How is it with the family of nations to-day? A few of them are forging ahead at a marvelous rate, a good many more are like Micawber’s wife, continually _in statu quo_, while others still are suffering a noticeable decline, and finally there are races or tribes which have never been organized into states or nations, and which if left to themselves probably never will be. And to what shall we liken this family of nations? It is like a settlement beyond the frontier of civilization, with no law above them except a neighborhood agreement—a settlement made up of a few progressive men, a number of “ne’er do weels”, several idiots and insane and a number of dissolutes. The best that one could hope for in such a situation would be for the progressive men to infuse some life and energy into the “ne’er do weels”, remove all destructive agencies from the hands of the idiots and insane and put the dissolutes under watch and ward. Instead, however, the state of things that we actually see is this: the dissolutes are rebellious, the idiots are idiots, the “ne’er do weels” are suspicious, and worst of all, the progressive men are jealous of each other. In the absence of cohesiveness and harmony in this settlement, one of these progressive men has shown a disposition sometimes domineering, sometimes kindly, but a disposition nevertheless to maintain law and order, and a fondness for having a hand in enforcing it, and that man is Mr. Anglo-Saxon. He never puts his hand to this business without calling down the imprecations of the whole neighborhood upon himself as a tyrant, and yet freedom, prosperity and progress go with him. He doesn’t believe much in passive goodness. He has learned the lesson of self-government and he proposes to teach it to his less progressive neighbors whether or no; and when they have once learned it they may stay under his protection or not, just as they please, and the significant fact is that they are not only glad to stay but to fight for him when they have once learned his idea of freedom.
A fanatic may say, “I prefer my own government, not because it is the best, but because it is mine”. That may well be as between two progressive nations, but as between a progressive and a retrograde or incompetent government, it is sheer fanaticism. It avails nothing in such a case to quote the words of Lincoln: “No man is good enough to govern another man against that other man’s consent”, for these words were uttered concerning human bondage which is by no means analogous to a loss of independence by a state. Canada has no political independence, technically, but are Canadians in bondage? Are the Australians, the Hindus, the Egyptians, in bondage?