 Section 10 of the World's Famous Orations. Volume 5. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The World's Famous Orations. Volume 5. Augustine Burrell. The Distinction of Burke. Footnote. From a lecture delivered before the Edinburgh Philosophical Society, printed here by kind permission of Mr. Burrell. End. Footnote. Born in 1850. Graduated from Cambridge in 1872. Barrister in 1875. Professor of Law in 1896. Member of Parliament in 1899. Member of the Cabinet in 1906. The first great fact to remember is that the Edmund Burke we are all agreed in regarding as one of the proudest memories of the House of Commons was an Irish man. When we are in our next fit of political depression about that island and are about piously to wish, as the poet Spencer tells us men were wishing even in his time that it were not adjacent. Let us do a little national stock taking and calculate profits as well as losses. Burke was not only an Irish man but a typical one of the very kind many English men and even possibly some Scotch men make a point of disliking. I do not say he was an aboriginal Irish man but his ancestors are said to have settled in the county of Galway under strong bow in King Henry II's time. When Ireland was first conquered and our troubles began, this at all events is a better Irish pedigree than Mr. Parnell's. Burke was brought up in the Protestant faith of his father and was never in any real danger of deviating from it, but I cannot doubt that his regard for the Catholic fellow subjects, his fierce repudiation of the infamies of the penal code whose horrors he did something to mitigate, his respect for antiquity and his historic sense were all quickened by the fact that a tenderly loved and loving mother belonged through life and in death to an ancient and an outraged faith. Burke came to London with a cultivated curiosity and in no spirit of desperate determination to make his fortune that the study of the law interested him cannot be doubted for everything interested him and particularly the stage. Like the sensible Irish man he was, he lost his heart to Peg Wuffington on the first opportunity. He was fond of roaming about the country during, it is to be hoped, vacation time only, and is to be found writing the most cheerful letters to his friends in Ireland, all of whom are persuaded that he is going someday to be somebody, though sorely puzzled to surmise what thing or when. So pleasantly does he take life from all sorts of out-of-the-way country places, where he lodges with quaint old landlady's who wonder maternally why he never gets drunk, and generally mistake him for an author until he pays his bill. When in town he frequented debating societies in Fleet Street and Covent Garden, and made his first speeches, for which purpose he would, unlike some debaters, devote studious hours to getting up the subjects to be discussed, there is good reason to believe that it was in this manner his attention was first directed to India. He was at all times a great talker, and Dr. Johnson's dictum notwithstanding a good listener. He was endlessly interested in everything, in the state of the crops, in the last play, in the details of all trades, the rhythm of all poems, the plots of all novels, and indeed in the course of every manufacture. And so for six years he went up and down, to and fro, gathering information, imparting knowledge, and preparing himself, though he knew not for what. But greatest were Burke's literary powers, and passionate as was his fondness for letters and for literary society. He never seems to have felt that the main burden of his life lay in that direction. He looked to the public service, and this though he always believed, that the pin of a great writer was a more powerful and glorious weapon than any to be found in the armory of politics. It is satisfactory to notice how from the very first Burke's intellectual, preeminence, character, and aims were clearly admitted and most cheerfully recognized by his political and social superiors, and in the long correspondence in which he engaged with most of them, there is not a trace to be found, on one side or the other, of anything approaching to either patronage or servility. Burke advises them, exhorts them, expostulates with them, condemns their aristocratic langer, fans their feeble flames, drafts their motions, dictates their protests, visits their houses, and generally supplies them with facts, figures, poetry, and romance. Through all this they submit with much humility. The Duke of Richmond once indeed ventured to hint to Burke, with exceeding delicacy, that he, the Duke, had a small private estate to attend to as well as public affairs, but the validity of the excuse was not admitted. The part Burke played for the next fifteen years with relation to the Rockingham party reminds me of the functions I have observed performed in lazy families by a soberly clad and eminently respectable person who pays them domiciliary visits and, having admission everywhere, goes about mysteriously from room to room, winding up all the clocks. Burke did for the Rockingham party, he kept it going. But fortunately for us, Burke was not content with private ad duration or even public speech. His literary instincts, his dominating desire to persuade everybody that he, Edmund Burke, was absolutely in the right, and every one of his opponents hopelessly wrong, made him turn to the pamphlet as a propaganda and in his hands. The thing became a trumpet once he blew soul animating strains. So accustomed are we to regard Burke's pamphlets as specimens of our noblest literature. And to see them printed in comfortable volumes, that we are apt to forget that in their origin they were but the children of the pavement, the publications of the hour. I have now rather more than kept my word so far as Burke's pre-parliamentary life is concerned, and will proceed to mention some of the circumstances that may serve to account for the fact, that when the Rockingham party came into power for the second time in 1782, Burke, who was their life and soul, was only rewarded with a minor office, footnote, Burke in this ministry was pre-master general and privy counselor, and a footnote. First, then, it must be recorded sorrowfully of Burke that he was always desperately in debt, and in this country no politician under the rank of a baronet can ever safely be in debt, Burke's finances are, and always have been marvels and mysteries. But one thing must be said of them, that the malignity of his enemies, both Tory enemies and radical enemies, has never succeeded in formulating any charge of dishonesty against him that has not been at once completely pulverized, and shown on the facts to be impossible. Burke's purchase of the estate at Beacons Field in 1768, only two years after he entered parliament, consisting as it did of a good house and 1600 acres of land, has puzzled a great many good men, much more than it ever did Edmund Burke. But how did he get the money, after an Irish fashion, by not getting it at all? Two thirds of the purchase money remained on mortgage, and the balance he borrowed, or, as he puts it, with all I could collect of my own, and by the aid of my friends, I have established a route in the country. That is how Burke bought Beacons Field, where he lived till his end came, wither he always hastened, when his sensitive mind was tortured, by the thought of how badly men governed the world. Where he entertained all sorts and conditions of men, Quakers, Brahmins, for whose ancient rights he provided suitable accommodation in a greenhouse, nobles and abbeys flying from revolutionary France, poets, painters and peers, no one of whom ever long remained a stranger to his charm, farming, if it is to pay, is a pursuit of small economies. And Burke was far too asiatic, tropical, and splendid to have anything to do with small economies. His expenditure, like his rhetoric, was in the grand style. He belongs to Charles Lamb's great race, the men who borrow, but indeed it was not so much that Burke borrowed as that men lent. Right-feeling men did not wait to be asked. Dr. Brocklesby, that good physician, whose name breathes like a benediction through the pages of the biographies of the best men of his time, who soothed Dr. Johnson's last melancholy hours, and for whose supposed heterodoxy the dying man displayed so tender a solicitude, rode to Burke in the strain of a timid suitor proposing for the hand of a proud heiress. To know whether Burke would be so good as to accept one thousand pounds at once, instead of waiting for the writer's death, Burke felt no hesitation in obliging so old a friend. Garrick, who, though fond of money, was as generous-hearted a fellow as ever brought down a house, lent Burke one thousand pounds. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had been reckoned stingy, by his will left Burke two thousand pounds, and forgave him another two thousand pounds, which he had lent him. The marquee of Rockingham, by his will, directed all Burke's bonds, held by him, to be cancelled. They amounted to thirty thousand pounds. Burke's patrimonial estate was sold by him for four thousand pounds, and I have seen its data that he had received altogether from family sources as much as twenty thousand pounds. And yet he was always poor, and was glad at the last to accept pensions from the crown in order that he might not leave his wife a beggar. This good lady survived her illustrious husband twelve years, and seemed, as his widow, to have some success in paying his bills, for at her death all remaining demands were found to be discharged. Had Burke been a moralist of the caliber of Charles James Fox, he might have amassed a fortune large enough to keep up half a dozen beacons fields by simply doing what all his predecessors in the office he held, including Fox's own father, the truly infamous First Lord Holland, had done, namely, by retaining for his own use the interest on all balances of the public money from time to time in his hands as paymaster of the forces. But Burke carried his passion for good government into actual practice, and, cutting down the emoluments of his office to a salary, a high one, no doubt, effected a saving to the country of some twenty five thousand pounds a year, every farthing of which might have gone without remark into his own pocket. Burke had no vices save of style and temper, nor was any of his expenditure a profligate squandering of money. It all went in giving employment or disseminating kindness. He sent the painter Barry to study art in Italy. He saved the poet crab from starvation and despair, and thus secured to the country one who owns the unrivaled distinction of having been the favorite poet of the three greatest intellectual factors of the age, scientific men accepted, Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and Cardinal Newman. Yet so distorted are men's views that the odious and antisocial excesses of Fox at the gambling table are visited with a blame usually reathed in smiles. Whilst the financial irregularities of a noble and pure-minded man are thought fit matter for the fiercest, censure are the most lordly contempt. Next to Burke's debts, some of his companions and intimates did him harm and injured his consequence, his brother Richard, whose brogue we are given to understand was simply appalling, was a good for nothing with a dilapidated reputation. Then there was another Mr. Burke, who was no relation, but nonetheless was always about, and to whom it was not safe to lend money. Burke's son, too, whose death he mourned so pathetically, seems to have been a failure, and is described by a candid friend as a nauseating person. To have a decent following is important in politics. It now only remains for me, drawing upon my stock of assurance, to assay the analysis of the essential elements of Burke's mental character, and I therefore at once proceed to say that it was Burke's peculiarity in his glory to apply the imagination of a poet of the first order to the facts and the business of life. Arnold says of Sophocles, he saw life steadily and saw it whole. Substitute for the word life, the words, organize society, and you get a peep into Burke's mind. There was a catholicity about his gaze. He knew how the whole world lived. Everything contributed to this. His vast, desultory reading, his education, neither wholly academical nor entirely professional, his long years of apprenticeship in the service of knowledge, his wanderings up and down the country, his vast conversational powers, his enormous correspondence with all sorts of people, his unfailing interest in all pursuits, trades, manufacturers. All helped to keep before him, like notes dancing in a sunbeam, the huge organism of modern society, which requires for its existence and for its development the maintenance of credit and of order. Burke's imagination led him to look out over the whole land, the legislator devising new laws, the judge expounding and enforcing old ones, the merchant dispatching his goods and extending his credit, the banker advancing the money of his customers upon the credit of the merchant, the frugal man slowly accumulating the store which is to support him in old age, the ancient institutions of church and university with their seemingly provisions for sound learning and true religion, the parson in his pulpit, the poet pondering his rhymes, the farmer eyeing his crops, the painter covering his canvases, the player educating the feelings. Burke saw all this with the fancy of a poet and dwelt on it with the eye of a lover, but love is the parent of fear, and none knew better than Burke how thin is the lava layer between the costly fabric of society and the volcanic heats and destroying flames of anarchy. He trembled for the fair frame of all established things, and to his horror saw men, instead of covering the thin surface with the concrete, digging in it for abstractions and asking fundamental questions about the origin of society and why one man should be born rich and another poor. Burke was no prading optimist. It was his very knowledge how much could be said against society that quickened his fears for it. There is no shallower criticism than that which accuses Burke in his later years of apostasy from so-called liberal opinions. Burke was all his life through a passionate maintainer of the established order of things and a ferocious hater of abstractions and metaphysical polities. The same ideas that explode like bombs through his diatribes against the French Revolution are to be found shining with a mild effulgence in the comparative calm of his earlier writings. Burke have often been struck with the resemblance, which I hope is not wholly fanciful, between the attitude of Burke's mind toward government and that of Cardinal Newman toward religion. Both these great men belong, by virtue of their imaginations, to the poetic order, and they both are to be found dwelling with amazing eloquence, detail, and wealth of illustration on the varied elements of society. They seem, as they write, to have one hand on the pulse of the world and to be forever alive to the throb of its action and Burke. As he regarded humanity swarming like bees into and out of their hives of industry, asked himself the question, how are these men to be saved from anarchy? Whilst Newman puts to himself the question, how are these men to be saved from atheism? Both saw the perils of free inquiry divorced from practical affairs. If either of these great men had been guilty of intellectual excesses, those of Burke may be attributed to his dread of anarchy, those of Newman to his dread of atheism, neither of them was prepared to rest content with a scientific frontier. An imaginary line. So much did they dread their enemy, so alive were they to the terrible strength of some of his positions that they could not agree to dispense with the protection afforded by the huge mountains of prejudice and the ancient rivers of custom. The sincerity of either man can only be doubted by the bigot and the fool, but Burke, apart from his fears, had a constitutional love for old things simply because they were old. Anything mankind had ever worshipped or venerated or obeyed was dear to him. I have already referred to his providing his Brahmins with a greenhouse for the purpose of their rights, which he watched from outside with great interest. One cannot fancy Cardinal Newman peeping through a window to see men worshipping false though ancient gods. Warren Hastings high-handed dealings with the temples and time-honored if scandalous customs of the Hindus filled Burke with horror. So, too, he respected Quakers, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and all those whom he called constitutional dissenters. He has a fine passage somewhere about rust, for with all his passion for good government he dearly loved a little rust. In this phase of character he reminds one not a little of another great writer, whose death literature has still reasoned to deplore. George Eliot, who, in her love for old hedge-rose and barns and crumbling moss-grown walls, was a writer after Burke's own heart, whose novels he would have set up all night to devour. For did he not deny with warmth Gibson's statement that he had read all five volumes of Avelina in a day? The thing is impossible, cried Burke. They took me three days, doing nothing else. Now Avelina is a good novel, but Silas Marner is a better. Words worth has been called the High Priest of Nature. Burke may be called the High Priest of Order, a lover of settled ways, of justice, peace, and security. His writings are a storehouse of wisdom, not the cheap shrewdness of the mere man of the world, but the noble, animating wisdom of one who has the poet's heart as well as the state's man's brains. Nobody is fit to govern this country, who has not drunk deep at the springs of Burke. Have you read, your Burke, is at least a sensible question to put to a parliamentary candidate, as to ask him whether he is a total abstainer or a desperate drunkard. Something there may be about Burke to regret, and more to dispute, but that he loved, justice, and hated, iniquity is certain, as also it is that for the most part he dwelt in the paths of purity, humanity, and good sense may we be found adhering to them. End of Section 10 Section 11 of the World's Famous Orations Volume 5 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jeffrey Wilson Ames, Iowa The World's Famous Orations Volume 5 On the Government of Ireland Bill by James Viscount of Brice James Brice, born in 1838, practiced law until 1882 Regis Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, 1870-1893 Elected to Parliament in 1880 Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1886 President of the Board of Trade in 1894 Author of the American Commonwealth, 1888 Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1906 On the Government of Ireland Bill Footnote From a speech in the House of Commons on May 17, 1886 By kind permission of Mr. Brice and Cornelius Buck and son End of footnote Nothing is more essential than that in passing a measure like this we should base it on firm legal grounds and that we should clearly understand what relation the law we are asked to pass is to bear to the political action that is to go on under it I do not think anything better deserves the attention of the House and I hope the House will suffer me to deal somewhat minutely with it My right honourable and learned friend laid down three propositions The first was that by this bill the unity of the Empire would be destroyed the second that the Imperial Parliament would not be able henceforth to legislate for Ireland and the third that the sovereignty of the Imperial Parliament would disappear My right honourable and learned friend said that the unity of the Empire was created by the Union of Parliament What? Was there no unity of the British Empire before 1800? Were we not one Empire during that century of glory which ended in 1800 when the foundations of our Indian and colonial dominion were laid when so many successful wars were waged by British soldiers and sailors or how can it be said that there will be less unity of the Empire under the bill than there was between 1782 and 1800 when there were two crowns, two armies, and two mutiny acts My right honourable and learned friend said that the Union of the Crown in the same person did not make a united kingdom and he cited the case of Hanover but he forgot that when our sovereigns were electors of Hanover they were members of the Holy Roman Empire and afterward when that Empire had already vanished they became in 1815 members of the Germanic Confederation when he says that that which makes unity of laws is the unity of the law making power does he remember that in a country which has long been united and which in every decade of its existence tends to become more and more united I mean the United States of North America there are 38 separate legislatures which enjoy within their proper sphere supreme legislative power these legislatures are entirely uncontrolled by the Federal Congress on certain subjects subjects of wide compass and great consequence not only in the different states are the laws different but the spirit in which these state laws are administered is also different the noble Lord, the member for Rossendale, the Marquis of Hardington said on the first night of the debate that he looked upon it as a most important thing that an Englishman should find himself at home if he travelled to Ireland but that he could not do that if the laws of Ireland were to be not only different in themselves but also administered by a different executive and in a different spirit this is exactly what happens in the United States if a citizen travels from Massachusetts or Pennsylvania to Arkansas or Texas he will find that the laws are different that the executive authority is different and independent and that the laws are administered in these newer western states in a very different and sometimes an unfortunate manner but that does not prevent citizens of the United States who travel out of one state into another from feeling themselves everywhere at home the second argument of my right honorable and learned friend was that under the bill the imperial parliament would not be able to legislate for Ireland he cannot mean that it will not be able to do so for imperial purposes because that power is expressly reserved by the bill but he asks can it legislate for other purposes he says perhaps it can as a matter of abstract right but what difference is there between an abstract right and any other kind of right none whatever there is indeed a difference between forms in which right may exist there are rights which you put in constant exercise and there are rights which you suffer to lie dormant we have the right in this parliament to legislate for Ireland and we shall continue to have it when the bill becomes an act we shall retain as a matter of pure right the power to legislate for Ireland for all purposes whatever for the simple reason that we cannot divest ourselves of it there is no principle more universally admitted by constitutional jurists than the absolute omnipotence of parliament this omnipotence exists because there is nothing beyond parliament or behind parliament we are sitting here as the nation the whole nation we are not delegates entrusted like the American congress with specified and limited powers we represent the whole British nation which has committed to us the plenitude of its authority and has provided no method of national action except through our votes and we have therefore full power to legislate for every purpose we are not checked or restrained as is the congress of the United States or any other body existing under a written constitution because the whole force and power reside in us to be exercised within these walls the Irish members I am sure know perfectly that this is so it is not a question of their asking us whether we will agree to divest ourselves of this power because we cannot do so there is one limitation and one only upon our omnipotence and that is that we cannot bind our successors if we pass a statute purporting to extinguish our right to legislate on any given subject or over any given district it may be repudiated and repealed by any following parliament I even by this present parliament on any later day what then I may be asked is the position in which we are to be placed after the congress what then I may be asked is the position in which we are to be placed after the concessions proposed in this bill it will be this while the ultimate right to legislate will reside in and for all English, Scottish and imperial purposes will be exercised by the imperial parliament we shall have conceded to the Irish legislature the right to legislate on subjects upon which we do not intend to exercise the right of legislating ourselves this is exactly what we have done with our colonies we have yielded to them self-governing powers the colonies exercise those powers and we rarely interfere with the exercise of those powers by them it has been pointed out in debate that in the colonial acts we had expressly reserved all legislative power to the imperial parliament but if the House had leisure to listen to a detailed argument I could show that the reservation to which my right honourable friend seemed to refer in the act of 1865 had a purpose and meaning different from that which he imagines in the act of 1867 which created the Dominion legislature of Canada there is no express reservation of the legislative power of the imperial parliament yet since then the imperial parliament has legislated for Canada by passing merchant shipping acts, a copyright act and other measures which are now in force in the Dominion this contract like most contracts is a two-sided engagement on our side it binds us not to repeal this statute or to alter it or to do anything inconsistent with it so as to prejudice the position of Ireland without summoning the Irish members and on the other hand it binds the Irish parliament on its part to observe in good faith the statute in spirit as well as in letter to act fairly under it, not to abuse or pervert the powers which it gives while Ireland through her parliament observes this contract we shall be bound to observe our part of it and so long as Ireland is faithful to the intentions of the act on her side so long will it be our duty if we desire to modify the act to summon the Irish members here but if the Irish parliament should transgress the spirit and meaning of the act we on our side shall be released from our obligation and then that which is in any case a legal right on our side would become also a moral right because a breach of the contract on their side would entitle us to use our full legal rights now the imposition of such a moral obligation as this is not a change which will alter the general character of the constitution it will leave the sovereignty of parliament and the consequent flexibility of the constitution as they were before since means are provided whereby we can repeal the act and regain any freedom which it may be supposed we are now morally though not legally parting with now in the United States Congress cannot deal with the decisions of the Supreme Court because those decisions are delivered as interpretations of the written constitution the instrument which creates Congress and which is the supreme law of the land everywhere the Supreme Court is out of the reach of Congress not because it is a law court but because it is the authorized interpreter or as one may say the living voice of a document superior in authority to the will of Congress but in this country Parliament is above the Privy Council because we have no written constitution and all the courts are bound to obey the will of Parliament therefore we shall not tie our hands as the hands of Congress are tied under this act Parliament will still be above the House of Lords above the Privy Council above all the courts of law anywhere within the Queens Dominions no conflict can therefore arise between the decisions of the English and the Irish judges there can be no conflict because the bill provides that in every case there shall be an appeal to a final court of appeal and the decision of that court will govern the action of every subordinate court whether Irish or English in cases where the construction of this act is in question the appeal lies to the Privy Council in ordinary cases it lies to the House of Lords but in any case it will be final therefore there can by no possibility be two sets of courts one set in Ireland and another in England continuing to give contradictory decisions I admit that the system under this bill is complicated it cannot be otherwise for the complication is in the facts with which we have to deal but sir there is another class of instances what I may call the negative influences furnished us by modern Europe where nations have had this problem presented to them and where they have shrunk from grappling fairly with it when confronted by disaffection due to unsatisfied national sentiment they have refused to recognize and give legitimate scope to that sentiment what has been the consequence? do honourable members recollect that for some years before 1830 there was a constant struggle going on between Holland and Belgium? the Belgians demanded some recognition of their nationality some separate institutions for Belgium but the Dutch in their national pride refused in 1830 the Parisian Revolution fanned the embers into flame the Belgians rose, Holland remained obstinate and at last because she had refused moderate concessions she lost Belgium altogether the same is the moral of the relations between Denmark and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein during many years the German population of these Duchies continued to plead for a due recognition of their difference from the rest of the Danish monarchy but the Danes said, no, we are and will be one nation we do not make in your favour those exceptions and special arrangements which you desire you are Danish subjects, Danes you shall be the Danish language was to be taught in all the schools of Schleswig and every means was to be taken of replacing German by Danish sentiment what was the consequence? the discontent of Schleswig and Holstein found sympathy in Germany and the Germanic powers intervened you will say that there is no great power to interfere between us and Ireland that is quite true it is not always in the same way that these problems are solved but they find their solution nevertheless and it is a solution which usually punishes the pride and obstinacy of a dominant race Schleswig and Holstein kept up their discontent so long that at last the hour arrived for which they had been waiting and Denmark saw herself deprived of those provinces which a policy of moderate conciliation would have enabled her to retain we have also the case of Russia in her dealings with Poland and Finland Russia allowed Finland autonomy and it is at this day a peaceful, prosperous and contented province of the Czar's dominions inspiring him with no fear of conspiracies or revolts although the frontier of Finland comes almost to the gates of St. Petersburg Russia refused to deal in the same spirit with Poland and what were the consequences she has indeed or she seems to have crushed Poland but I ask honourable members whether they desire to see this country imitate the methods by which Poland has been crushed this force of nationality is a great force in human affairs the honourable and learned member for Plymouth Mr. Edward Clark spoke on Thursday night with some contempt of the feeling of nationality I do not say that it is always a good thing it is one of those sentiments which though primarily and usually good because it binds men together by a common devotion to a fine idea may also become a destroying power and the instrument of evil it works for good or ill just as you choose to treat it but it is a force which governments ignore at their peril we are accused of putting forward this bill as a council of despair Sir, I do not support it as a council of despair I do not support it as the only alternative to a long course of coercion although I believe such coercion to be the only alternative policy but I support it because I believe it to be a good thing in itself I believe that Ireland will be better legislated for in a legislature in Dublin by its own members because that legislature will be in sympathy with the feelings and will understand the needs of its fellow citizens we in this parliament, English and Scotch members are ignorant of the wants of the Irish people we vote at the sound of the division bell as the party whips tell us that has certainly been the rule of honourable members opposite even more than of members on this side and what does the government do? the government is guided by its chief secretary and the chief secretary is guided by the permanent officials at Dublin Castle so that the talk of Ireland having any real self-government is altogether idle because Ireland is governed in and through this house in which Irish members are in a small and usually also an unpopular minority it is idle to think of legislating satisfactorily for Ireland in a house in which the Irish members constitute a small minority out of sympathy with the majority a house chiefly composed of members who have never been in Ireland and have no direct personal knowledge of Irish conditions and Irish sentiment a house whose acts and votes are checked and nullified by another and an irresponsible house in which there is not a single representative of Irish national feeling the thing most necessary to us in this matter at this juncture is to look facts fairly and fully in the face I have felt this strongly in reading the powerful speeches delivered during the Easter recess of my right honourable friend the member for East Edinburgh, Mr. Goshen whom I am sorry not to see in his place he seems to me to speak like a man who does not see who at any rate does not realize the dominant facts of the situation those who desire a strong repressive government for Ireland talk as if in order to succeed in ruling and pacifying Ireland England and Scotland need only to put their foot down and we have had this very day in the newspapers a vigorous and trenchant expression of that view from the leader of the Tory party now I admit that England and Scotland can govern Ireland by repression we in Great Britain are more than 30 millions of people we have got the men we have got the ships and the arms if they wish we have got the money too and if Great Britain chooses to put her foot down she can crush Ireland under an iron heel but let me ask the question is this what the British people wish to do or mean to do if our government were a despotism sir or such an oligarchy as ruled before the reform act of 1832 I could understand my right honourable friend the member for East Edinburgh, Mr. Goshen or Lord Salisbury making this proposition but what are we we are a democracy sir a modern democracy a modern democracy is fitted neither by its methods of government nor by its sentiments for a policy of that sort a democracy would not consent to and if it had consented would never persist in such a policy a democracy has a short memory and although it might in a moment of exasperation pass severe laws it would soon forget the occasion of those laws and repeal them a democracy loves equality and it could not bear to think as it would be apt to think that in ruling by stern laws it was oppressing the masses of the people in the interest of a landlord class a democracy has a tender conscience and a dislike perhaps too strong a dislike of severe methods it would be pained by the fear that it was doing injustice and sanctioning harshness a democracy loves freedom and it would refuse to put into the hands of a government such as the Marquis of Salisbury contemplates that suspension of the Irish representation that subjection of Ireland to arbitrary rule which would be necessary for his purpose I am not arguing now whether in all this democracy may be right or wrong or whether we have done foolishly or wisely in making our government a democracy with such questions I am not concerned for what I ask the House is to realize the present facts and their consequences I say that we are a democracy and that we must therefore govern on democratic principles I have noticed that throughout this debate honorable members have been appealing to the civil war in America and the conduct of the northern states in that supreme crisis as a reason and precedent for our keeping down Ireland the argument when once the facts have been duly mastered points the other way a part of the United States rebelled on behalf of one of the worst of causes in which men ever took up arms the North, animated by a strong sentiment of nationality and by a hatred of slavery determined to put that rebellion down and did put it down so we, if Ireland were to secede would determine to keep her attached to this island by force of arms we should succeed but it is not in war that the chief difficulty lies it is in governing afterwards what did the United States do when the civil war came to an end? first of all they tried the experiment of governing the southern states by military occupation and they found that that system broke down because it was impossible to keep the people in subjection and the country tranquil by military force alone then they tried to govern it by the disfranchisement of all who took part in the war against the union and they handed over the government to the Negroes and a number of northern adventurers and that system broke down outrages perpetrated on the Negroes or on the northern men who had come down into the Carolinas and Tennessee became frequent and could not be checked by the civil authorities the condition of things in the south during these years was a scandal to the country then at last with the strong practical sense which becomes a free people and which especially distinguishes the people of America they came back to their original principles they set up the southern states as self-governing communities on the old lines they restored the suffrage to all citizens declaring those who had taken part in the war to be exempt from further consequences and then the outrages came to an end and those disorderly southern communities became speedily prosperous and law-abiding the example of the United States is the strongest possible case you could have to show that a democratic system must be true to itself and that only so can it succeed as to the cases of Scotland and Wales these are cases which are not now before us I do not believe that there exists in Scotland any widespread desire and demand for a separate legislature if ever such a demand is made by the Scottish people with anything resembling the volume of demand now made by Ireland it will be time enough for us to consider it and when it is considered it will be dealt with upon its own merits no one who knows the Scottish people can doubt that they will obtain whatever they seek but I venture to ask honourable members below the gangway whether they have realised the effect of the decision they will give if they vote against this bill we are exposed here to what I may call a triple fire besides the fire that comes from the bench's opposite and that we receive from some of those who sit behind us the noble Marquis and those who act with him we have had if not a volley yet some dropping shots I hope they will be nothing more than dropping shots from below the gangway I ask those honourable members to consider what the result will be if they join the noble Marquis and the Tory party in throwing out the bill we know what the Tory party is it is force it is repression, prolonged and stern repression what did the Marquis of Salisbury tell his followers on Saturday night remember, he said to them, that you are the most powerful party yes sir, they are numerically the most powerful of the parties opposed to this bill and if this bill should be rejected and the reins of government should unhappily pass to them it is their policy that will and must prevail sir, the democracy of England the new born democracy of England is prepared to do what is right by the Irish people and I trust that the knowledge of its purpose and its sympathy will enable the Irish people to await in a calm and law abiding spirit the fulfilment of their wishes wishes whose justice we have now at last admitted and for which in this house and out of this house on every platform in Great Britain we shall not cease to do battle End of Section 11 Recording by Geoffrey Wilson Ames, Iowa Section 12 of the world's famous orations, Volume 5 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Peter Block the world's famous orations, Volume 5 on the benefits of reading by Arthur James Earl of Belfort born in 1848, nephew of Lord Salisbury made president of the local government board in 1885 secretary for Scotland in 1886 secretary for Ireland in 1887 first lord of the treasury in 1891 and again in 1895 and 1900 prime minister in 1902 Footnote from an address before Saint Andrews University in Scotland in December 1887 by kind permission of Mr. Belfort the London Times and Messers William Blackwood and Son end of footnote truly it is a subject for astonishment that instead of expanding to the utmost the employment of this pleasure giving faculty so many persons should set themselves to work to limit its exercise by all kinds of arbitrary regulations some persons for example tell us that the acquisition of knowledge is all very well but that it must be useful knowledge meaning usually thereby that it must enable a man to get on in a profession pass an examination shine in conversation or obtain a reputation for learning but even if they mean something higher than this even if they mean that knowledge to be worth anything must subserve ultimately if not immediately the material or spiritual interests of mankind the doctrine is one which should be energetically repudiated I admit of course at once that discoveries the most apparently remote from human concerns have often proved themselves of the utmost commercial or manufacturing value but they require no such justification for their existence nor were they striven for with any such object navigation is not the final cause of astronomy nor telegraphy of electrodynamics nor di works of chemistry and if it be true that the desire of knowledge for the sake of knowledge was the animating motives of the great men who first rested her secrets from nature why should it not also be enough for us to whom it is not given to discover but only to learn as best we may what has been discovered by others another maxim more plausible but equally pernicious is that superficial knowledge is worse than no knowledge at all that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is a saying which has now got currency as a proverb stamped in the mint of Pope's versification of Pope who with the most imperfect knowledge of Greek translated Homer with the most imperfect knowledge of the Elizabethan drama edited Shakespeare and with the most imperfect knowledge of philosophy wrote the essay on man but what is this little knowledge which is supposed to be so dangerous what is it little in relation to if in relation to what there is to know then all human knowledge is little if in relation to what actually is known by somebody then we must condemn as dangerous the knowledge which Archimedes possessed of mechanics or Copernicus of astronomy for a shilling primer at a few weeks study will enable any student to outstrip in mere information some of the greatest teachers of the past no doubt that little knowledge which thinks itself to be great may possibly be a dangerous as it certainly is a most ridiculous thing we have all suffered under that eminently absurd individual who on the strength of one or two volumes imperfectly apprehended by himself and long discredited in the estimation of everyone else is prepared to supply you on the shortest notice with a dogmatic solution of every problem suggested by this unintelligible world or the political variety of the same pernicious genus whose statecraft consists in the ready application to the most complex question of national interest of some high-sounding commonplace which has done weary duty on a thousand platforms and which even in its palmiest days was never fit for anything better than a peroration but in our dislike of the individual do not let us mistake the diagnosis of his disease he suffers not from ignorance but from stupidity give him learning and you make him not wise but only more pretentious in his folly I say then that so far from a little knowledge being dangerous a little knowledge is all that on most subjects any of us can hope to attain and that as a source not of worldly profit but of personal pleasure it may be of incalculable value to its possessor but it will naturally be asked how are we to select from among the infinite number of things which may be known those which is best worthwhile for us to know we are constantly being told to concern ourselves with learning what is important and not to waste our energies upon what is insignificant but what are the marks by which we shall recognize the important and how is it to be distinguished from the insignificant a precise and complete answer to this question which shall be true for all men cannot be given I am considering knowledge recollect as it ministers to enjoyment and from this point of view each unit of information is obviously of importance in proportion as it increases the general sum of enjoyment which we obtain from knowledge this of course makes it impossible to lay down precise rules which shall be an equally sure guide to all sorts and conditions of men for in this as in other matters tastes must differ and against real difference of taste there is no appeal there is however one caution which may be worth your while to keep in view do not be persuaded into applying any general proposition on this subject with a foolish impartiality to every kind of knowledge there are those who tell you that it is the broad generalities and the far reaching principles which govern the world which are alone worthy of your attention a fact which is not an illustration of a law in the opinion of these persons appears to lose all its value incidents which do not fit into some great generalization events which are merely picturesque details which are merely curious they dismiss as unworthy the interest of a reasoning being now even in science this doctrine in its extreme form does not hold good the most scientific of men have taken profound interest in the investigation of the facts from a determination of which they do not anticipate any material addition to our knowledge of the laws which regulate the universe in these matters I need hardly say that I speak wholly without authority but I have always been under the impression that an investigation which has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds which has stirred on three occasions the whole scientific community throughout the civilized world on which has been expended the utmost skill in the construction of instruments and their application to purposes of research I refer to the attempts made to determine the distance of the sun by observations of the transit of Venus would even if they had been brought to a successful issue have furnished mankind with the knowledge of no new astronomical principle the laws which govern the motions of the solar system the proportions which the various elements in that system bear to one another have long been known the distance of the sun itself is known within limits of error relatively speaking not very considerable where the measuring rod we apply to the heavens based on an estimate of the sun's distance from the earth which was wrong by say 3% it would not to the lay mind seem to affect very materially our view either of the distribution of the heavenly bodies or of their motions and yet this information this piece of celestial gossip seemed to be that which was chiefly expected from the successful prosecution of an investigation in which whole nations have interested themselves but though no one can I think pretend that science does not concern itself and properly concern itself with facts which are not in themselves to all appearance illustrations of law it is undoubtedly true that for those who desire to extract the greatest pleasure from science a knowledge however elementary of the leading principles of investigation and the larger laws of nature is the acquisition most to be desired to him who is not a specialist a comprehension of the broad outlines of the universe as it presents itself to the scientific imagination is the thing most worth striving to attain but when we turn from science to what is rather vaguely called history the same principles of study do not I think all together apply and mainly for this reason that while the recognition of the reign of the law is the chief among the pleasures imparted by science our inevitable ignorance makes it the least among the pleasures imparted by history it is no doubt true that we're surrounded by advisors who tell us that all study of the past is barren except insofar as it enables us to determine the laws by which the evolution of human societies is governed how far such an investigation has been up to the present time fruitful in results I will not inquire that it will ever enable us to trace with accuracy the course which states and nations are destined to pursue in the future or to account in detail for their history in the past I do not believe we are born along like travelers on some unexplored stream we may know enough of the general configuration of the globe to be sure that we are making our way toward the ocean we may know enough by experience or theory of the laws regulating the flow of liquids to conjecture how the river will behave under the varying influences to which it may be subject more than this we cannot know it will depend largely upon causes which in relation to any laws which we are ever likely to discover may properly be called accidental whether we are destined sluggishly to drift among fever-stricken swamps to hurry down perilous rapids or to glide gently through fair scenes of peaceful cultivation but leaving on one side ambitious sociological speculations and even those more modest but hitherto more successful investigations into the causes which have in particular cases been principally operative in producing great political changes there are still two modes in which we can derive what I may call spectacular enjoyment from the study of history there is first the pleasure which arises from the contemplation of some great historic drama or some broad and well-marked phase of social development the story of the rise, greatness and decay of a nation is like some vast epic which contains as subsidiary episodes the varied stories of the rise, greatness and decay of creeds of parties and of statesmen the imagination is moved by the slow unrolling of this great picture of human mutability as it is moved by contrasted permanence of the abiding stars the ceaseless conflict, the strange echoes of long forgotten controversies the confusion of purpose the successes which lay deep the seeds of future evils the failures that ultimately divert the otherwise inevitable danger the heroism which struggles to the last for a cause foredoomed to defeat the wickedness which sides with right and the wisdom which huzzahs at the triumph of folly fate meanwhile through all this turmoil and perplexity working silently toward the predestined end all these form together a subject the contemplation of which needs surely never weary but there is yet another and very different species of enjoyment to be derived from the records of the past which requires a somewhat different method of study in order that it may be fully tasted instead of contemplating as it were from a distance the larger aspects of the human drama we may elect to move in familiar fellowship amid the scenes and actors of special periods we may add to the interest we derive from the contemplation of contemporary politics a similar interest derived from a not less minute and probably more accurate knowledge of some comparatively brief passage in the political history of the past we may extend the social circle in which we move a circle perhaps narrowed and restricted through circumstances beyond our control by making intimate acquaintances perhaps even close friends among a society long departed but which when we have once learnt the trick of it it rests with us to revive it is this kind of historical reading which is usually branded as frivolous and useless and persons who indulge in it often delude themselves into thinking that the real motive of their investigation into bygone scenes and ancient scandals is philosophic interest in an important historical episode whereas in truth it is not the philosophy which glorifies the details but the details which make tolerable the philosophy consider for example the case of the French Revolution the period from the taking of the Bastille to the fall of Robespierre is about the same length as very commonly intervenes between two of our general elections on these comparatively few months libraries have been written the incidents of every week are matters of familiar knowledge the character and the biography of every actor in the drama has been made the subject of minute study and by common admission there is no more fascinating page in the history of the world but the interest is not what is commonly called philosophic it is personal because the revolution is the dominant fact in modern history therefore people suppose that the doings of this or that provincial lawyer tossed into temporary eminence and eternal infamy by some freak of the revolutionary wave or the atrocities committed by this or that mob half drunk with blood, rhetoric and alcohol are of transcendent importance in truth their interest is great but their importance is small what we are concerned to know as students of the philosophy of history is not the character of each turn and eddy in the great social cataract but the manner in which the currents of the upper stream drew surely in toward the final plunge and slowly collected themselves after the catastrophe again to pursue at a different level their renewed and comparatively tranquil course now if so much of the interest of the French Revolution depends upon our minute knowledge of each passing incident how much more necessary is such knowledge when we are dealing with the quiet nooks and corners of history when we are seeking an introduction let us say into the literary society of Johnson or the fashionable society of Walpole society dead or alive can have no charm without intimacy and no intimacy without interest in trifles which I fear Mr. Harrison would describe as merely curious if we would feel at our ease in any company if we wish to find humor in its jokes and point in its repartets we must know something of the beliefs and the prejudices of its various members their loves and their hates their hopes and their fears their maladies their marriages and their flirtations if these things are beneath our notice we shall not be the less qualified to serve our queen and country but need make no attempt to extract pleasure out of one of the most delightful departments of literature that there is such a thing as trifling information I do not of course question but the frame of mind in which the reader is constantly weighing the exact importance to the universe at large of each circumstance which the author presents to his notice is not one conducive to the true enjoyment of a picture the effect depends upon a multitude of slight and seemingly insignificant touches which impress the mind often without remaining in the memory the best method of guarding against the danger of reading what is useless is to read only what is interesting a truth which will seem a paradox to a whole class of readers fitting objects of our commissuration who may be often recognized by their habit of asking some advisor for a list of books and then marking out a scheme of study as these are to be conscientiously perused these unfortunate persons apparently read a book principally with the object of getting to the end of it they reach the word finie with the same sensation of triumph as an indian feels who strings a fresh scalp to his girdle they are not happy unless they mark by some definite performance each step in the weary path of self-improvement to begin a volume and not to finish it would be to deprive themselves of this satisfaction it would be to lose all the reward of their earlier self-denial by a lapse from virtue at the end the skip according to their literature code is a form of cheating it is a mode of obtaining credit for erudition on false pretenses a plan by which the advantages of learning are surreptitiously obtained by those who have not won them by honest toil but all this is quite wrong in matters literary works have no saving efficacy he has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the even more refined accomplishments of skipping and skimming and the first step has hardly been taken in the direction of making literature a pleasure until interest in the subject and not a desire to spare so to speak the author's feelings or to accomplish an appointed task is the prevailing motive of the reader end of section 12 by Peter Block section 13 of the world's famous orations volume 5 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Phyllis Vincelli the world's famous orations volume 5 by Robert Burns by Archibald Philip Primrose Earl of Roseberry 1847 to 1929 born in 1847 educated at Oxford succeeded to the Eraldum in 1868 under secretary of state in 1881 first commissioner of works in 1884 foreign secretary in 1896 and again in 1892 prime minister in 1894 footnote from an address in the Saint Andrews Hall Glasgow on July 21st 1896 on the occasion of the Burns centenary celebration and footnote it is it must be a source of joy and pride to see our champion Scotsman receive the honor and admiration and affection of humanity to see as I have seen this morning the long processions bringing homage and tribute to the conquering dead but these have only been signs and symptoms of worldwide reverence and devotion that generous and immortal soul is the universe today in the humming city and in the crowd of men in the backwoods and in the swamp where the sentinel paces the black frontier where the sailor smokes the evening pipe or where above all the farmer and his men pursue their summer toil whether under the stars and stripes or under the union jack or under the sun are directed to Robert Burns I have sometimes asked myself if a roll call of fame were read over at the beginning of every century how many men of eminence would answer a second time to their names but of our poet there is no doubt or question the add some of Burns rings out clear and unchallenged are few before him on the list and we cannot now conceive a list without him he towers high and yet he lived in an age when the average was sublime it sometimes seems to me as if the whole 18th century was a constant preparation for a constant working up to the great drama of the revolution which closed it the scenery is all complete when the time arrives the dark volcanic country the hungry desperate people the firefly nobles the concentrated splendor of the court in the midst in her place as heroin the dazzling queen and during lone previous years brooding nature has been producing not merely the immediate actors but figures worthy of the scene what a glittering procession it is we can only mark some of the principal figures Burke leads the way by seniority then come Fox and Goethe Nelson and Mozart Schiller, Pitt and Burns and Napoleon and among these titans Burns is a conspicuous figure a figure which appeals most of all to the imagination and affection of mankind Napoleon looms larger to the imagination but on the affection he has no hold it is in the combination of the two powers that Burns is supreme the clue to Burns extraordinary hold on mankind is possibly a complicated one it has perhaps many developments if so we have no time to consider it tonight but I personally believe the causes are like most great causes simple though it might take long to point out all the ways in which they operate the secret as it seems to me lies in two words inspiration and sympathy there are two great forces which seem sheer inspiration and nothing else I mean Shakespeare and Burns this is not the place or the time to speak of the miracle called Shakespeare but one must say a word of the miracle called Burns why in reconstruct Burns as he was a peasant born in a cottage that no sanitary inspector in these days would tolerate for a moment struggling with desperate effort against pauperism almost in vain snatching at scraps of learning in the intervals of toil as it were with his teeth a heavy silent lad proud of his plow all of a sudden without preface or warning he breaks out into exquisite song like a nightingale from the brushwood and continues singing as sweetly in nightingale pauses till he dies the nightingale sings because he cannot help it he can only sing exquisitely because he knows no other so it was with Burns what is this but inspiration one can no more measure or reason about it than measure or reason about Niagara and remember the poetry is only a fragment of Burns amazing as it may seem all contemporary testimony is unanimous that the man was far more wonderful than his works if his talents were universal his sympathy was not less so his tenderness was no mere selfish tenderness for his own family for he loved all mankind except the cruel and base nay we may go further and say that he placed all creation especially the suffering of it under his protection the oppressor into every shape even in comparatively innocent embodiment of the factor and the sportsman he regarded with direct and personal hostility but above all he saw the charm of the home he recognized it as the basis of all society he honored it for he knew as few know how sincerely the family in the cottage is welded by mutual love and esteem his verses then go straight to the heart of every home they appeal to every father and mother but that is only the beginning perhaps the foundation of his sympathy in burns he has a heart even for vermin he has pity even for the arch enemy of mankind and his universality makes his poems a treasure house and which all may find what they want every wayfarer and the journey of life may pluck strength and courage from it the wounded will all find something to heal and soothe for this great master is the universal Samaritan where the priest and the Levite may have passed by in vain this eternal heart will still afford resource there is an eternal controversy which it appears no didactic oil will ever assuage private life and morality some maintain that these have nothing to do with his poems some maintain that his life must be read in his works and again some think that his life damns his poems while others are there that his poems cannot be fully appreciated without his life another school think has been exaggerated while their opponents scarcely think such exaggeration possible it is impossible to avoid taking a side I walk on the ashes knowing fire beneath unable to avoid them for the topic is inevitable I must confess myself then one of those who think that the life of burns doubles the interest of his poems and I doubt whether the failings of his life have been much exaggerated for contemporary testimony on that point is strong though a high and excellent authority Mr. Wallace has recently taken the other side with much power and point but the life of burns which I love to read with his poems in his vices they lie outside it it is a life of work and truth and tenderness and though like all lives it has its light and shade remember that we know all the worst as well as the best he was a soul bathed in crystal he hurried to avow everything there was no reticence in him the only obscure passage in his life is the love passage with Highland Mary and as to that he was silent not from shame but because it was a sealed and sacred episode what a flattering idea he once wrote is a world to come there shall I with speechless agony or rapture lost my ever dear Mary whose bosom was fraught with truth honor constancy and love but he had as the French say the defects of his qualities his imagination was a supreme and celestial gift but his imagination often led him wrong and never more than with women the chivalry he saw the heroic and all the common events of life made burns as his brother tells us see a goddess and every girl he approached hence many love affairs and some guilty ones but even these must be judged with reference to time and circumstances this much is certain had he been devoid of genius they would not have attracted attention it is burns pedestal that affords a target and why one may ask is not the same treatment measured out to burns as to others the illegitimate children of great captains and statesmen and princes are treated as historical and ornamental incidents they struck the scene with a big spear and ruffle it with the best it is for the illegitimate children of burns though he and his wife cherished them as if born in wedlock that the veils of wrath are reserved there were two brilliant figures both descended from the stewards who were alive during burns life we occupy ourselves endlessly and severely with the vices of burns we heave an elegant sigh over the hundred lapses of Charles James Fox and Charles Edward Stewart again it is quite clear that though exceptionally sober in his earlier years he drank too much in later life but this it must be remembered was but an occasional condescendence of the age the gentry who pressed him to their houses and who were all convivial have much to answer for his admirers who thronged to see him and who could only conveniently sit with him in a tavern are also responsible for this habit so perilously attractive to men of genius from the decorous Addison and the brilliant bowling brook onward the eighteenth century records hard drinking as the common incident of intellectual eminence to a man who had shown supreme in the most glowing society and who was now an excisement in a country town with a home which cannot have been very exhilarating the service system highly strung the temptation of the warm tavern and the admiring circle there may well have been almost irresistible some attempt to say that his intemperance was exaggerated I neither affirm nor deny it if he succumbed it was to good fellowship and cheer remember and indeed none will be turned to dissipation by Bern's example he paid too dearly for it but I will say this that it all seems infinitely little infinitely remote why do we strain at this distance to discern this dim spot on the poet's mantle Shakespeare and Den Johnson took their cool tankard at the mermaid we cannot afford in the strictest view of dietary responsibility to quarrel with them for it when we consider Pitt and Goethe we do not concentrate our vision on Pitt's bottles of port or Goethe's bottles of Moselle then why we ask is there such a chasm between the mermaid and the globe and why are the vintages of Wimbledon and Weemer so much more innocent than the simple punch-bowl of Inverary Marble and its contents I should like to go a step further and affirm that we have something to be grateful for even in the weaknesses of men like Bern's mankind is helped in its progress almost as much by the study of imperfection as by the contemplation of perfection had we nothing before us in our futile and halting lives but saints and the ideal we might well fail altogether we grope blindly along the catacombs of the world we climb the dark ladder of life we feel our way to futurity but we can scarcely see an inch around or before us we stumble and falter and fall our hands and knees are bruised and sore and we look up for light and guidance could we see nothing but distant unapproachable might well sink prostrate in the hopelessness of emulation and the weariness of despair is it not then when all seems blank and lightless when strength and courage flag and when perfection seems remote as a star is it not then that imperfection helps us when we see that the greatest and choicest images of God have had their weaknesses like ours their temptations their hour of darkness their bloody sweat are we not encouraged by their lapses and catastrophes to find energy for one more effort one more struggle were they failed we feel it a less dishonor to fail than sorrows make as it were an easier ascent from infinite imperfection to infinite perfection man after all is not ripened by virtue alone were it so this world were a paradise of angels no like the growth of the earth he is the fruit of all seasons the accident of a thousand accidents a living mystery moving through the scene to the unseen he is sown into sonor he is matured under all the varieties of heat and cold in mists and wrath in snow and vapors in the melancholy of autumn in the torpor of winter as well as in the rapture of summer or the balmy affluence of spring its breath its sunshine at the end he is reaped the product not of one climate but of all not of good alone but of sorrow perhaps mellowed and ripened perhaps stricken and withered and sour how then shall we judge anyone at any rate shall we judge a giant great in gifts and great in temptation great in strength and great in weakness let us glory in his strength and be comforted in his weakness and when we thank heaven for the inestimable gift of burns we do not need to remember wherein he was imperfect we cannot bring ourselves to regret that he was made of the same clay as ourselves end of section 13 section 14 of the world's famous orations volume 5 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Geoffrey Wilson Ames, Iowa the world's famous orations volume 5 The True Conception of Empire by Joseph Chamberlain Chamberlain born in 1836 elected Mayor of Birmingham in 1873 elected to Parliament in 1876 President of the Board of Trade in 1880 President of the Local Government Board in 1886 Colonial Secretarian 1895-1903 The True Conception of Empire Footnote delivered before the Royal Colonial Institute at its annual dinner in London March 31, 1897 Printed here by kind permission of Mr. Chamberlain and the London Times end of footnote it seems to me that there are three distinct stages in our Imperial history we began to be and we ultimately became a great Imperial power in the 18th century but during the greater part of that time the colonies were regarded not only by us but by every European power that possessed them as possessions valuable in proportion to the pecuniary advantage which they brought to the mother country which under that order of ideas was not truly a mother at all but appeared rather in the light of a grasping and absentee landlord desiring to take from his tenants the utmost rents he could exact the colonies were valued and maintained because it was thought that they would be a source of profit of direct profit to the mother country that was the first stage and when we were rudely awakened by the war of independence in America from this dream that the colonies could be held for our profit alone the second chapter was entered upon and the public opinion seems then to have drifted to the opposite extreme and because the colonies were no longer a source of revenue it seems to have been believed and argued by many people that their separation from us was only a matter of time and that that separation should be desired and encouraged lest happily they might prove an encumbrance and a source of weakness it was while those views were still entertained while the little englanders were in their full career that this institute was founded to protest against doctrines so injurious to our interests and so derogatory to our honour and I rejoice that what was then as it were a voice crying in the wilderness is now the expressed and determined will of the overwhelming majority of the British people partly by the efforts of this institute and similar organisations partly by the writings of such men as but mainly by the instinctive good sense and patriotism of the people at large we have now reached the third stage in our history and the true conception of our empire what is that conception as regards the self-governing colonies we no longer talk of them as dependencies the sense of possession has given place to the sentiment of kinship we think and speak of them as part of ourselves as part of the British empire united to us although they may be dispersed throughout the world by ties of kindred of religion of history and of language and joined to us and formerly seemed to divide us but the British empire is not confined to the self-governing colonies and the united kingdom it includes a much greater area a much more numerous population in tropical climes where no considerable European settlement is possible and where the native population must always vastly outnumber white inhabitants and in these cases also the same change has come over the imperial idea here also the sense of possession has given place to a different sentiment the sense of obligation we feel now that our rule over these territories can only be justified if we can show that it adds to the happiness and prosperity of the people and I maintain that our rule does and has brought security and peace and comparative prosperity to countries that never knew these blessings before footnotes to the next paragraph Premphe, the king of Ashanti was overcome by an English force at Kumasi in 1895 a British protectorate was established over his kingdom in January 1896 Lobangula, the king of the Matabela in 1893 was completely overthrown in battle by the British who used maximum guns Frederick Courtney Sellus the traveller in South Africa who wrote several books describing his adventures in Rhodesia and elsewhere end of footnotes in carrying out this work of civilization we are fulfilling what I believe to be our national mission and we are finding scope for the exercise of those faculties and qualities which have made of us a great governing race I do not say that our success has been perfect in every case I do not say that all our methods have been beyond reproach but I do say that in almost every instance in which the rule of the queen has been established and the great Pax Britannica has been enforced there has come with it greater security to life and property and a material improvement in the condition of the bulk of the population no doubt in the first instance when these conquests have been made there has been bloodshed there has been loss of life among the native populations loss of still more precious lives among those who have been sent out to bring these countries into some kind of disciplined order but it must be remembered that that is the condition of the mission we have to fulfill there are, of course, among us there always are among us, I think a very small minority of men who are ready to be the advocates of the most detestable tyrants provided their skin is black men who sympathize with the sorrows of Prempe and Lobengula and who denounce as murderers those of their countrymen who have gone forth at the command of the queen and who have redeemed districts as large as Europe from the barbarism and the superstition in which they had been steeped for centuries I remember a picture by Mr. Celos of a philanthropist an imaginary philanthropist I will hope sitting cosily by his fireside and denouncing the methods by which British civilization was promoted this philanthropist complained of the use of maxim guns and other instruments of warfare and asked why we could not proceed by more conciliatory methods and why the impasse of Lobengula could not be brought before a magistrate find five shillings and bound over to keep the peace no doubt there is humorous exaggeration in this picture but there is gross exaggeration in the frame of mind against which it was directed you cannot have omelets without breaking eggs you cannot destroy the practices of barbarism of slavery, of superstition which for centuries have desolated the interior of Africa without the use of force but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price which we are bound to pay for it I think you may well rejoice in the result of such expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success in Niasaland, Ashanti, Benin and Nupay expeditions which may have and indeed have cost valuable lives but as to which we may rest assured that for one life lost a hundred will be gained and the cause of civilization and the prosperity of the people will in the long run be eminently advanced but no doubt such a state of things such a mission as I have described involves heavy responsibility in the wide dominions of the queen the doors of the temple of Janus are never closed and it is a gigantic task that we have undertaken when we have determined to wield the scepter of empire great is the task great is the responsibility but great is the honor and I am convinced that the conscience and the spirit of the country rise to the height of its obligations and that we shall have the strength to fulfill the mission which our history and our national character have imposed upon us in regard to the self-governing colonies our task is much lighter we have undertaken it is true to protect them with all the strength that our command against foreign aggression although I hope that the need for our intervention may never arise but there remains what then will be our chief duty that is to give effect to that sentiment of kinship to which I have referred and which I believe is deep in the heart of every Britain we want to promote a closer and firmer union between all members of the great British race and in this respect we have in recent years made great progress so great that I think sometimes some of our friends are apt to be a little hasty and to expect even a miracle to be accomplished I would like to ask them to remember that time and patience are essential elements in the development of all great ideas let us gentlemen keep our ideal always before us for my own part I believe in the practical possibility of a federation of the British race but I know that it will come if it does come not by pressure, not by anything in the nature of dictation from this country but it will come as the realization of a universal desire as the expression of the dearest wish of our colonial fellow subjects themselves that such a result would be desirable would be in the interest of all our colonies as well as of ourselves I do not believe any sensible man will doubt it seems to me that the tendency of the time is to throw all power into the hands of the greater empires and the minor kingdoms, those which are non-progressive seem to be destined to fall into a secondary and subordinate place but if greater Britain remains united no empire in the world can ever surpass it in area, in population, in wealth, or in the diversity of its resources let us then have confidence in the future I do not ask you to anticipate with Lord Macaulay the time when the New Zealander will come here to gaze upon the ruins of a great dead city there are in our present condition no visible signs of decrepitude and decay the mother country is still vigorous and fruitful is still able to send forth troops of stalwart sons to people and to occupy the waste spaces of the earth but yet it may well be that some of these sister nations whose love and affection we eagerly desire may in the future equal and even surpass our greatness a trans-oceanic capital may arise across the seas which will throw into shade the glories of London itself but in the years that must intervene let it be our endeavor, let it be our task to keep alight the torch of imperial patriotism to hold fast the affection and the confidence of our kinsmen across the seas so that in every vicissitude of fortune the British Empire may present an unbroken front to all her foes and may carry on even to distant ages the glorious traditions of the British flag it is because I believe that the Royal Colonial Institute is contributing to this result that with all sincerity I propose the toast of the evening Footnote Macalade's famous prophecy in words almost identical may be found in one of the letters of Horace Walpole End of section 14 Recording by Jeffrey Wilson, Ames, Iowa