"What, then, should we do in this matter? The 'repose of strength' is liable to be interpreted by the Oriental as supineness; moderation means fear; and 'compromise,' the basis of public and private life in England, has no synonym in the East. De l'audace, etc., is the only rule of conduct in the Afghan hills. At the first opportunity—and any day may bring one—we should break openly with Shere Ali; tread boldly upon the coat-tail which he is trailing for a fight; withdraw that phantom of a Native Agent, and offer the subsidy, a lakh per mensem, to the successor who promises us his friendship and his confidence. The latter measure has been characterized as a premium on rebellion. Sit, so be it!
"We have nothing to fear from the Afghan chief, most of whose subjects would right willingly exchange his barbarous sway for our civilized rule. We have nothing to hope from him; he would take, Afghan-like, our money with one hand, and stab us with the other. Here, if anywhere, are the time and place to assume the tone and position of a 'dominant race.' We have talked too long and too loudly about 'our fellow-subjects in India' and our 'Afghan allies;' let us now change the terms for 'conquered races' here, and for 'paid partisans' there.
"Curious to say, the latest form of Russophobia was developed by our grand national blunder, the great artillery duel in the corner of the Black Sea, which history will call the 'Crimean War.' After nearly incurring national bankruptcy by our rabid hostility to Napoleon I., we were cozened by Napoleon III. into an alliance, whose sole object was to give his house a status amongst the old and aristocratic dynasties of Europe. But, to do the latter justice, he proposed to take upon himself the chief onus of the campaign.
"It was Lord Palmerston—the statesman who saddled us with the Fenian imbroglio; the man who, believing about as much as Epicurus, never missed a Sunday morning service; the Irishman who knew the English public better than it knew itself—that rejected the Frenchman's offer to send the army, whilst England supplied the fleet. Thus, upon the obsolete principle that one Englishman can beat three Mossoos or Johnny Crapauds, we were allowed to contribute a mere contingent. Thus we were condemned to play, as is commonly said, second fiddle, without the least hope of rising in the world; whilst the want of ability amongst our superior officers, the normal English deficiency of organization, and a few miserable blunders, glorious like the Balaclava Charge, and inglorious like the run from the Mamelon, duly printed abroad throughout the civilized world, combined to form an ample 'vengeance for Waterloo.'
"The world has not yet learned that we entered half-hearted into that war; that we were thoroughly ashamed of our Turkish allies and of their cause; that many of our leading statesmen determined upon not abasing Russia; that Cronstadt was allowed to exclude us from St. Petersburg, when the late Captain Cole's turret-ship would have set the fortress at defiance; that Kars was given over to starvation because the Russians refused to make peace without a set-off for the southern half of Sebastopol, evacuated after a resistance of eighteen months; that Napoleon insisted on coming to terms with Russia, because his Crimean army was mutinous, and he had won his point; and lastly, that our allies' ignoble jealousy confined us to a game at long bowls in the Crimea, when, with the assistance of the Turks, the Kurds, and the Persians, we might easily have driven Russia once more behind and beyond the Caucasus.
"All this, and more, we have been told by the late Lord Strangford, in the two volumes of his pleasant works published some years ago by the Viscountess, whose late gigantic charitable undertakings in Bulgaria must be the envy and admiration of every woman. But, in determining that Russia had gained by the war as much as Great Britain lost, my clever friend was not so happy as in the rest of his judgments: in fact, he neglected one great item in the account which determined the balance in our favour. The Crimean War prevented the march of the Russian empire southwards,—the general rule of northern conquest. It compelled her to go and grow eastward.
"This necessity of growth in the Northern Giant is treated by our writers with a luxury of explanation. It is attributed to a steadfast political purpose; to the preponderating impulse of irresponsible military ambition thirsting for distinction; to a traditional creed of the Empire, which aims at augmented power in Europe through extension in Asia; to obeying the natural law of increase; and to all these causes combined.
"For the anthropologist, one amply suffices. The body politic, like the individual, must grow to attain full development; and 'earth-hunger,' as it is called, characterizes all young peoples in the lusty prime of life. At present the only great conquering races are the Slav, especially Russia, and the English, especially the Anglo-Americans. The former conquer by invasion, the latter by occupation and colonization.
"Why Great Britain, at the present moment of her history, has turned her sword into a ploughshare, is apparently little understood by the mass of foreign writers. The truth is, we are still in a period of reaction. During the first quarter of the present century we meddled with—and often, it must be confessed, we muddled—European affairs which least concerned an insular people.