IMPERIAL AVARICE.
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The most atrocious chapter of English oppression is in the history of India. The conquest of this country is one long story of broken pledges, relentless extortion and excessive brutality. The barbarous cruelty of the natives pales before the atrocities committed by the conquerors. Within one hundred and thirty years the British soldiery has conquered one-sixth of the whole human family; not only has despoiled them of their land, but has placed them in a condition of abject servitude. Thus civilization has triumphed over barbarism; Christianity has superseded paganism; powder and shot overcome the lance and spear; two hundred million people made the vassals of one hundred thousand.
The subjugation of Afghanistan and South Africa is but a repetition of the same infamy. And now in Egypt we behold the latest victim of British avarice and arrogance. Again has the specious plea of civilization and Christianity been conjured up to justify the grasping designs of this cormorant among nations. At last Victoria may be called Empress of the Mediterranean. The Suez canal was built by French enterprise and capital in direct opposition to English wishes. When it was successfully completed England found she had partially lost her control of the great inland sea. With characteristic cunning she set about to repair that loss. Gibraltar and Malta were greatly strengthened. Beaconsfield bought the Khedive's shares in the canal. Cyprus was gained at the Berlin congress. Dissensions in the Egyptian cabinet furnished the coveted opportunity for executing her designs, and it was not difficult to find a pretext for English intervention. The sequel was a foregone conclusion. We found this demonstrated when we read the news from the seat of war in our morning papers before breakfast; we drank in the unerring prediction along with our Sunday morning discourses and our Friday evening lectures. And yet, be it recorded to the shame of both press and rostrum, that no protest went out against the inglorious spoliation. British aggression is triumphant—the inevitable is
consummated! Arabi Pasha is banished by order of a British tribunal; De Lesseps is humbled, and the product of his pride and genius is guarded by a cordon of British bayonets; British soldiery revel in the palaces of Alexandria; the Khedive is virtually a vassal of the British crown; and the land of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies lies prostrate at the mercy of the British lion. True, the Anglo-Saxon civilization has been advanced; very true, the Christian religion has been propagated within the home of the Saracen; true indeed, the greatest maritime power on earth has been aggrandized anew; but who shall affirm that the cause of humanity has been promoted; that free institutions have been exalted; that republican government has received a new impetus? These are the pertinent, vital questions for Americans to answer; beside which national prestige or commercial development is unworthy of consideration. When we review the inordinate greed, the heartless aggressions, the nefarious conquests, the honor violated, the ruthless oppression of this gigantic power, the rebellion of our forefathers seems thrice blessed. Every true son of this republic will be thankful, when he contemplates these things, that he shares not the odium which attaches to British conquest.
He who scans the international horizon will not fail to discern the tendency toward consolidation, the absorption of the weak and the supremacy of the powerful few. Germany, Russia, Great Britain and Chili, each and all, entertain views of stupendous dominion. Shall America, the great exemplar of republicanism, and all that the term implies, be content to remain inactive and watch with serene approval this steady march of sister nations to imperial grandeur? Has she not also a destiny to fulfill in the family of nations? The rich ripening fruits that flaunt against her windows on the north in tempting luxuriance, the beautiful gems that glitter outside her doors at the south shall she not, in the zenith of her glory, reach out and possess—not in the spirit of arrogance and lust, but animated by an intense patriotism and the aspiration to a lofty nationality. GLEN.