Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-7

by Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke

The Suez Canal is being pushed with vigor, although the labor of the hundreds of Greek and Italian navvies is very different to that of the tens of thousands of impressed fellaheen. The withdrawal from the Company of the forced labor of the peasants has demonstrated that the King is at heart not well disposed toward the scheme, for the remonstrances of England have never prevented the employment of slave labor upon works out of which there was money to be made for the viceregal purse. The difficulty of clearing and keeping clear the channel at Port Said, at the Mediterranean end, is well known to the Pacha and his engineers:—it is not difficult, indeed, to cut through the bar, nor impossible to keep the cutting open, but the effect of the great piers will merely be to push the Nile silt farther seaward, and again and again new bars will form in front of the canal. That the canal is physically possible no one doubts, but it is hard to believe that it can pay. Even if we suppose, moreover, that the canal will prove a complete success, the French government will only find that it has spent millions upon digging a canal for England‘s use.

The neutralization of Egypt has lately been proposed by writers of the Comtist school, but to what end is far from clear. “The interests of civilization” are the pretext, but, when summoned by a Comtist, “civilization” and “humanity” generally appear in a French shape. Were we to be attacked in India by the French or Russians, no neutralization would prevent our sending our troops to India by the shortest road, and fighting wherever we thought best. If we were not so attacked, neutralization, as far as we are concerned, would be a useless ceremony. If France goes beyond her customary meddlesomeness and settles down in Egypt, we shall evidently have to dislodge her, but to neutralize the country would be to settle her there ourselves. It would be idle to deny that the position of France in the East is connected with the claim put forth by her to the moral leadership of the world. The “chief power of Europe” and “leader of Christendom” must needs be impatient of the dominance of America in the Pacific and of Britain in the East, and seeks by successes on the side of India to bury the memories of Mexico. One of the hundred “missions of France,” one of the thousand “Imperial ideas,” is the “regeneration of the East.” Treacherous England is to be confined to her single island, and barbarous Russia to be shut up in the Siberian snows. England may be left to answer for herself, but before we surrender even Russia to the Comtist priests, we should remember that, just as the Russian despotism is dangerous to the world from the stupidity of its barbarism, so the French democracy is dangerous through its feverish sympathies, blundering “humanity,” and unlimited ambition.

The present reaction against exaggerated nationalism is in itself a sign that our national mind is in a healthy state; but, while we distrust nationalism because it is illogical and narrow, we must remember that “cosmopolitanism” has been made the excuse for childish absurdities, and a cloak for desperate schemes. Love of race, among the English, rests upon a firmer base than either love of mankind or love of Britain, for it reposes upon a subsoil of things known: the ascertained virtues and powers of the English people. For nations such as France and Spain, with few cares outside their European territories, national fields for action are, perhaps, too narrow, and the interests of even the vast territories inhabited by the English race may, in a less degree, be too small for English thought; but there is India,—and the responsibility of the absolute government of a quarter of the human race is no small thing. If we strive to advance ourselves in the love of truth, to act justly towards Ireland, and to govern India aright, we shall have enough of work to occupy us for many years to come, and shall leave a greater name in history than if we concerned ourselves with settling the affairs of Poland. If we need a wider range for our sympathies than that which even India will supply, we may find it in our friendships with the other sections of the race; and if, unhappily, one result of the present awakening of England to free life should be a return of the desire to meddle in the affairs of other folk, we shall find a better outlet for our energy in aiding our Teutonic brethren in their struggle for unity than in assisting Imperial France to spread Benôitonisme through the world.

We cannot, if we would, be indifferent spectators of the extravagances of France: if she is at present weak in the East, she is strong at home. At this moment, we are spending ten or fifteen millions a year in order that we may be equal with her in military force, and we hang upon the words of her ruler to know whether we are to have peace or war. Although it may not be wise for us to declare that this humiliating spectacle shall shortly have an end, it is at least advisable that we should refrain from aiding the French in their professed endeavors to obtain for other peoples liberties which they are incapable of preserving for themselves.

If the English race has a “mission” in the world, it is the making it impossible that the peace of mankind on earth should depend upon the will of a single man.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ENGLISH.

IN America we have seen the struggle of the dear races against the cheap—the endeavors of the English to hold their own against the Irish and Chinese. In New Zealand, we found the stronger and more energetic race pushing from the earth the shrewd and laborious descendants of the Asian Malays; in Australia, the English triumphant, and the cheaper races excluded from the soil not by distance merely, but by arbitrary legislation; in India, we saw the solution of the problem of the officering of the cheaper by the dearer race. Everywhere we have found that the difficulties which impede the progress to universal dominion of the English people lie in the conflict with the cheaper races. The result of our survey is such as to give us reason for the belief that race distinctions will long continue, that miscegenation will go but little way toward blending races; that the dearer are, on the whole, likely to destroy the cheaper peoples, and that Saxondom will rise triumphant from the doubtful struggle.

The countries ruled by a race whose very scum and outcasts have founded empires in every portion of the globe, even now consist of 9½ millions of square miles, and contain a population of 300 millions of people. Their surface is five times as great as that of the empire of Darius, and four and a half times as large as the Roman Empire at its greatest extent. It is no exaggeration to say that in power the English countries would be more than a match for the remaining nations of the world, whom in the intelligence of their people and the extent and wealth of their dominions they already considerably surpass. Russia gains ground steadily, we are told, but so do we. If we take maps of the English-governed countries and of the Russian countries of fifty years ago, and compare them with the English and Russian countries of to-day, we find that the Saxon has outstripped the Muscovite in conquest and in colonization. The extensions of the United States alone are equal to all those of Russia. Chili, La Plata, and Peru must eventually become English; the Red Indian race that now occupies those countries cannot stand against our colonists; and the future of the table-lands of Africa and that of Japan and of China is as clear. Even in the tropical plains, the negroes alone seem able to withstand us. No possible series of events can prevent the English race itself in 1970 numbering 300 millions of beings—of one national character and one tongue. Italy, Spain, France, Russia become pigmies by the side of such a people.

Many who are well aware of the power of the English nations are nevertheless disposed to believe that our own is morally, as well as physically, the least powerful of the sections of the race, or, in other words, that we are overshadowed by America and Australia. The rise to power of our southern colonies is, however, distant, and an alliance between ourselves and America is still one to be made on equal terms. Although we are forced to contemplate the speedy loss of our manufacturing supremacy as coal becomes cheaper in America and dearer in Old England, we have nevertheless as much to bestow on America as she has to confer on us. The possession of India offers to ourselves that element of vastness of dominion which, in this age, is needed to secure width of thought and nobility of purpose; but to the English race our possession of India, of the coasts of Africa, and of the ports of China offers the possibility of planting free institutions among the dark-skinned races of the world.

The ultimate future of any one section of our race, however, is of little moment by the side of its triumph as a whole, but the power of English laws and English principles of government is not merely an English question—its continuance is essential to the freedom of mankind.