From “John Bull and His Island.”

THE FRENCH fight for glory; the Germans for a living; the Russians to divert the attention of the people from home affairs; but John Bull is a reasonable, moral, and reflecting character: he fights to promote trade, to maintain peace and order on the face of the earth, and the good of mankind in general. If he conquers a nation, it is to improve its condition in this world and secure its welfare in the next: a highly moral aim, as you perceive. “Give me your territory, and I will give you the Bible.” Exchange no robbery.

  John is so convinced of his intentions being pure and his mission holy, that when he goes to war and his soldiers get killed, he does not like it. In newspaper reports of battles, you may see at the head of the telegrams: “Battle of … So many of the enemy killed, so many British massacred.”

  During the Zulu war, the savages one day surprised an English regiment, and made a clean sweep of them. Next day, all the papers had: “Disaster at Isandula; Massacre of British troops; Barbarous perfidy of the Zulus.” Yet these excellent Zulus were not accused of having decoyed the English into a trap; no, they had simply neglected to send their cards to give notice of their arrival, as gentlemen should have done. That was all. It was cheating. As a retaliatory measure, there was a general demand in London for the extermination of the enemy to the last man. After all, these poor fellows were only defending their own invaded country. The good sense of England prevailed, however, and they were treated as worsted belligerents. England, at heart, is generous; when she has conquered a people, she freely says to them: “I forgive you.” Above all things she is practical. When she has achieved the conquest of a nation, she sets to work to organize it; she gives it free institutions; allows it to govern itself; trades with it; enriches it, and endeavors to make herself agreeable to her new subjects. There are always thousands of Englishmen ready to go and settle in such new pastures, and fraternize with the natives. When England gave her colonies the right of self-government, there were not wanting people to prophesy that the ruin of the empire must be the result. Contrary to their expectation, however, the effect of this excellent policy has been to bind but closer the ties which held the colonies to the mother country. If England relied merely upon her bayonets to guard her empire, that empire would collapse like a house of cards; it is a moral force, something far more powerful than bayonets, that keeps it together.

  England’s way of utilizing her colonies is not our way. To us they are mere military stations for the cultivation of the science of war. To her they are stores, branch shops of the firm “John Bull & Co.” Go to Australia—that is, to the antipodes of London—you will, it is true, see people eating strawberries and wearing straw hats at Christmas; setting aside this difference, you will easily be able to fancy yourself in England.

  The Spaniards once possessed nearly the whole of the New World; but their only aim being to enrich themselves at the expense of their colonies, they lost them all. You cannot with impunity suck a colony’s blood to the last drop.

  It is not given to everyone to be a colonist.

  John Bull is a colonist, if ever there was one. This he owes to his singular qualities,—nay, even to defects which are peculiarly his own.