At length the overgorged beast of prey, with all the diseases in his veins that over-eating brings, finds that his claws are not so sharp as they were, that his belly is much heavier when he tries to leap and that it is now chiefly by his voice he still scares his enemies.
The Empire of England dates from Tudor times. Henry VIII was the first John Bull. When the conquered Irish and the wealth derived from their rich country England set out to lay low every free people that had a country worth invading and who, by reasons of their non-imperial instinct were not prepared to meet her on equal terms. India she overran by the same methods as had given her Ireland.
Wholesale plunder, treachery and deceit met at her council board under a succession of Governors and Viceroys, whose policy was that of Captain Kidd, and whose ante-room of state led every native prince to the slippery plank. The thing became the most colossal success upon earth. No people were found able to withstand such a combination. How could peoples still nursed in the belief of some diviner will ruling men's minds resist such an attack?
For one brief space Napoleon reared his head; and had he cast his vision to. Ireland instead of to Egypt he would have found out the secret of the pirate's stronghold. But the fates willed otherwise; the time was not yet. He sailed for Alexandria, lured by a dream, instead of for Cork; and the older Imperialists beat the new Imperialists and secured a fresh century of unprecedented triumph. The Pyramids looked down on Waterloo; but the headlands of Bantry Bay concealed the mastery, and the mystery, of the seas.
With 1811 was born the era of Charles Peace, no less than of John Bull—on Sundays and Saint's days a churchwarden, who carried the plate; on week days a burglar who lifted it. Truly, as John Mitchel said on his convict hulk: "On English felony the sun never sets." May it set in 1915.
From Napoleon's downfall to the battle of Colenso, the Empire founded by Henry VIII has swelled to monstrous size. Innumerable free peoples have bit the dust and died with plaintive cries to heaven. The wealth of London has increased a thousand fold, and the giant hotels and caravanserais have grown, at the millionaire's touch, to rival the palaces of the Caesars.
"All's well with God's world"—and poet and plagiarist, courtier and courtesan, Kipling and cant—these now dally by the banks of the Thames and dine off the peoples of the earth, just as once the degenerate populace of imperial Rome fed upon the peoples of the Pyramids. But the thing is near the end. The "secret of Empire" is no longer the sole possession of England. Other peoples are learning to think imperially. The Goths and the Visigoths of modern civilisation are upon the horizon. Action must soon follow thought. London, like Rome, will have strange guests. They will not pay their hotel bills. Their day is not yet but it is at hand. "Home Rule" assemblies and Indian "Legislative Councils" may prolong the darkness; but the dawn is in die sky. And in the downfall of the Tudor Empire, both Ireland and India shall escape from the destruction and join again the free civilizations of the earth.
The birds of the forest are on the wing.
It is an Empire in these straights that turns to America, through Ireland, to save it. And the price it offers is—war with Germany. France may serve for a time, but France like Germany, is in Europe, and in the end it is all Europe and not only Germany England assails. Permanent confinement of the white races, as distinct from the Anglo-Saxon variety, can only be achieved by the active support and close alliance of the American people. These people are to-day, unhappily republicans and free men, and have no ill-will for Germany and a positive distaste for imperialism. It is not really in their blood. That blood is mainly Irish and German, the blood of men not distinguished in the past for successful piracy and addicted rather to the ways of peace. The wars that Germany has waged have been wars of defence, or wars to accomplish the unity of her people. Irish wars have been only against one enemy, and ending always in material disaster they have conferred always a moral gain. Their memory uplifts the Irish heart; for no nation, no people, can reproach Ireland with having wronged them. She has injured no man.