(Contributed)
April 1.
Tue nou-Briton, when in conversation with his British friends in these days, not [beneath a more than pardonable pride in the achievement of their country in the present] crisis, an unwonted, difidence— jan anxiety, as it were, to set] Britain right in the eyes of the rest of the world, True, this is but the reflexion of a' similar desire on the part of their statesmen at home, harassed as these, are by the double task of] justifying a policy that requires} no justification, not only to the} demagogyes who place partisan' politics above national security and even honour, but to the} carpingly critical of other lands, To the unthinking, this anx-! jicty suggests the aphorism, "Qui s'éxcuse, s'accuse." Not 30} however; {0 the possessor-of the detached point of view, who will] sco in all that Britain has effected here in China, to date, procedure which posterity cannot fail to acclaim It is doubtful if in all histo can be found an exhibition of greater patience in the face of grievous wrongs and galling] jaffronts, a patience prompted largely by the realization that} the offenders are, in a limited sense, irresponsible children. true is this, that one prefers to} picture Britain, henceforth, not! as the conventional Lion, but rather as the powerful yet good-natured Mastiff that will one moment permit a child to take} jail manner of liberties, and the very next shield its tormentor from disaster.
One discovers a third element! in the Briton's attitude which, strive as ko will to refrain from giving expression to it, sooner Jor later expresses itself. This is in the nature of a. plaint that he should be required to} shoulder the entire white man's burden—the air of one who has for long years striven manfully to uphold the prestige of the West, only to be rewarded -by the rank ingratitude of not only} the principal beneficiaries, but Jalso that of those for whom he blazed the trail which has led to a promised land in miniature. Nay, more. His very air conveys! that he is utterly surfeited with' this sort of thing; and since there is no balm in Gilead, he proposes to retire from the scene of unrequited labours and to] shift the responsibility on to] the shoulders of those to whom, after all, it as rightfully be longs.
Now, were he any but Bri he inference would be that all this was by way of a int that} his auditor might stop at the florist's on his behalf.
'AS he is British, however, no such consideration can enter.
Nor is it that we have heard, we do not'difficult to understand and sympathize with his implied resentment, any more than it is dificult: to grasp at whom it is chiefly directed. That it should be so. directed tempts others, in turn,, to risk the dietment "que: s'exeuse, s'accuse", by attempting. jan exposition of dominant tives.
To begin with, no such resentment could possibly arise did ithe Briton but stop to'reflect that: they who still share speech and laws in common with him, are by no means so closely affiliated with him by ties of blood as. formerly. Blood, it is very true, is still thicker than water: but: to-day it is a blood vastly altered by transfusion with that.containing elements traditionally unsympathetic with him. Now, leven as the character of the blood in the human system. markedly affects processes of thought, so does it in the body, politics; and while two individ? duals, or two bodies politic, may. ultimately reach the identical conclusion, it does not follow that they reach it in the same. tway or at the same time, Where the Briton is ruled by, the head, political cousin—because of the very transfusion:
blood we have mentioned—i: ruled by the heart and by tha: imagination, To say that the former is unimaginat is to; pay him a high compliment. It' is the unimaginative who he-come world-rulers and who dear with the large affairs of weltpolitik as they should be dealt with, The gift of imagination, the sidding. tothe impulses of the heart, inevitably carry with them a tendency to evade responsibility, if but temporarily; It is for this very veason that the Briton hay once more had occasion to observe that where purely material considerations left his political cousins cold, the moment the factor of sentiment entered into the situation, aN sumption that he, alone, is left assume the white man's burd~
That burden has grown pluribus wnuny" If on 8 some what reduced scale. And the very difficulty of creating one out of many divergent view. points, a difficulty which is mat t to his political cousins,. must be taken into consideration, nton who, if he wilt: sean the' news. each, 1 realize that his rulers" a taste of at home.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.