Page:Gilbert Keith Chesterton - How to Help Annexation (1918).djvu/10

 10 beauty of a smooth and symmetrical obedience. But the principle upon which the German Emperor's favourite Socialists are claiming Alsace is a principle which would have favoured the ancient Huns as much as it favours the modern ones. And it would give a final victory, over all Europeans, to any such invasion as the Emperor himself used to prophesy as the Yellow Peril.

But if the proof from the prime calamities of Europe be vaguely regarded as too much a thing of the past, it is easy to show that it has every sign of being also a thing of the future. I can even give an example which, coming from an Englishman concerned to prove the Prussian pre-eminence in evil, will at least be disinterested and detached. One of the most recent adventures of that Imperialism, which I regret in all countries, occurred in the policy of my own country; and I was myself bound in consistency to regret it. The South African War, by which the two Boer Republics were annexed, was generally regarded in Europe as a wrong. But it was in no sense whatever wrong if the theory of an Alsatian plebiscite is right.

Lord Milner and Cecil Rhodes actually conquered the Boer country upon the identical principle which our Pacifists propose as a fair settlement of the Alsatian country. Indeed, their case for annexation (with which I wholly disagree) was nevertheless a far fairer and dearer one; for there was already a majority of Outlanders or aliens to out-vote the Boers, before their presence was made a pretext for war. British Imperialism at least first flooded the territories with citizens, before it