in imperial self-satisfaction, we know so certainly that all our subject nations call us blessed, that it is a little difficult for us to see just how the fact that we are, for example, so deeply rooted in Egypt looks to an outside intelligence.  Of course the German imperialist idea is a wicked and aggressive idea, as Lord Robert Cecil has explained; they want to set up all over the earth coaling stations and strategic points, on the pattern of ours. Well, they argue, we are only trying to do what you British have done.  If we are not to do so—­because it is aggression and so on and so on—­is not the time ripe for you to make some concessions to the public opinion of the world?  That is the German argument.  Either, they say, tolerate this idea of a Germany with advantageous posts and possessions round and about the earth, or reconsider your own position.

Well, at the risk of rousing much patriotic wrath, I must admit that I think we have to reconsider our position.  Our argument is that in India, Egypt, Africa and elsewhere, we stand for order and civilization, we are the trustees of freedom, the agents of knowledge and efficiency.  On the whole the record of British rule is a pretty respectable one; I am not ashamed of our record.  Nevertheless the case is altering.

It is quite justifiable for us British, no doubt, if we do really play the part of honest trustees, to remain in Egypt and in India under existing conditions; it is even possible for us to glance at the helplessness of Arabia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, as yet incapable of self-government, helpless as new-born infants.  But our case, our only justifiable case, is that we are trustees because there is no better trustee possible.  And the creation of a council of a League of Free Nations would be like the creation of a Public Trustee for the world.  The creation of a League of Free Nations must necessarily be the creation of an authority that may legitimately call existing empires to give an account of their stewardship.  For an unchecked fragmentary control of tropical and chaotic regions, it substitutes the possibility of a general authority.  And this must necessarily alter the problems not only of the politically immature nations and the control of the tropics, but also of the regulation of the sea ways, the regulation of the coming air routes, and the distribution of staple products in the world.  I will not go in detail over the items of this list, because the reader can fill in the essentials of the argument from what has gone before.  I want simply to suggest how widely this project of a League of Free Nations swings when once you have let it swing freely in your mind!  And if you do not let it swing freely in your mind, it remains nothing—­a sentimental gesture.