“No, no,” said Shelton; “you 're not going to get out of it that way. Give me a single example of a nation, or an individual, for that matter, who 's ever done any good without having worked up to it from within.”
Crocker, grunting, muttered, “Evils.”
“That 's it,” said Shelton; “we take peoples entirely different from our own, and stop their natural development by substituting a civilisation grown for our own use. Suppose, looking at a tropical fern in a hothouse, you were to say: 'This heat 's unhealthy for me; therefore it must be bad for the fern, I 'll take it up and plant it outside in the fresh air.'.rdquo;
“Do you know that means giving up India?” said the Indian civilian shrewdly.
“I don't say that; but to talk about doing good to India is—h'm!”
Crocker knitted his brows, trying to see the point of view his friend was showing him.
“Come, now! Should we go on administering India if it were dead loss? No. Well, to talk about administering the country for the purpose of pocketing money is cynical, and there 's generally some truth in cynicism; but to talk about the administration of a country by which we profit, as if it were a great and good thing, is cant. I hit you in the wind for the benefit of myself—all right: law of nature; but to say it does you good at the same time is beyond me.”
“No, no,” returned Crocker, grave and anxious; “you can't persuade me that we 're not doing good.”
“Wait a bit. It's all a question of horizons; you look at it from too close. Put the horizon further back. You hit India in the wind, and say it's virtuous. Well, now let's see what happens. Either the wind never comes back, and India gasps to an untimely death, or the wind does come back, and in the pant of reaction your blow—that's to say your labour—is lost, morally lost labour that you might have spent where it would n't have been lost.”
“Are n't you an Imperialist?” asked Crocker, genuinely concerned.