rymen, 'Can you complain that you have been robbed of the liberty
which you have yourselves abolished in your own homes?' applies equally
to nations which have enslaved or exploited the inhabitants of subject
lands. If the Roman Empire had a long and glorious life, it was because
its methods were liberal, by the standard of ancient times. In so far as
Rome abused her power, she suffered the doom of all tyrants.

The illusions of imperialism have been made clearer than ever by the
course of modern history. Attempts to destroy a nationality by
overthrowing its government, proscribing its language, and maltreating
its citizens, are never successful. The experiment has been tried with
great thoroughness in Poland; and the Poles are now more of a nation
than they were under the oppressive feudal system which existed before
the partitions. Our own empire would be a ludicrous failure if it were
any part of our ambition to Anglicise other races. The only English
parts of the empire were waste lands which we have peopled with our own
emigrants. We hauled down the French flag in Canada, with the result
that Eastern Canada is now the only flourishing French colony, and the
only part of the world where the French race increases rapidly. We have
helped the Dutch to multiply with almost equal rapidity in South Africa.
We have added several millions to the native population of Egypt, and
over a hundred millions to the population of India. Similarly, the
Americans have made Cuba for the first time a really Spanish island, by
driving out its incompetent Spanish governors and so attracting
immigrants from Spain. On the whole, in imperialism nothing fails like
success. If the conqueror oppresses his subjects, they will become
fanatical patriots, and sooner or later have their revenge; if he treats
them well, and 'governs them for their good,' they will multiply faster
than their rulers, till they claim their independence. The Englishman
now says, 'I am quite content to have it so'; but that is not the old
imperialism.

The notion that frequent war is a healthy tonic for a nation is scarcely
tenable. Its dysgenic effect, by eliminating the strongest and
healthiest of the population, while leaving the weaklings at home to be
the fathers of the next generation, is no new discovery. It has been
supported by a succession of men, such as Tenon, Dufau, Foissac, de
Lapouge, and Richet in France; Tiedemann and Seeck in Germany; Guerrini
in Italy;