Was it right to tax
posterity? High talk turned on this at a dinner in London, where Sir
George met Gladstone, Macaulay, and other celebrities. 'Certainly,' Sir
George argued, 'if some large expense is undertaken which will benefit
those to come after us, as well as those already here, it is more equity
that the former should be charged with their share.' The principle had
been put into practice in the Colonies, and he imagined that this dinner
helped its advance in the Old Country. Especially, he applied that
opinion to the taking over, by Government, of the English telegraph
lines.
'I recall very well,' Sir George stated, 'the picturesque way in which
Macaulay expressed our common trait of being interested in trifles that
affect us closely, to the neglect of large happenings which are distant.
"Here," he said, about some item of news, "is a mandarin in China who has
beheaded a thousand people in a batch. I was quite shocked when I read of
it this morning. During the day I contrived to cut one of my fingers. I'm
ashamed to confess that I thought so much about the finger, that I quite
forgot the massacred Chinamen! That was Macaulay's illustration."
'As the dinner party was breaking up, I stood for a minute with him. He
had not been enjoying very good health.
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