第62章

The days of the Black Prince are past and gone, no Henry V.is to-day victorious at Agincourt, we have to fight with firearms and magazine rifles.""The Boers, my lord, showed us what a brave militia is capable of doing against regular troops.""Yes, in the mountains.The Tyrolese held out in the same way against the great Napoleon for a while.But England is a flat country, and in the plain tactical strategy soon proves its superiority.No, England's salvation rests entirely on her fleet."A despatch from the Viceroy of India was handed to the Prime Minister: "The Viceroy informs His Majesty's Government that the Commander-in-Chief in Delhi has massed an army of 30,000 men, and will defend the city.The sepoys attached to his army are loyal, because they are confined within the fortifications and cannot flee.The Viceroy will take care that the Mohammedan sepoys shall all, as far as possible, be brought south, and that only Hindu troops shall be led against the Russians.Orders have been given that the treacherous Maharajah of Chanidigot, whose troops in the battle of Lahore gave the signal for desertion, shall be shot.The Viceroy is of opinion that the Russian army will have to halt before Delhi in order to collect the reinforcements which, though in smaller numbers, are still coming up through Afghanistan.He does not doubt that the English army, whose numbers are daily increasing by the addition of fresh regiments, will, when massed in the northern provinces, deal the Russians a decisive blow.The Commander-in-Chief will leave to General Egerton the defence of Delhi, and concentrate a new field army at Cawnpore, with which it is his intention to advance to Delhi.All lines of railway are now constantly engaged in forwarding all available troops to Cawnpore.""This news is, at all events, calculated to inspire new courage,"said the Prime Minister after reading the telegram, "and we will not disguise from ourselves the fact, my lords, that we need courage now more than ever.This new man in Germany, whom the Emperor has made Chancellor, is arousing the feelings of the Germans most alarmingly against us.He appears to be a man of the Bismarck stamp, full of insolent inconsiderateness and of a surprising initiative.We stand quite isolated in the world;Russia, France, and Germany are leagued against us.Austria cannot and will not help us, Italy temporises in reply to our advances, says neither 'yes' nor 'no,' and seeks an opportunity of allying herself with France and wresting the remainder of the Italian territories from Austria and of aggrandising herself at the expense of our colonies.Yet, whenever England has stood alone, she has always stood in the halo of glory and power.Let us trust in our own right hand and in the loyalty of our colonies, who are ready to come to our aid with money and men, and whom, after our victory, we will repay with all those good gifts that His Majesty's Government can dispense.""Our colonies!" the Minister of the Board of Trade intervened.

"You are right, they are ready to make sacrifices.Only I am afraid that those sacrifices which the Right Honourable the Minister for the Colonies demands of them will be too great, and that, having regard to the tendency of the modern imperialism of our Government, they will not believe in those rewards that are to be dangled before their eyes.""My lord," replied the last speaker, "I am considered an agitator, and am accused of being responsible for the present perilous position of England.Well, I will accept that responsibility.

Never in the world's history did a statesman entertain great plans without exposing his country to certain risks.I remind you how Bismarck, after the war of 1866 had been fought to a successful issue, said that the old women would have beaten him to death with cudgels had the Prussian army been defeated.But it was not defeated, and he stood before them as a man who had united Germany and made Prussia great.He exposed Prussia to the greatest risks, in that by his agitation he made almost the whole world Prussia's enemy, declared war upon Austria and upon the whole of South Germany, and forced the latter eventually to engage in the war against France.England at that time pursued the luckless policy of observing and waiting for an opportunity, merely because no agitator conducted its policy.Had England in 1866 declared war against Prussia, Germany would not to-day be so powerful as to be able to wage war upon us.Since those days, profound changes have taken place in England itself, and entirely owing to the growth of the German power.Since the fall of Napoleon, we have not troubled ourselves sufficiently about events upon the Continent, but in our proud self-assurance have thought ourselves so powerful, that we only needed to influence the decisions of foreign governments, in order to pursue our own lines of policy.But this self-assurance suffered a severe shock in the events of 1866 and 1870, and England has, and rightly enough, become nervous.The Englishman down to that period despised the forward policy of the Continental powers.

This is no longer the case, but, on the other hand patriotic tendencies are at work even in England itself, which are branded by the weak-minded apostles of peace as chauvinistic.Let that pass, I am proud to call myself a chauvinist in the sense that I do not desire peace at any price, but peace only for England's welfare.

The patriotic tendencies of our people have been directed into their proper channel by my predecessor Chamberlain.And has not the Government for the last thirty years hearkened to these patriotic feelings, in that, whether led by Disraeli or Gladstone, it has brought about an enormous strengthening of our defensive forces both on land and sea? These military preparations, whilst not only redounding to the advantage of the motherland, but also to that of the colonies (which they shall ever continue to do) have saddled the mother country with the entire burden of expenditure.

But how shall the enormous cost of this war be met for the future?

How shall the commerce of the English world-empire be increased in the future and protected from competition, if the colonies do not share in the expense? I vote for a just distribution of the burdens, and maintain that not England alone but that the colonies also should share in bearing them.The plan of Imperial Federation, a policy which we are pursuing, is the remedy for our chronic disease, and will strengthen the colonies and the mother country in economic, political, and military respects.Certainly, my lords, such utterances will appear to you to be somewhat impertinent, at a time when a Russian army has invaded India and our army has suffered a severe defeat, but I should wish to remind you that every war that England has yet waged has begun with defeats.But England has never waged other than victorious wars since William the Conqueror infused Romanic blood into England's political life and thus gave it a constitution of such soundness and tenacity that no other body politic has ever been able permanently to resist England.We shall again, as in days of yore, drive the Russians out of India, shall force the fleets of France, Germany, and Russia who are now hiding in their harbours into the open, annihilate them, and thwart all the insolent plans of our enemies, and finally raise the Union Jack as a standard of a world-power that no one will for evermore be able to attack."