fe as much as he loves his mother. Now I have touched on a delicate
point. He may love his wife, but he must repudiate his mother, curse
her, abuse her, disown her. In time of war some do, and some do not. I
am not sure that the deepest loyalty is accompanied by the loudest
curses.

There is a class of people--I have met them in every country--who are
devotees of the simple creed that you should stay at home and not
interfere in the affairs of others. Travel you may, with a Baedeker or a
Cook's guide, and stay you may in hotels provided for the purpose, but
you must do it in a proper way and at proper times, and preserve a
strict regard for your national prerogatives. But you should not go and
live in countries which are not your own. To such people there is
something almost indecent in the thought that any one should
deliberately wish to shed his own nationality and clothe himself in
another. They form the unintelligent background against which the wild
and lurid nationalists of every tribe disport themselves in frenzied
movements of hate and antagonism. An irate old colonel (very gouty) said
to me the other day: "A man who forgets his duties to his own country
and settles in another is a damnable cur. So much for these dirty
foreigners who overrun England."

I ventured to remind him that the English have settled in a good many
places: in America, in Australia, in spots fair and foul, friendly and
unfriendly; that they have brought afternoon tea and sport and Anglican
services to the pleasure resorts of Europe and the deserts of Africa.
Meeting with no response, I embarked on a short account of the past
travels and achievements of the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the French in
the art of settlement in foreign lands. I ended up by prophesying that
the aeroplane of the future will transport us swiftly from continent to
continent and make mincemeat of the last remnants of our national
exclusiveness. He was not in the least perturbed. "That is all rubbish,"
he said; "people ought to stick to their own country."

I am afraid neither he nor anybody else can check the wanderings of
individuals and peoples which have gone on ever since man discovered
that he has two legs with which he can move about. And naturalization,
after all, is an easy way of acquiring new and possibly useful citizens.
The subjects come willingly, whilst the millions who are made subjects
by war and subjugation are sometimes exceedingly troublesome. After