Chapter VIII: Part 8

It would be inopportune in me, it would be improper, if I were to dwell on the incidents which have diverted attention to South Africa. Those incidents will be the subject of judicial inquiry in this country and in Africa, and I assume that, with the fair-mindedness which distinguishes them, my countrymen will wait to hear both the indictment and the defence before they pronounce a judgment. But, in the meantime, I will venture to say that I think there is a tendency to attach too much importance to sensational occurrences which pass away and leave no trace behind, and not enough to the general course of British policy and the general current of colonial progress. I have heard it said that we never have had a colonial policy, that we have simply blundered into all the best places in the earth. I admit that we have made mistakes. I have no doubt that we are answerable for sins of commission as well as for sins of omission; but, after all is said, this remains--that we alone among the nations of the earth have been able to establish and to maintain colonies under different conditions in all parts of the world, that we have maintained them to their own advantage and to ours, and that we have secured not only the loyal attachment of all British subjects, but the general good will of the races, whether they be native or whether they be European, that have thus come under the British flag. This may be a comforting assurance when we think of occasional mistakes, and when we are rebuked even for our misfortunes we may find some consolation in our success.

There is, gentlemen, another consideration which I think is not inappropriate to such a gathering as this. A few weeks ago England appeared to stand alone in the world, surrounded by jealous competitors and by altogether unexpected hostility. Differences between ourselves and other nations which were of long standing appeared suddenly to come to a head and to assume threatening proportions; and from quarters to which we might have looked for friendship and consideration--having regard to our traditions and to a certain community of interest--we were confronted with suspicion, and even with hate. We had to recognize that our success itself, however legitimate, was imputed to us as a crime; that our love of peace was taken as a sign of weakness; and that our indifference to foreign criticism was construed into an invitation to insult us. The prospect of our discomfiture was regarded with hardly disguised satisfaction by our competitors, who, at the same time, must have been forced to own that we alone held our possessions throughout the world in trust for all, and that we admit them to our markets as freely as we do our own subjects. I regret that such a feeling should exist, and that we should be forced to acknowledge its existence; but, as it does exist, I rejoice that it found expression. No better service was ever done to this nation, for it has enabled us to show, in face of all, that while we are resolute to fulfil our obligations we are equally determined to maintain our rights.

Three weeks ago, in the words of Mr. Foster, the leader of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada, “the great mother-empire stood splendidly isolated.” And how does she stand to-day? She stands secure in the strength of her own resources, in the firm resolution of her people without respect to party, and in the abundant loyalty of her children from one end of the Empire to another.

The resolution which was conveyed to the Prime Minister on behalf of the Australian colonies, and the display of patriotic enthusiasm on the part of the Dominion of Canada, came to us as a natural response to the outburst of national spirit in the United Kingdom, and as a proof that British hearts beat in unison throughout the world, whatever may be the distances that separate us.

Then let us cultivate those sentiments. Let us do all in our power by improving our communications, by developing our commercial relations, by co-operating in mutual defence, and none of us then will ever feel isolated; no part of the Empire will stand alone, so long as it can count upon the common interest of all in its welfare and in its security. That is the moral I have derived from recent events. That is the lesson I desire to impress on my countrymen. In the words of Tennyson, let

“Britain’s myriad voices call,
‘Sons, be welded each and all,
Into one Imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!’”

And in the time to come, the time that must come, when these colonies of ours have grown in stature, in population, and in strength, this league of kindred nations, this federation of Greater Britain, will not only provide for its own security, but will be a potent factor in maintaining the peace of the world.

Our guest to-night goes out to take his part in this work of drawing tighter the bonds which unite us to our children in the Antipodes. He goes to an infant colony, an infant which is destined to become a giant, and the future possibilities of which no man can measure. Queensland has an area, which--shall I say?--is three times greater than the German Empire. (Laughter and cheers.) It has a soil which can produce anything. It has vast mineral resources. In a generation its population has increased fifteen-fold. It has already a revenue of three or four millions sterling. It has completed 2500 miles of railway. It has exports valued at ten millions sterling, all of them, except a small fraction, coming to the United Kingdom or to some of the British possessions. Yet this colony of Queensland, great as it is, is only one of seven, all equally important, equally energetic, equally prosperous, equally loyal. I say that the relations between these colonies and ourselves are questions of momentous import to us both, and I hope that our rulers and our people will leave no stone unturned to show the store that we all set on the continued amity, the continued affection, of our kindred beyond the sea. That is the message we ask Lord Lamington to take with him, and we wish him health and prosperity in the colony over which he is about to preside.

* * * * *

_In responding to the toast of “The Chairman,” which was proposed by Sir James Garrick, Mr. Chamberlain said_:

Nothing could be more gratifying to me than that this toast should have been proposed by the eloquent representative of the colony which we have met to honor as well as its future Governor, and nothing could be more agreeable than the kindly response which you have given to the toast. It almost emboldens me to think that there may yet be occasions upon which I shall venture to address my fellow-countrymen--a point on which, I admit, I have had grave doubts since I have become acquainted with certain criticisms of my recent performances. When I became Secretary of State for the Colonies I accepted with that office certain duties, not the least pleasant being that of presiding over gatherings similar to this. I attended a meeting of the friends of South Africa on an occasion interesting especially to our colony of Natal, and I made a speech upon that occasion in which, in my simple and ingenuous way, I ventured to point out that this was on the whole a considerable Empire, and that any true view of its perspective would take into account the greatness of the colonies, and the magnitude of their resources, as well as the past history of the mother country. And thereupon I was surprised to read, in the report of a speech of a minor luminary of the late Government on the occasion of the recent raid into the Transvaal, that that unfortunate occurrence was entirely due to the “spread-eagle speech” which I had made. It is extraordinary what great events spring from trifling causes. I had no conception that my words would travel so far or have so great an influence. To the best of my knowledge and belief, I have never made a “spread-eagle” speech in my life. I think I have been able to distinguish between patriotism and jingoism. But in order that there may be no mistake, I desire to say now, in the most formal way, that the few remarks which I have addressed to you to-night are not to be taken as an intimation to any individual to carry on war on his own account, or to make an invasion upon a friendly nation with which we are at present at peace. But this is not all, because this afternoon I read in an evening newspaper that this same speech, which I thought so natural and so innocent, was really the dictating cause of our difficulties in British Guiana, and of the complications with our cousins across the Atlantic. It appears that in speaking of Imperial unity, in endeavoring to popularize that idea among my countrymen, I am giving offence to other nations.

Gentlemen, I cannot help thinking that Lord Rosebery was mistaken when, a short time ago, he said that the “Little Englanders” no longer existed among us. A pretty pass we must have come to if the Minister who is responsible for the British colonies is forbidden to speak of their future, of their greatness, of the importance of maintaining friendly relations with them, of the necessity of promoting the unity of the British race, for fear of giving offence. I remember a story of a certain burgomaster in a continental town to whom complaints were made that naughty boys were accustomed to throw mud upon the passers-by. He was asked to intervene, and he issued a proclamation which was to the effect that all respectable inhabitants were requested to wear their second-hand clothes in order not to give offence. I do not so understand the position which I hold. I decline to speak with bated breath of our colonies for fear of giving offence to foreign nations. We mean them no harm; we hope they mean us none. But not for any such consideration will we be withheld from speaking of points which have for us the greatest interest and upon which the future of our Empire depends. Sir James Garrick has kindly attributed to me very creditable motives in seeking the office which has been conferred upon me. He is perhaps not far wrong in thinking that I have long believed that the future of the colonies and the future of this country were interdependent, and that this was a creative time, that this was the opportunity which, once let slip, might never recur, for bringing together all the people who are under the British flag, and for consolidating them into a great self-sustaining and self-protecting Empire whose future will be worthy of the traditions of the race.

JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.

THE TRUE CONCEPTION OF EMPIRE.

This speech was delivered in London, March 31, 1897, at the
annual dinner of the Royal Colonial Institute. The society and
the occasion are sufficiently explained in the opening sentences.
What follows is a broad and lucid statement of Mr. Chamberlain’s
conception of expansive Imperial policy. At the moment when in
the United States the old blood is asserting itself and men are
coming to weary of adventures in stocks and raids in pork products,
to Americans the pronouncement is of peculiar interest. For the
speaker is a practical statesman: he himself has seen working many
of the doctrines he here publishes.

I have now the honor to propose to you the toast of “Prosperity to the Royal Colonial Institute.” The Institute was founded in 1868, almost exactly a generation ago, and I confess that I admire the faith of its promoters, who, in a time not altogether favorable to their opinions, sowed the seeds of Imperial patriotism, although they must have known that few of them could live to gather the fruit and to reap the harvest. But their faith has been justified by the result of their labors, and their foresight must be recognized in the light of our present experience.

It seems to me that there are three distinct stages in our Imperial history. We began to be, and we ultimately became, a great Imperial Power in the eighteenth century, but, during the greater part of that time, the colonies were regarded, not only by us, but by every European Power that possessed them, as possessions valuable in proportion to the pecuniary advantage which they brought to the mother country, which, under that order of ideas, was not truly a mother at all, but appeared rather in the light of a grasping and absentee landlord, desiring to take from his tenants the utmost rents he could exact. The colonies were valued and maintained because it was thought that they would be a source of profit--of direct profit--to the mother country.

That was the first stage, and when we were rudely awakened by the War of Independence in America from this dream that the colonies could be held for our profit alone, the second chapter was entered upon, and public opinion seems then to have drifted to the opposite extreme; and, because the colonies were no longer a source of revenue, it seems to have been believed and argued by many people that their separation from us was only a matter of time, and that that separation should be desired and encouraged, lest haply they might prove an encumbrance and a source of weakness.

It was while those views were still entertained, while the Little Englanders were in their full career, that this Institute was founded to protest against doctrines so injurious to our interests and so derogatory to our honor; and I rejoice that what was then, as it were, “a voice crying in the wilderness” is now the expressed and determined will of the overwhelming majority of the British people. Partly by the efforts of this Institute and similar organizations, partly by the writings of such men as Froude and Seeley, but mainly by the instinctive good sense and patriotism of the people at large, we have now reached the third stage in our history, and the true conception of our Empire. What is that conception? As regards the self-governing colonies we no longer talk of them as dependencies. The sense of possession has given place to the sentiment of kinship.

We think and speak of them as part of ourselves, as part of the British Empire, united to us, although they may be dispersed throughout the world, by ties of kindred, of religion, of history, and of language, and joined to us by the seas that formerly seemed to divide us.

But the British Empire is not confined to the self-governing colonies and the United Kingdom. It includes a much greater area, a much more numerous population, in tropical climes, where no considerable European settlement is possible, and where the native population must always vastly outnumber the white inhabitants; and in these cases also the same change has come over the Imperial idea. Here also the sense of possession has given place to a different sentiment,--the sense of obligation. We feel now that our rule over these territories can only be justified if we can show that it adds to the happiness and prosperity of the people, and I maintain that our rule does, and has, brought security and peace and comparative prosperity to countries that never knew these blessings before.

In carrying out this work of civilization we are fulfilling what I believe to be our national mission, and we are finding scope for the exercise of those faculties and qualities which have made of us a great governing race. I do not say that our success has been perfect in every case, I do not say that all our methods have been beyond reproach; but I do say that in almost every instance in which the rule of the Queen has been established and the great _Pax Britannica_ has been enforced, there has come with it greater security to life and property, and a material improvement in the condition of the bulk of the population. No doubt, in the first instance, when these conquests have been made, there has been bloodshed, there has been loss of life among the native populations, loss of still more precious lives among those who have been sent out to bring these countries into some kind of disciplined order, but it must be remembered that that is the condition of the mission we have to fulfil. There are, of course, among us--there always are among us, I think--a very small minority of men who are ready to be the advocates of the most detestable tyrants, provided their skin is black--men who sympathize with the sorrows of Prempeh and Lobengula, and who denounce as murderers those of their countrymen who have gone forth at the command of the Queen, and who have redeemed districts as large as Europe from the barbarism and the superstition in which they had been steeped for centuries. I remember a picture by Mr. Selous of a philanthropist--an imaginary philanthropist, I will hope--sitting cosily by his fireside and denouncing the methods by which British civilization was promoted. This philanthropist complained of the use of Maxim guns and other instruments of warfare, and asked why we could not proceed by more conciliatory methods, and why the impis of Lobengula could not be brought before a magistrate, fined five shillings, and bound over to keep the peace.

No doubt there is humorous exaggeration in this picture, but there is gross exaggeration in the frame of mind against which it was directed. You cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs; you cannot destroy the practices of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for centuries have desolated the interior of Africa, without the use of force; but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price which we are bound to pay for it, I think you may well rejoice in the result of such expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success in Nyassaland, Ashanti, Benin, and Nupé--expeditions which may have, and indeed have, cost valuable lives, but as to which we may rest assured that for one life lost a hundred will be gained, and the cause of civilization and the prosperity of the people will in the long run be eminently advanced. But no doubt such a state of things, such a mission as I have described, involve heavy responsibility. In the wide dominions of the Queen the doors of the temple of Janus are never closed, and it is a gigantic task that we have undertaken when we have determined to wield the sceptre of empire. Great is the task, great is the responsibility, but great is the honor; and I am convinced that the conscience and the spirit of the country will rise to the height of its obligations, and that we shall have the strength to fulfil the mission which our history and our national character have imposed upon us.

In regard to the self-governing colonies our task is much lighter. We have undertaken, it is true, to protect them with all the strength at our command against foreign aggression, although I hope that the need for our intervention may never arise. But there remains what then will be our chief duty--that is, to give effect to that sentiment of kinship to which I have referred and which I believe is deep in the heart of every Briton. We want to promote a closer and a firmer union between all members of the great British race, and in this respect we have in recent years made great progress--so great that I think sometimes some of our friends are apt to be a little hasty, and to expect even a miracle to be accomplished. I would like to ask them to remember that time and patience are essential elements in the development of all great ideas. Let us, gentlemen, keep our ideal always before us. For my own part, I believe in the practical possibility of a federation of the British race, but I know that it will come, if it does come, not by pressure, not by anything in the nature of dictation from this country, but it will come as the realization of a universal desire, as the expression of the dearest wish of our colonial fellow-subjects themselves.

That such a result would be desirable, would be in the interest of all of our colonies as well as of ourselves, I do not believe any sensible man will doubt. It seems to me that the tendency of the time is to throw all power into the hands of the greater empires, and the minor kingdoms--those which are non-progressive--seem to be destined to fall into a secondary and subordinate place. But, if Greater Britain remains united, no empire in the world can ever surpass it in area, in population, in wealth, or in the diversity of its resources.

Let us, then, have confidence in the future. I do not ask you to anticipate with Lord Macaulay the time when the New Zealander will come here to gaze upon the ruins of a great dead city. There are in our present condition no visible signs of decrepitude and decay. The mother country is still vigorous and fruitful, is still able to send forth troops of stalwart sons to people and to occupy the waste spaces of the earth; but yet it may well be that some of these sister nations whose love and affection we eagerly desire may in the future equal and even surpass our greatness. A transoceanic capital may arise across the seas, which will throw into shade the glories of London itself; but in the years that must intervene let it be our endeavor, let it be our task, to keep alight the torch of Imperial patriotism, to hold fast the affection and the confidence of our kinsmen across the seas, that so in every vicissitude of fortune the British Empire may present an unbroken front to all her foes, and may carry on even to distant ages the glorious traditions of the British flag. It is because I believe that the Royal Colonial Institute is contributing to this result that with all sincerity I propose the toast of the evening.

LORD ROSEBERY.

When, in March, 1894, upon the retirement of Mr. Gladstone from public life, the Liberal party looked about, not for that impossible man who could fill his place, but for a new leader, it is a matter of recent history that the choice fell on Lord Rosebery. Mr. McCarthy has described minutely the rather intricate reasons for this choice: suffice it to say here that Lord Rosebery was summoned to the Premiership both as a compromise candidate and as the most popular Liberal before the country.

Lord Rosebery, Earl of Primrose, was a Premier who had never sat in the Lower House. Educated at Eton and Christchurch, as a minor he had succeeded to the title and hereditary seat among the Lords. As the first Chairman of the London County Council (1888), and twice as Secretary for Foreign Affairs (1886, 1892), he had shown marked abilities for public business. In the latter office, for instance, he had often worked eighteen hours a day. Nor were industry and position his only qualifications for the high honor. In the full sense of the word, Lord Rosebery was a versatile man. He had some claims to virtuosity in the arts of painting and sculpture. He had written a good deal, and creditably; he had spoken much, and well. But above all, to these accomplishments he had added an avocation perhaps the most sympathetic to the English popular mind,--the cult of the turf. As a boy, indeed, Lord Rosebery is said to have set upon at least two objects to be attained in life: the possession of the Premiership and the owning of a Derby winner. Both have already been his.

The appointment, then, so far as personal reasons went, was generally popular; but, like most compromises, it did not entirely suit the party. Lord Rosebery, though one of the comparatively few Peers in favor of Home Rule, was not so ardent or optimistic a supporter of the cause as many Liberals could have wished. Certainly his advocacy was luke-warm as compared with the consecrated fire of Mr. Gladstone’s attack. Further, he was known to be conservative in a matter upon which many of his party felt strongly, the abridgment of the powers of the Lords--here again less truly Liberal than the retiring leader.

The term of office begun under these dubious auspices was marked by no sensational episodes save its finish. A revival of the old proposal to erect a statue of Cromwell within the Parliament precincts awoke a spirited remonstrance from Ireland. From this proposal the Government quietly withdrew. Beyond this, very little happened until, suddenly, consequent to a debate precipitated upon the supply of cordite to the army, a division disclosed the Government defeated (June 24, 1895) by a majority of seven. Thus ended a Ministry begun in compromise, continued without real coherence, and shipwrecked on the most trivial of points. Mr. McCarthy has wittily and well described this _fiasco_ as “The Cordite Explosion.”

The resignations of the Ministry followed; and Lord Rosebery was relieved from a post which could not have been agreeable to him, but in which he had probably done the best possible. “A house divided against itself--” The ensuing elections returned Lord Salisbury and the Conservatives to the control of affairs which they still retain.

This slight sketch should show that to Lord Rosebery the real moment has not yet arrived. Still comparatively a young man, and in so many ways the type of a great Liberal Peer, more than ever he is the logical leader of his party. Although that party now[D] shows signs of a disintegration probably momentary, the ebb and flow of politics are proverbial. When the tide sets the other way, it is not hazardous to predict that it will be Lord Rosebery who again commands the Liberals.

[D] January, 1899.

As a speaker, the style of Lord Rosebery will be found to be thoroughly modern,--suave, easy, and unimpassioned. In a degree denied to Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Rosebery has the gift of the phrase. The current and rather picturesque catchword, England’s “Splendid Isolation,” indeed was not his; but one example of his power to crystallize a great tendency in compact form is his reference to that wise British policy of building for the future in Africa, or whatever barbarous land. It is “Pegging out Claims for Posterity,” he says. It could hardly be more aptly turned.

LORD ROSEBERY.

THE DUTY OF PUBLIC SERVICE.

In common with some other English public men, Lord Rosebery has
the art of speaking gracefully and informally on matters of public
interest at occasions not political in character. Such an occasion
presented itself on October 25, 1898, when, as President of the
Associated Societies of the University of Edinburgh, Lord Rosebery
delivered the following address. It will be found to be a good
example of a style almost always at ease, yet without the sacrifice
of dignity, progressing skilfully from a light attack to a serious
and earnest treatment. Perhaps, indeed, the quality is more
literary than oratorical.

MR. CHANCELLOR[E] AND GENTLEMEN:

I am not sure that this sumptuous Hall with which the generous Mr. M’Ewan has endowed this University is in the nature of an unmixed benefit. It makes too much of an occasion like this. To tell the truth, as I look around me and see this vast audience, I am irresistibly reminded of the most dismal moment that can occur in a man’s life,--the moment when he is about to deliver a Rectorial Address. Happily, there are one or two considerations which reassure me. One is, that the altar is already lighted for another victim, whose sacrifice, in the natural course of things, cannot long be delayed. My other comfort, sir, is that you are in the chair, because, to put it on no higher ground, the Chancellor is never present at a Rector’s Address. The same firmament cannot hold two such planets, and therefore, when I see you there, I am perfectly certain that the impression I derive from this audience is an erroneous one, and that I am not going to deliver a Rectorial Address. Well, sir, we welcome you here for every reason. We are glad to see you in your place as Chancellor. We are glad to see you on any plea in Edinburgh; and what I am happy to think of is this: that we can ensure you in that chair for the next fifty minutes what, perhaps, you can obtain nowhere else, a period of unbroken repose, untroubled by colleagues, untroubled by Cabinets, undisturbed even by boxes or telegrams; and if you, sir, will take my advice, you will take advantage of that repose. But, gentlemen, if I can explain why the Rector is not here, and why the Chancellor is, it is perhaps more difficult to explain to myself why I am here. It is partly, no doubt, because in an unwary moment I accepted this responsible office, which has such onerous duties. But it is also due to another circumstance,--that, when we were last in this Hall, you invited me, somewhat clamorously, to address you. I am a person, however, accustomed to walk in the established order of things: I could not interrupt the programme. It would neither have been _dulce_ nor _decorum_ for me to speak on that occasion. But to-night I am here to respond to that invitation. To-night, it is perhaps _decorum_ that I should speak; and if it can ever be _dulce_ to make a speech, it is _dulce_ on this occasion. But, at any rate, let us be quite clear in our understanding. I am not going to deliver a Rectorial Address--nothing so elaborate, nothing so educational. Simply, I trust, it will be a short speech on common-sense lines, and without rising to the heights of the other occasion to which I have alluded.

[E] The Right Hon. Arthur Balfour, M.P., who was in the chair.

Now, sir, with a view to the adequate performance of my functions to-night, I have been reading the address of my predecessor, our friend Professor Masson, and as I am quite sure that you have all read Professor Masson’s address too, it will not be necessary on this occasion to condescend upon details. You know more than I do about the constitution of these Societies, and you may perhaps be able--which I am not--to decide as to their relative antiquity. But there is one sinister and significant sentence in Professor Masson’s address to which I commend your attention. He says that for sixteen years the post of President was vacant, because no one could be found willing to accept the responsibility of delivering the Presidential Address. Now, if that does not move your compassion for the person who has that courage, your hearts must be harder than adamant. There is another sentence which produced a great awe and effect upon my mind. It is said that the Societies had done much good work which did not seem affected materially by the absence or the presence of their President, and as specimen of that good work he said that no less than twenty thousand essays had been delivered to the Societies in the course of their existence. Twenty thousand essays! That is a hard saying. Twenty thousand essays, blown into space! And it leads further to this appalling calculation, that if a gentleman hearing of the Associated Societies had determined to improve his mind by reading these essays, and had determined to read one every day before breakfast, it would have been sixty years before he had accomplished the task. Now, that to me, I confess, is not the precious fact in connection with these Societies. What to me is precious is this, that they garnered up so much of what is illustrious, both in regard to memories and to men in connection with Edinburgh. Take, for example, the Dialectic Society, which was founded in 1787. Well, how brilliant was Edinburgh in 1787! A race was growing up in your schools and in your universities which was destined afterwards, through the means of the _Edinburgh Review_, to influence largely both the taste and the policy of these islands. They were at that time pretty young, the most of them. Cockburn--Lord Cockburn--was being flogged every ten days at the High School, every ten days according to a minute and pathetic calculation that he has left behind him. Jeffrey--Lord Jeffrey--was at that time entering Glasgow University in his fourteenth year; and as for Lord Brougham, he was at that moment commencing a career of conflict by a struggle with a master of his class, in which, I need hardly say, Brougham came off victorious. Dugald Stewart was lecturing at that time, not merely to Edinburgh, but to the kingdom, and almost to the world at large, and Edinburgh was the centre to which all the intellect of Great Britain might, without exaggeration, be said to have gravitated. At that time the English universities were slumbering. Jeffrey had indeed taken a taste of Oxford, but liked it not. His biographer carefully says that “his College was not distinguished by study and propriety alone.” This shocked Jeffrey, and he left it. But in any case these were the golden days of Edinburgh. It was then unrivalled as an intellectual centre, unrivalled in a sense that it can never be again. Some will say that all that is gone. Well, as for the intellectual supremacy, that could not survive in the general awakening of the world. But what I also fear has gone, is the resident, inherent originality which then distinguished our city. Railways and the Press have made that impossible; for, after all, true originality can scarcely exist but in the backwaters of life. The great ocean of life smooths and rolls its pebbles to too much the same shape and texture. Those famous judges of whom we read, with something between a smile and a tear,--Braxfield and Eskgrove and Newton and Hermand,--are just as impossible in these days as the black bottles with which they stimulated their judicial attention on the bench. They are as impossible as that cry of “Gardez-loo” which meant so much to the passer-by on the streets. Well, after all, we must take the rough with the smooth, and the good with the bad. “Gardez-loo” itself was only the symbol of hideous physical impurities, which we none of us should regret; and perhaps even some of those social glories, over which we are so accustomed to gloat in the past, might not have been entirely agreeable had we to realize them in the present. Take these old judges whom I mentioned. They are very picturesque and interesting figures; but I am not sure that any of us could have faced them in the character of a defendant or an accused person without a qualm, more especially if we were opposed to them in politics, and even--if tradition lies not--even if we were their opponents at chess. And if we were in that unfortunate and perhaps discreditable position, we should go and seek our legal adviser, not, as now, in the decorous recesses of Queen Street or of George Street, but, as Colonel Mannering went to seek him, at Clerihugh’s, enjoying “high jinks” in the midst of a carousal, from which he could hardly tear himself for matters of the most vital import to his client.

Well, of course it is impossible to read Lord Cockburn’s “Memorials of His Time”--and I hope that you all do read it, and read it at least once a year, because no resident of Edinburgh can properly enjoy his city without reading Lord Cockburn once a year--it is impossible to read Lord Cockburn without seeing that he was an optimist. But even he says of the Edinburgh of his time--which he says was so unrivalled--even he describes it as “always thirsty and unwashed.” Well, I am not quite sure when I read that description if we should have thought the Edinburgh of 1787 as delightful as he did. I hardly venture to risk myself in this line of conjecture. Should we all have appreciated Jeffrey as much as he did? That must remain in the realms of the unknowable and the unknown. But there is worse behind. There is even treason talked about the divine Sir Walter Scott. In that very delightful book which furnishes so much leisurely reading for the Scotsman or the Scotswoman, or for anybody,--I mean “Memoirs of a Highland Lady,”--I came upon this sentence, which I have never since been able to digest. It says about Sir Walter Scott, “He went out very little,” and, when he did go, that “he was not an agreeable gentleman, sitting very silent, looking dull and listless unless an occasional flash lit up his countenance. It was odd, but Sir Walter never had the reputation in Edinburgh that he had elsewhere.” Gentlemen, I veil my face; I cannot get over that, till I remember that a prophet is never a prophet in his own country, and there may have been people, even in Edinburgh, who did not think of Sir Walter as we do. But I do not mention all these disagreeable considerations as sheer iconoclasm and blasphemy. No, gentlemen, it is in a very different spirit that I lay them before you. I lay them before you as with a sort of inward groan. They are to me a sort of philosophic potsherd with which I scrape myself. It is in the attempt to comfort myself for living in the Edinburgh of the end of the nineteenth century, and not in the Edinburgh of the eighteenth or the seventeenth or the sixteenth centuries, that thus I endeavor to recall these things, and console myself anew.

Well, I think then there are some circumstances which we should bear in mind before we give way to the wish to exchange new Edinburgh for old Edinburgh. At any rate, there are some circumstances that should discount our enthusiasm. But, indeed, in any case it would not be possible for us of the Associated Societies to concentrate all our interest in Edinburgh as our forefathers did. In the first place, our students, our members, are by no means all Scotsmen. They come from England, and from all over the world. They come here, many of them, to learn arts which they mean to practise and to exercise elsewhere, so that it would be impossible for them to remain in Edinburgh; if they did, indeed, I think that some professions in Edinburgh would be somewhat glutted and overstocked. But, in the second place, there is the railroad, which equally prevents it--the railroad, which has so profoundly stirred up our people, which has so inspired them with the fever of travel, makes concentration in our old capital impossible. By thousands are the strangers that it brings in and takes out of Edinburgh every day, and indeed, as regards its effect on our town, it is something like that of the pipes which convey the water of some hushed and inland loch away to the boisterous strife of cities, and again away from the cities to the eternal ocean. The students of that Edinburgh which was once so difficult to reach and to leave are now whirled away into a thousand whirlpools of civilization; they can no longer huddle around and try to blow up the embers of that ancient Edinburgh which we can only revive in imagination. But of Edinburgh as it exists--the historical, the beautiful, the inspiring--I trust they have taken and are taking a deep draught and a long memory. They are here at the most critical and the most fruitful period of their lives; and sure am I that, whether they wish it or not, they will bear away from this place a seal and a mark and a stamp which can leave them only with life itself.

But, gentlemen, I go a little further in this sense, and I believe that even if the students could remain in Edinburgh and concentrate themselves here, it would be bad for Edinburgh and bad for Scotland, but bad also for the Empire. We in Scotland wish to continue to mould the Empire as we have in the past--and we have not moulded it by stopping at home. Your venerable Principal is an instance in point. And we have even a nearer object-lesson in two returning Viceroys from Canada and from India: Aberdeen--from Canada, where he is by and by to be replaced by a Minto; and Elgin--the second Elgin--from India. Well, I say then that it is not the Edinburgh of Cockburn alone that I wish you to bear in your thoughts to-night, but rather the Edinburgh which has dispersed her sons all over the Empire, the assiduous mother and foster-mother of the builders of our Empire. From the time of Dundas, who almost populated India with Scotsmen, that has always been the function of Scotland; and I look, then, to my colleagues of the Associated Societies not merely as going forth to their several professions and callings in life, but as going forth as potential empire-builders, or at least as empire-maintainers.

You will, gentlemen, when you go forth from these learned precincts and enter upon the actual business of life--you will have in the course of your lives to help to maintain and to build that Empire. You may think that it may be in a small and insignificant manner, not more than the coral insect within the coral reef. But recollect that the insect is essential to the reef; and it is not for any man of himself to measure what his direct utility may be to his country. I will tell you why you must in your way exercise those functions. The British Empire is not a centralized empire. It does not, as other empires, hinge on a single autocrat or even on a single Parliament, but it is a vast collection of communities spread all over the world, many with their own legislatures, but all with their own governments, and, therefore, resting, in a degree which is known in no other state of which history has record, on the intelligence and the character of the individuals who compose it. Some empires have rested on armies, and some on constitutions. It is the boast of the British Empire that it rests on men. For that reason it is that I speak to you to-night as men who are to have your share in the work of the Empire, small or great, humble or proud. That is--unless you go absolutely downwards--your irresistible and irrevocable function. Now, it is quite true that your share in that work may not be official, but even then I would ask, why not? There never was in the history of Great Britain, or, I suspect, of the world, so great a call as now upon the energies and intelligence of men for the public service, and that call, as you, sir, know, is increasing daily. Within Great Britain in my own memory the change in that respect has been very remarkable. What was called the governing class--and which is to some extent the governing class still--when I was a boy had very simple public functions in comparison with those which devolve upon the present race. They went into Parliament as a rule, and they had Quarter Sessions. But Parliament in those days was a very different business from what it is now, and Quarter Sessions--were Quarter Sessions. The burden of Parliament has now indefinitely and almost hopelessly increased, as you, sir, I doubt not, would be willing to depose on oath, if necessary. That takes up for these islands some five hundred and seventy more or less trained intelligences. Then there is the House of Lords, which takes up some--I am not sure of the figures--some five or six hundred more. I do not wish to claim that the House of Lords takes up the whole time of its members; I merely wish to point out that that, again, takes a part of the time, at any rate, of some five or six hundred more of our governing class. Then there is a new institution--the London County Council. That is a body whose work is not less absorbing than that of the House of Commons. It lasts much longer; it is much more continuous, and though not nearly so obtrusive, it is quite as arduous. Well, that consists of a small body of a hundred and thirty-eight members, who must all, who should all, be highly qualified for the function of governing a nation which is not smaller than many self-governing kingdoms. Then there are the great municipalities--great and small. These, no doubt, have to some extent always existed, but not in their present form. A new spirit has been breathed into these somewhat dry bones. The functions of a municipality are sought by men of the highest intelligence; they are not merely sought by men of the highest intelligence, but absorb a very great proportion of the time of these men. They are changed altogether in spirit and in extent. And it is notable now to remark how many men in business plead as a just excuse from entering either the House of Commons or municipal work that they cannot spare the time from the necessary prosecution of their business which would enable them to join in those absorbing avocations. The municipalities of to-day--I know not how many men whose time they absorb, but they are very different from the municipalities of my boyhood, and I suspect that if a Town Councillor of forty or fifty years ago were to present himself in a Town Council of to-day, he would regard their work with astonishment, and they perhaps might look at him with some surprise. Then there are County Councils, District Councils, Parish Councils--all bodies new within the last few years--not all of them absorbing the whole time of their members, but requiring, at any rate, the services of many trained intelligences to keep their work in proper order, and without arrears. Then there are the Government Departments, which swallow up more and more men, and pass them on very often to higher employments. Their work is indefinitely and incalculably increasing. I will give you one symptom. The Foreign Office this year has obtained one new Under-Secretary; and the addition of an Under-Secretary is a cry of distress indeed. Well, the Colonial Office, I see from the papers, is also about to demand an Under-Secretary, and what that means of increase in the subordinate departments is more than I can rightly calculate. But in truth, gentlemen, the whole matter is typified in the constitution of the Cabinet. The present Cabinet requires nineteen men to do what was done by half-a-dozen in the days of Mr. Pitt.

Why do I quote these figures? I quote them to show the enormous drain that the State makes on our intelligent population, besides the drain that it makes both for military and naval purposes. Napoleon was said to drain his population for his warlike purposes. We may be said, if not to drain, at least to skim ours very frequently for the purpose of administration. Now what I have been telling you relates to Great Britain alone. There is, besides, Ireland. Well, I am not going to touch on Ireland. In the first place, it is a different system of administration, and one with which I am not so conversant; and, in the second place, this is at present a harmonious meeting, and I have discovered that there is no topic so likely to terminate the harmony of a meeting as that of the administration or the government of Ireland. I pass beyond that. Outside Great Britain and Ireland there is an enormous drain on our population for administrative purposes. There is India, which takes so many of our young men and trains them so incomparably for every sort of administrative work. There is Egypt, which, is, of course, on a different footing, but which is also very large in her requirements. There is Africa,--not self-governing Africa, but the rest of our Africa,--with its territories, its spheres of influence, and so on, all requiring men to mould them into shape, not necessarily men belonging to the Civil Service or men of formula, but muscular Christians, who are ready to turn their hands to anything. Then, besides that and beyond that there are the outer Britains, if I may so call them, the great common-wealths outside these Islands which own the British Crown--whether Crown Colonies, in which case they require administrators, or self-governing Colonies, in which case they require the whole appurtenance of Parliament, Courts of Law, Ministers, and so forth. Then, outside that again, there are our Diplomatic and Consular services. Well, I do not suppose there ever was in the history of the World half the demand that there is at this hour within the British Empire for young men of ability and skill and training to help to mould that Empire into shape. Never were there so many paths of distinction open within that Empire; while to those who would share in that task of empire-building, and who would do it, not with the hope of amassing much riches, but in a high missionary spirit, never was there such an opportunity as opens at the present moment.

Of course, the base of all this tremendous work of Government is our unparalleled Civil Service. Our Civil Service is our glory and our pride. It is the admiration of all foreigners who see it, but it is, and I think I can appeal to you, sir--it is much more the admiration of those who as political Ministers are called upon to witness its working from within. They constitute the wheels and the springs on which moves the great Juggernaut Car of the State, and if these were once to get out of order, it would be an evil day indeed for Great Britain. But I confess, in my day dreams I have sometimes wished to add to them one other department. I have sometimes wished that there was a department entirely devoted to training young men for the task of administration--men who would afterwards be ready to go anywhere and do anything at a moment’s notice--be ready to go out and administer Uganda, for example, at a week’s notice, ready to go and report anywhere on maladministration with the skill of an expert, able to investigate any subject and report upon it, not in the sense of Royal Commissions, but in a summary and a business-like manner. I should like them, as I say, to go at a word from their superior to any part of the Empire, and be able to do anything, as the militant orders of monasticism used to do--and do now, for aught I know--at the command of their superiors; to be, in fact, a sort of general staff of the Empire. I believe if that could be done it would be an incalculable gain; though I know it is a dream. But then I also know that it is not a bad thing sometimes to dream dreams. Of course, to some extent this function is performed by the Treasury. The Treasury, from its necessary contact with all the other Departments, owing to its being alone able to furnish them with that financial staff of life without which they could not get on, a staff of life which could only be obtained from the Treasury--not always with a smile--does furnish to the other Departments men who are competent to do most things, and to undertake most duties. But that, unfortunately, has been already discovered. Already men have been constantly taken from the Treasury, and if that process be continued much longer that Department will, I fear, be left in what I believe is scientifically called an anæmic condition. Well, gentlemen, I admit that this is a digression as well as a dream, but my point is this, that there never was so great a demand as now for trained intelligence and trained character in our public service, and I should like to think that we of the Associated Societies will bear our part in it.