ground, very distinctly avowed, that it will necessitate
an established, recognized Civil Service, modelled, they add, on that of
Great Britain. If, they then argue, Great Britain can extend--as,
indeed, she unquestionably has extended--her system of dependencies all
over the globe, developing them into the most magnificent empire the
world ever saw, it is absurd, unpatriotic, and pessimistic to doubt that
we can do the same. Are we not of the same blood, and the same speech?
This is all historically true. Historically it is equally true that, to
do it, we must employ means similar to those Great Britain has employed.
In other words, modelling ourselves on Great Britain, we must slowly and
methodically develop and build up a recognized and permanent governing
and official class. The heathen and barbarian need to be studied, and
dealt with intelligently and on a system; they cannot be successfully
managed on any principle of rotation in office, much less one which
ascribes the spoils of office to the victors at the polls. What these
advocates of Imperialism say is unquestionably true: The political
methods now in vogue in American cities are not adapted to the
government of dependencies.

The very word "Imperial" is, indeed, borrowed from the Old World. As
applied to a great system of colonial dominion and foreign dependencies
it is English, and very modern English, also, for it was first brought
into vogue by the late Earl of Beaconsfield in 1879, when, by Act of
Parliament introduced by him, the Queen of England was made Empress of
India. It was then he enunciated that doctrine of _imperium et
libertas_, the adoption of which we are now considering. While it may be
wise and sound, it indisputably is British.

Thus, curiously enough, whichever way we turn and however we regard it,
at the close of more than a century of independent existence we find
ourselves, historically speaking, involved in a mesh of contradictions
with our past. Under a sense of obligation, impelled by circumstances,
perhaps to a degree influenced by ambition and commercial greed, we have
one by one abandoned our distinctive national tenets, and accepted in
their place, though in some modified forms, the old-time European tenets
and policies, which we supposed the world, actuated largely by our
example, was about forever to discard. Our whole record as a people is,
of course, then ransacked and subjected to microscopic investigation,
and every pet