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it over to Spain; Crete and Cyprus should be free to join Greece; 

 Malta, in like manner, would be given the choice of absolute self- 

 government under the protection of Britain, or union with Italy. But 

 the effect of these would be as nothing compared with our giving 

 absolute internal self-government to Ireland, with protection from 

 attack by any foreign Power ; and the same to the Transvaal and 

 Orange Free State ; and this last we should do " in sackcloth and 

 ashes," with full acknowledgment of our heinous offences against 

 liberty and our plighted word. 



Now we come to India, which our friend Blatchford seems to con- 

 sider the test case. And so it is ; for if ever there was an example of 

 a just punishment for evil deeds, it is in the fact that, after a century 

 of absolute power, we are still no nearer peace and plenty and rational 

 self-government in India than we were half a century ago, when we 

 took over the government from the " Company " with the promise to 

 introduce home-rule as soon as possible. And now we have a country 

 in which plague and famine are chronic — a country which we rule and 

 plunder for the benefit of our aristocracy and wealthy classes, and 

 which we are therefore in continual dread of losing to Russia. 



If we had honestly kept our word, if we had ruled India with the 

 one purpose of benefiting its people, and had introduced home-rule 

 throughout its numerous provinces, states, and nations, settling dis- 

 putes between them, and guarding them from all foreign attack, we 

 should by now have won the hearts of its teeming populations, and 

 no foreign Power would have ventured to invade a group of nations 

 so united and so protected. Such a position as we might have now 

 held in India — that of the adviser, the reconciler, and the powerful 

 protector of a federation of self-governing Native States — would be 

 a position of dignity and true glory very far above anything we can 

 claim to-day. 



But, it will be replied, all this is foolish talk; it will be a century 

 before the British people will be persuaded to give up its possessions 

 and its power ; and, in the meantime, if we do not defend ourselves 

 we shall not have the opportunity of being so generous, hardly shall 

 we keep our own liberties. I have not so low an opinion of my 

 countrymen as to believe that they really wish to keep other peoples 

 subject to them against their will; that they are really determined 

 to go on denying that freedom to others which is so dear a possession 

 to themselves. And if there is not now a majority who would agree 

 to act at once as I suggest, I am pretty confident that there is, even 

 now, a majority who would acknowledge that such action is theoret- 

 ically just, and that they would be willing to do it by degrees, and as 

 soon as it is safe, to look forward to it, in fact, as an ideal to be 

 realized at some future time. 



Now, what I wish to urge is, that it is of the most vital importance 

 to us, now, that all who agree with me that there can be no national 



