Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/290

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

possessions. "We have to bear in mind that whereas we were fortunately living in an island, in our dependencies and colonies we are co- terminous with every great Power in the world — with the United States in America, with Ger- many, France, Italy, Russia, China, Persia, and Turkey elsewhere, and practically with Japan, where a short interval of sea does not really separate us.

About a hundred and fifty years ago, at the commencement of the Seven Years' War, when Washington, then a major serving his majesty, King George II., encountered a force of French and Redskins in Virginia, and fired upon them, it was said that a shot fired in the backwoods of Virginia had set all Europe in a blaze. So it was in Britain now. By reason of the immensity of her frontier and the contiguity of every great power in the world, a rash thing done here, a hasty thing done elsewhere, might bring about a conflagration. " Always be generous to the man on the spot!" Yes; but let them not allow a proconsul to shape the policy of this country.

There is another point: By reason of those vast possessions — of which it is idle and foolish to boast, but the full responsibility of which we ought to feel — we are always confronted with the native question. And I venture to think that in the near future the native question will be a more serious one even than it has been in the past.

What does it mean ? To understand it requires

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