At this stage of the proceedings the Sage Oseba seemed to be in fine form and in most cheerful spirits.

He remarked that he was now to give his people a brief view of the “Country of Countries,” an island region, just off the humming hive of uniformed Europe. Here the globe revolved until the British Isles were conspicuously in view.

“This,” said Oseba, “of all the fertile dirt on the surface of Oliffa, is the most interesting. This, among the countries of the Outeroos, is the classic land of liberty, the sheet-anchor of Europe for more than three hundred years. These rock-bound Isles, with a fertile soil, a salubrious climate, indented shores—fortunately placed geographically—are by nature the best suited for the development of the ideal man of any spot on the surface of Oliffa, and having been peopled by sturdy tribes, all the suggestive hopes of Nature have been realised.”

He told his people that the British Isles embraced 124,000 square miles, and contained 40,000,000 inhabitants; and that, on these few acres, there were more muscle and brain, and intellectual force and stubbornness and haughty pretension, than on any other spot of like dimensions on the surface of Oliffa.

“These sturdy Britons, my children, who have resistlessly held these historic Islands [Pg 72]
[Pg 73]against all comers for many centuries, have done more to elevate, to educate, to emancipate, to civilise and to unite humanity; to free the brain from superstition, the limbs from fetters, and the world from bondage, than any other nation or race that ever inscribed its achievements on the pages of human history.

“Britain, my children, has conquered many foes, but her chief glory has been her conquests in the arts of peace. She has conquered climate, and famine, and pestilence, and the idolatry that would crucify the new upon the mouldering cross of the old rÉgime.

“Britain has given Oliffa its industrial and commercial methods, the tone of its present civilisation, and she is rapidly giving to the whole race her erstwhile scorned language, and in this there seems a magic spell that infects all who imbibe its spirit with a burning desire for liberty. To lisp the English tongue, is to feel—a king.

“Let me tell you a little story, my children, of the most interesting, the most wonderful—yes, even the most marvellous of all the doings of man on this most erratic little planet.

“These British Isles are separated from the Continent of Europe by a damp streak, and they are inhabited by the mixed offspring of a dozen sturdy and virile tribes, all from the northern water-front. All these virile tribes, whether natives or invaders, were strongly imbued with the spirit of liberty—as they understood it. They loved peace—if they had to fight for it. They loved liberty—to squeeze the other fellow. But in the fibre of these people there was a sublime stubbornness that often made things awkward for the authorities.

“Everybody wanted to boss, so nobody would wear the collar. Everybody wanted to be free, but the feeling was so unanimous that there was abundance of officers but no privates, so it took many centuries of disputes, and quarrels, and conflicts, and wars, before they had accumulated sufficient ‘grey matter’ to comprehend the fact that civilised government is a compromise; that where any can be oppressed, none can be secure; and that liberty, which must halt at the gate of the other fellow’s paddock, is the inalienable right of man.

“But the British can learn, and they have so well mastered this problem that the highest now yield the most ready obedience to the law, and the strongest most readily defend the rights of the weak. Though it took Britain, with her sturdy conceit, centuries to learn this, and though she, by her fibre and her position as a coloniser, was the legitimate successor of Phoenicia and Greece, she was rather backward about coming forward, for after the discovery of America, when all the other nations were madly participating in western exploits, she stood aloof for over a hundred years to complete her preparations.

“Then she came with a lunch basket, she came with both feet, she came to stay, and her achievements find no parallel in the history of human progress. Before she opened her foreign real estate office, the new world had been parcelled out. Others had staked their claims—many over-lapping—and there were plentiful notices to ‘keep off the grass,’ but she was undaunted.

“In 1607 she planted her first colony in America. Soon there were thirteen—an unlucky number—then she foolishly taxed them into revolt, and here she learned a valuable lesson. Since then, she has never oppressed a colony; since then, she has never taken one backward step; since then, she has gradually extended her beneficent hand over the earth, until over one-fifth of the land is painted red—her favorite hue—and over one-fourth of the human race bow a willing allegiance to her flag.”

“Oh,” says Leo’s notes, “would not that please dear old Sir Marmaduke!”

“America, my children, of which I shall soon speak, was Britain’s noblest contribution to human progress, for though the two nations have moved under different colours for more than a century, their mutual enterprise has revolutionised the industrial world, and brought humanity in touch.

“Marvel of marvels! When other nations, now in business, boasted of world-conquest, the British were but a ‘handful,’ inhabiting these rock-bound islands, but as mountains suggest freedom and seas adventure, looking over the waters, her daring sons went forth—not to conquer, not to exploit or to devastate, but to develop the world, and to build homes, and colonies, and states, and empires.

“If Britain took a gun in her outings—and she often did—it was to level a place for a home, a shop, or a factory. Where she plants her feet the soil becomes more fertile, and when she meets a savage, he stands more proudly erect—after the first few sermons.

“She is the motherland of America, and, by mutual efforts, the two have become the paragons of civilised progress. She saved old India from the rajahs, robbers, and priests, from famine and pestilence, and made it a paradise—as compared with its former condition. She saved strange, beloved, dreamy, half-mythical old Egypt from rot and ruin, and made it a marvel of hope and progress. She is saving ‘Darkest Africa’ from slavery, superstition, and fratricidal war; and, with diamonds on its golden clasps, she is handing it over to civilisation.

“She gave to civilisation Canada, with its splendid people, its fertile fields, and its stupendous ‘ice-plant’; and she gave to civilisation the seven colonies of Australasia, with the most wealthy, the most commercial, the most progressive, the most advanced, educated, civilised, and free people on the whole outer surface of the planet.

“Then, to show her small respect for dirt, save as a place to fasten down upon—and her marvellous ambition for industrial development—behold! the modern commercial wonders, Hongkong and Singapore! Many nations complain of ‘Britain’s land-greed,’ and that John Bull—as these sturdy Britons are lovingly called—always carries a bucket and a brush, and is everywhere painting the world red; but wherever the carmine shines, liberty and progress are assured. Every inch of soil wrested from darkness by British valour is handed over to civilisation—free to all comers.

“And, marvel of marvels, my children! In her more than a hundred wars—save by her mistake in striving to coerce her own children in America—she has never lost an inch of important dirt by force. And, more glorious still, every inch won from barbarism by her blood and valor, has been handed over to civilisation and human progress.

“But, no! She won much in war, which, to the infinite loss of the world, she gave back in peace.

“She took Cuba in war, restored order, and gave it back in peace. Better for the world had she kept it.

“She took by war, and gave back in peace, the Philippines, Cape Colony, Java, Sumatra, Senegal, Pondicheri, and more than twenty other valuable possessions, all to the loss of the world—and yet she has been accused of territorial avarice—of ‘land hunger.’”

Right! Mr. Oseba, and had the politicians in Downing Street properly backed the sturdy British wanderers, most of Oliffa would have been painted red and done up in a shawl strap long ere this, and the Brito-Yankee race would have been in a position to guarantee peace among all nations.

“But, my children,” he continued, “there are often sombre linings to many resplendent clouds, and lest you may all conclude to rush out of Cavitorus to these wonderful islands, I must show you a few of the less attractive pictures.

“Remember, that for modern civilisation among the Outeroos, the world is indebted to the colonial enterprise and success of Britain; but remember, too, that it is not always the ‘colonising nations,’ but the ‘colonists’ of the ‘colonising nations,’ that carry the standard of social progress to advanced grounds.

“The basis of modern colonial success, was, of course, in the fibre of the British race; but for the resistlessness of British colonial enterprise much was due to flagrant faults in Britain’s domestic policy.

“We are land animals—we live on, and from the land, and Britain had but 124,000 square miles of dirt. ‘Room’ was scarce, so people had a ‘far-away look.’ But worse, a very few in the Motherland ‘owned’ most all this meagre surface, so people saw opportunity only in a change—for a deep love of liberty forced the evils of monopoly upon their attention.

“Well these sturdy Britons, with the mixed blood of the rugged Danes, Jutes, Celts, Saxons, Angles and others did not feel at home as guests, serfs or tenants, so they began to roam around.”

The orator said he would present a few little “reasons” why the Shadowas would not care to “flock” to the British Isles, and also a review of conditions that might have had some influence in arousing the spirit of foreign adventure.

“They discovered,” said he, “that of the 76,000,000 acres of dirt on the whole British Isles, one man—great only in his possessions—owned 1,350,000 acres, while another owned 460,000 acres, the two being the born owners of over 2 per cent. of the whole, upon which 40,000,000 men were compelled to live.

“They found that about two hundred families owned about half of all the land; that less than one per cent. of the people owned over 99 per cent. of the land, and that more than 90 per cent. of the people were absolutely landless.

“It is amusing, my children, to hear these sturdy British boast about ‘my country,’ when a few families own so much of all the land on which all must live—if they remain at home. But observing the enormous power enjoyed by the holders of vast estates in the old world, too many sought by cornering the lands, to acquire like advantages in the new, and in the correction of this ancient error, the best statesmanship of the age is still required.”

Mr. Oseba proceeded to explain that as from many seemingly indefensible situations beneficent results often arise, it could hardly be doubted that the inherited curse of British landlordism has, in a most imposing “disguise,” been a “blessing” to civilisation.

It impressed the thoughtful “subject” with the incomparable importance of the land to life itself, especially when population began to crowd; and it forced upon the attention, even of the thoughtless, the enormous influence and real power wielded by the possessors of large estates. The class inequalities that arose through the inheritance by the few of the source from which all must live, drove hosts of the most intelligent, sturdy, and self-reliant of the people to distant countries, and determined them to provide in the new home against the evils that had expelled them from the old.

As these emigrants loved the Motherland, they desired to remain loyal; as they had learned the advantages of land holdings, each desired to secure his own home; but remembering the past, they sought to provide that the limits of each to live from another’s toil should be narrowed. Not by violating the rights of property “owners,” but by securing the rights of property “creators,” were new ideas popularised.

“But these inheriting world-owners,” said the orator, “as a rule, have a pretty good time, though none of them have been permitted to remain long enough on their particular slice of Oliffa for it to get stale.”

Reluctant to leave Britain, but anxious to pick up some of her wandering children, he closes our mother’s case with this fond caress:—

“While these people of Britain are the salt of the earth, it is the offspring, and not the land-owner, who is to lead in the future social contests.

“Come to think of it, it is not ‘Britain,’ but the ‘Briton,’ that, like Atlas, carries the world on his shoulders; and ’tis the ‘Briton’ who is the ‘salt of the earth,’ while ‘Britain’ is the salt mine.”

“DARKEST AFRICA” FINALLY DISCOVERED.

Oseba then turned his instruments on Africa. He told his audience that while along the fringe of this half-mythical land there were glimpses of a very ancient movement, the vast interior, until almost yesterday, was a veritable terra incognito, and to-day it is not easy to separate the grain of truth concerning its history from the cartload of fiction.

But Britain was now rolling up the sombre curtain, and opening the doors of her fabulous treasure-house that the “grateful” (?) nations might enter and take rooms.

Africa, the sage told his audience, covered one-fifth of the land surface of the outer globe, and had a population of 150,000,000 souls, or more than live in all the Americas and their islands. It has a doubtful history, thousands of years old. It was once so “civilised” that it housed three-hundred Christian Bishops, yet, to-day there is but a small portion—the Cape—that can claim more than a mere introduction to modern civilisation.

The orator informed the people, as he threw a series of pictures on the canvas, that many of the European nations were striving to extend their borders in Africa, and to the sorrow of the natives, they were now being pretty generally “discovered.”

HUMAN RIGHTS.

Oh! sacred rights of man, ordained of God, yet only won by blood, and tears, and toil.