cule on the contemptuous saying of Metternich
that Italy was a geographical expression. But how to anticipate history,
what rights to concede to a people that claims to be a self-determining
unit, is less easy to decide. There is no doubt that the general
tendency of Liberalism is to favour autonomy, but, faced as it is with
the problems of subdivision and the complexity of group with group, it
has to rely on the concrete teaching of history and the practical
insight of statesmanship to determine how the lines of autonomy are to
be drawn. There is, however, one empirical test which seems generally
applicable. Where a weaker nation incorporated with a larger or stronger
one can be governed by ordinary law applicable to both parties to the
union, and fulfilling all the ordinary principles of liberty, the
arrangement may be the best for both parties. But where this system
fails, where the government is constantly forced to resort to
exceptional legislation or perhaps to de-liberalize its own
institutions, the case becomes urgent. Under such conditions the most
liberally-minded democracy is maintaining a system which must undermine
its own principles. The Assyrian conqueror, Mr. Herbert Spencer
remarks, who is depicted in the bas-reliefs leading his captive by a
cord, is bound with that cord himself. He forfeits his liberty as long
as he retains his power.

Somewhat similar questions arise about race, which many people wrongly
confuse with nationality. So far as elementary rights are concerned
there can be no question as to the attitude of Liberalism. When the
political power which should guarantee such rights is brought into view,
questions of fact arise. Is the Negro or the Kaffir mentally and morally
capable of self-government or of taking part in a self-governing State?
The experience of Cape Colony tends to the affirmative view. American
experience of the negro gives, I take it, a more doubtful answer. A
specious extension of the white man's rights to the black may be the
best way of ruining the black. To destroy tribal custom by introducing
conceptions of individual property, the free disposal of land, and the
free purchase of gin may be the handiest method for the expropriator. In
all relations with weaker peoples we move in an atmosphere vitiated by
the insincere use of high-sounding words. If men say equality, they mean
oppression by forms of justice. If they say tutelage, they appear to
mean the kind of tutelage e