, to help this girdling of the whole world with beneficent influences, through the medium of the Anglo-Saxon? Sir George turned him on his Mount Pisgah, first in New Zealand, later in South Africa. He had been looking at the scored, furrowed, violent past. It had worked out its meaning, nor was there doubt as to the bearing of that message upon the future.
At Pisgah's highest peak the sun shone, only there were mists, which it did not pierce, in the valleys below. Just, it caught one wisp of the vapour, and twirled it about in the wind. The errant thing flung into a sign—Federation of the English-speaking People; and was gone.
Sir George Grey dipped for a Grand Pacific Isles Protectorate, and a red noose from Downing Street strangled it. He dipped for a Federated South Africa, and the red noose caught himself. That is, he was recalled from his Cape Governor-ship on account of his projects. Ah, that he had been permitted to go on with them! All the gold of the Randt would not have weighed in the scales like that.
True, he was returned to South Africa, which clamoured angrily at his recall, but, as he said, 'It was with strict injunctions to stop my federation schemes, for these would not be tolerated.'
They were a generation too soon. Yet, their author had already drawn on posterity in order to develop English colonies. Was it right to tax posterity? High talk turned on this at a dinner in London, where Sir George met Gladstone, Macaulay, and other celebrities. 'Certainly,' Sir George argued, 'if some large expense is undertaken which will benefit those to come after us, as well as those already here, it is more equity that the former should be charged with their share.' The principle had been put into practice in the Colonies, and he imagined that this dinner helped its advance in the Old Country. Especially, he applied that opinion to the taking over, by Government, of the English telegraph lines.
'I recall very well,' Sir George stated, 'the picturesque way in which Macaulay expressed our common trait of being interested in trifles that affect us closely, to the neglect of large happenings which are distant. "Here," he said, about some item of news, "is a mandarin in China who has beheaded a thousand people in a batch. I was quite shocked when I read of it this morning. During the day I contrived to cut one of my fingers. I'm ashamed to confess that I thought so much about the finger, that I quite forgot the massacred Chinamen! That was Macaulay's illustration."
'As the dinner party was breaking up, I stood for a minute with him. He had not been enjoying very good health. When I congratulated him on his seeming revival in strength, he showed me his hand, which was puffy and blown, and answered: "Oh, I'm not so well as you might think." Poor fellow, the remark was too true, for he died within a fortnight from that evening.'