complete extermination whether in Roman Europe or Spanish and British Americas; nor have I spoken of the partial or complete enslavement of subject races in the Dutch, British, Portuguese, Belgian, and French regions of Africa.  I have not dwelt upon the hideous scenes of massacre, torture, devastation and lust which I have myself witnessed in Macedonia under the Turks, and in the Caucasus, the Baltic Provinces, and Poland under Russia when subject races attempted some poor effort to regain their freedom.  I have not even mentioned the old ruin and slaughter of Ireland, or the latest murder of a nation in Finland or in Persia.  I have taken my comparison from the government of subject races at what is probably its very best; at all events, at what the English people regard as its best—­the administration of India and Egypt—­and we have no reason to suppose that Germany would administer England better if we were a subject race under the German Empire.

* * * * *

If Germany did as well she would have something to say for herself.  She might lay stress on the great material advantages she would bestow on this country.  Such industries as she left us she would reorganise on the Kartel system.  She would much improve our railways by unifying them as a State property, so that even our South-Eastern trains might arrive in time.  She would overhaul our education, ending the long wrangle between religious sects by abolishing all distinctions.  She would erect an entirely new standard of knowledge, especially in natural science, chemistry, and book-keeping.  She would institute special classes for prospective chauffeurs and commercial travellers.  She would abolish Eton, Harrow, and the other public schools, together with the college buildings of Oxford and Cambridge, converting them all into barracks, while the students would find their own lodgings in the towns and stand on far greater equality in regard to wealth.  German is not a very beautiful language, but it has a literature, and we should have the advantage of speaking German and learning something of German literature and history.  Great improvements would be introduced in sanitation, town-planning, and municipal government, and we should all learn to eat black bread, which is much more wholesome than white.

In a large part of the country peasant proprietors would be established, and the peasants as a whole would be far better protected against the exactions and petty tyranny of the landlords than they are at present.  Under the pressure of external rule, all the troublesome divisions and small animosities between English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh would tend to disappear, though the Germans might show special favour to the Scots and Presbyterians generally on the principle of “Divide and Rule,” just as we show special favour to the Mohammedans of India.  We should, of course, be compelled to contribute to the defence of the Empire, and should pay the expenses of the large German garrisons quartered in our midst and of the German cruisers that patrolled our shores.  But as we should have no fleet of our own to maintain, and in case of foreign aggression could draw upon the vast resources of the German Empire, our taxation for defence would probably be considerably reduced from its present figure of something over seventy millions a year.