Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/291

 LOREBURN

��an effort of the imagination which people ac' customed to the long traditions of civilization can hardly realize. It means that people who are in a state of complete savagery and bar- barism, plunged in ignorance and superstition, backward in physical and every other develop- ment, are suddenly confronted with the blaze of an ancient civilization in its most hostile and most dangerous form. They were required at once to submit, and expected instantly to ap- preciate the advantages to themselves arising from their submission. One could not so sud- denly quell the primal passions and instincts of mankind.

I should like to give an illustration. About seven years ago I was concerned, as one of the counsel for Great Britain, before the interna- tional tribunal which decided the Venezuelan boundary, and I recall perfectly one thing which made a deep impression upon my mind, and which gave me more pride in the British flag — a silent pride, I hope — than could be derived from some of the more uproarious meetings. The point was : What, at a particular place, was the boundary-line between Great Britain and an- other country? Proof was given of a tradition handed down from father to son among a people so perfectly savage that their whereabouts, their very dwelling, was unknown — a nomad, wander- ing people of the woods. This was the tradi- tion: "The line where the British territory be- gins is along this river." And when the ques- 251

�� �