in the entire history of the Sudan.  In administration, in education, in police work, the Sirdar[12] and his lieutenants, great and small, have performed to perfection a task equally important and difficult.  The Government officials, civil and military, who are responsible for this task, and the Egyptian and Sudanese who have worked with and under them, and as directed by them, have a claim upon all civilized mankind which should be heartily admitted.  It would be a crime not to go on with the work, a work which the inhabitants themselves are helpless to perform, unless under firm and wise guidance from outside.  I have met people who had some doubt as to whether the Sudan would pay.  Personally, I think it probably will.  But I may add that, in my judgment, this fact does not alter the duty of England to stay there.  It is not worth while belonging to a big nation unless the big nation is willing when the necessity arises to undertake a big task.  I feel about you in the Sudan just as I felt about us in Panama.  When we acquired the right to build the Panama Canal, and entered on the task, there were worthy people who came to me and said they wondered whether it would pay.  I always answered that it was one of the great world works which had to be done; that it was our business as a nation to do it, if we were ready to make good our claim to be treated as a great world Power; and that as we were unwilling to abandon the claim, no American worth his salt ought to hesitate about performing the task.  I feel just the same way about you in the Sudan.

  [12] Sir Reginald Wingate, who at the time of this address was
  both Sirdar of the Anglo-Egyptian Army and Governor-General of the
  Sudan.—­L.F.A.

Now as to Egypt.  It would not be worth my while to speak to you at all, nor would it be worth your while to listen, unless on condition that I say what I deeply feel ought to be said.  I speak as an outsider, but in one way this is an advantage, for I speak without national prejudice.  I would not talk to you about your own internal affairs here at home; but you are so very busy at home that I am not sure whether you realize just how things are, in some places at least, abroad.  At any rate, it can do you no harm to hear the view of one who has actually been on the ground, and has information at first hand; of one, moreover, who, it is true, is a sincere well-wisher of the British Empire, but who is not English by blood, and who is impelled to speak mainly because of his deep concern in the welfare of mankind and in the future of civilization.  Remember also that I who address you am not only an American, but a Radical, a real—­not a mock—­democrat, and that what I have to say is spoken chiefly because I am a democrat, a man who feels that his first thought is bound to be the welfare of the masses of mankind, and his first duty to war against violence and injustice and wrong-doing, wherever found; and I advise you only in accordance with the principles on which I have myself acted as American President in dealing with the Philippines.