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 290 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

statesmen who fondly fancied that the ethical loftiness of their motives was beyond impeachment.

On the other hand, the bands of Boer farmers fighting to the last ditch for their existence as an independent people have had difficulty in understanding the apparent apathy with which their fate was being watched by the outside world. Panegyrics on their valor, as harangues against their foes, there have been enough and to spare ; substantial, whole-souled support there has been next to none. No voice of weight was ever raised, entreatingly, threateningly, in their behalf even in countries where their sympathizers were in avowed majority and a deter- mined, intelligently directed public opinion might have compelled the governments to act.

So hopelessly involved are often questions of right and wrong ; so scrupulously slow, so languidly fair, is the average man in reaching a conviction ; so discouragingly reluctant to stake anything on it when reached.

But even where the case seems clear beyond a shadow of doubt, and the injustice too palpable for argument, the moral forces of humanity move with measured gait. There is a supply of indignation ready at hand for such contingencies, which is generously drawn upon for immediate consumption ; the columns of the press flow over with it ; it is voiced by eloquent orators in meetings of protest ; resolutions of sympathy are passed with acclamation ; messages of good cheer are dispatched to the suf- ferers. But the channels of the public conscience are clogged with calculations ; in the crucible of popular sentiment the red- dest wrath soon pales into pink compassion. The wrongdoer, noting with equanimity the distant rumblings and the thunder- bolts lost in the sand, emerges from his shelter when the storm has blown over; and pursues his path, serenely.

So timid at initiative is the collective man, so ever-ready to count the cost, so fearful lest his love for the loser lose him the good-will of the winner ; so potent are yet considerations of expediency in twentieth-century international relations.

In the face of these facts, what hope of more than a patient hearing has the native of a small state, robbed and wronged,