"
On this line, I think, it is possible to justify the forts of Africa
and the railroads of Asia; but on this line we must go much further.
If it is our duty to give our best, there can be no doubt about what is
our best. The greatest thing our Europe has made is the Citizen:
the idea of the average man, free and full of honour, voluntarily
invoking on his own sin the just vengeance of his city. All
else we have done is mere machinery for that: railways exist
only to carry the Citizen; forts only to defend him; electricity
only to light him, medicine only to heal him. Popularism, the
idea of the people alive and patiently feeding history, that
we cannot give; for it exists everywhere, East and West. But
democracy, the idea of the people fighting and governing--that
is the only thing we have to give.
Those are the two roads. But between them weakly wavers the
Sentimentalist--that is, the Imperialist of the Roosevelt school.
He wants to have it both ways, to have the splendours of success without
the perils. Europe may enslave Asia, because it is flattering:
but Europe must not free Asia, because that is responsible.
It tickles his Imperial taste that Hindoos should have European hats:
it is too dangerous if they have European heads. He cannot leave
Asia Asiatic: yet he dare not contemplate Asia as European.
Therefore he proposes to have in Egypt railway signals, but not flags;
despatch boxes, but not ballot boxes.
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