EGYPT AND THE SOUDAN 
475 
children,” because in the days of Mahdism it was the 
literal truth that in a very large proportion of the 
communities every child was either killed or died of 
starvation and hardship, whereas under the peace 
brought by British rule families are flourishing, men 
and women are no longer hunted to death, and the 
children are brought up under more favourable circum¬ 
stances, for soul and body, than have ever previously 
obtained in the entire history of the Soudan. In 
administration, in education, in police work, the Sirdar 
and his lieutenants, great and small, have performed to 
perfection a task equally important and difficult. The 
Government officials, civil and military, who are respon¬ 
sible for this task, and the Egyptian and Soudanese 
who have worked with and under them, and as directed 
by them, have a claim upon all civilized mankind which 
should be heartily admitted. It would be a crime not 
to go on with the work—a work which the inhabitants 
themselves are helpless to perform, unless under firm 
and outside wise guidance. I have met people who 
had some doubt as to whether the Soudan would pay. 
Personally, I think it probably will. But I may add 
that, in my judgment, this fact does not alter the duty 
of Britain to stay there. It is not worth while belong¬ 
ing to a big nation unless the big nation is willing 
when the necessity arises to undertake a big task. I 
feel about you in the Soudan just as I felt about us in 
Panama. When we acquired the right to build the 
Panama Canal, and entered on the task, there were 
worthy people who came to me and said they wondered 
whether it would pay. I always answered that it was 
one of the great world works which had to be done ; 
that it was our business as a nation to do it, if we were 
ready to make good our claim to be treated as a great 
