have a numerous population bound to the sovereign country by
those ties of interest which rest upon the beneficence of the ruler;
of which beneficence power to protect is not the least factor. Mere
just dealing and protection, however, do not exhaust the demands of
beneficence towards alien subjects, still in race-childhood. The firm
but judicious remedying of evils, the opportunities for fuller and
happier lives, which local industries and local development afford,
these also are a part of the duty of the sovereign power. Above all,
there must be constant recognition that self-interest and beneficence
alike demand that the local welfare be first taken into account. It is
possible, of course, that it may at times have to yield to the
necessities of the whole body; but it should be first considered.

The task is great; who is sufficient for it? The writer believes
firmly in the ultimate power of ideas. Napoleon is reported to have
said: "Imagination rules the world." If this be generally so, how
much more the true imaginations which are worthy to be called ideas!
There is a nobility in man which welcomes the appeal to beneficence.
May it find its way quickly now to the heads and hearts of the
American people, before less worthy ambitions fill them; and, above
all, to the kings of men, in thought and in action, under whose
leadership our land makes its giant strides. There is in this no
Quixotism. Materially, the interest of the nation is one with its
beneficence; but if the ideas get inverted, and the nation sees in its
new responsibilities, first of all, markets and profits, with
incidental resultant benefit to the natives, it will go wrong. Through
such mistakes Great Britain passed. She lost the United States; she
suffered bitter anguish in India; but India and Egypt testify to-day
to the nobility of her repentance. Spain repented not. The examples
are before us. Which shall we follow?

And is there not a stimulus to our imagination, and to high ambition,
to read, as we easily may, how the oppressed have been freed, and the
degraded lifted, in India and in Egypt, not only by political
sagacity and courage, but by administrative capacity directing the
great engineering enterprises, which change the face of a land and
increase a hundredfold the opportunities for life and happiness? The
profession of the writer, and the subject consequently of most of his
writing, stands for organized force, which, if duly developed, is