Expansion and Peace 31 



its history. On an even larger scale the same thing 

 is true of England and the Soudan. The expansion 

 of England throughout the Nile valley has been an 

 incalculable gain for civilization. Any one who 

 reads the writings of the Austrian priests and lay 

 men who were prisoners in the Soudan under the 

 Mahdi will realize that when England crushed him 

 and conquered the Soudan she conferred a priceless 

 boon upon humanity and made the civilized world 

 her debtor. Again, the same thing is true of the 

 Russian advance in Asia. As in the Soudan the 

 English conquest is followed by peace, and the end 

 less massacres of the Mahdi are stopped forever, so 

 the Russian conquest of the khanates of central 

 Asia meant the cessation of the barbarous warfare 

 under which Asian civilization had steadily withered 

 away since the days of Genghis Khan, and the sub 

 stitution in its place of the reign of peace and order. 

 All civilization has been -the gainer by the Russian 

 advance, as it was the gainer by the advance of 

 France in North Africa; as it has been the gainer 

 by the advance of England in both Asia and Africa, 

 both Canada and Australia. Above all, there has 

 been the greatest possible gain in peace. The rule 

 of law and of order has succeeded to the rule of 

 barbarous and bloody violence. Until the great civ 

 ilized nations stepped in there was no chance for 

 anything but such bloody violence. 



