And yet the motives which we have enumerated are plainly atavistic and pathological.  They belong to a mental condition which would conduct an individual to the prison or the gallows.  We do not argue seriously whether the career of the highwayman or burglar is legitimate and desirable; and it is impossible to maintain that what is disgraceful for the individual is creditable for the state.  And apart from the consideration that predatory patriotism deforms its own idol and makes it hateful in the eyes of the world, subsequent history has fully confirmed the moral instinct of the ancient Greeks, that national insolence or injustice (hybrist) brings its own severe punishment.  The imaginary dialogue which Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Athenian and Melian envoys, and the debate in the Athenian Assembly about the punishment of revolted Mitylene, are intended to prepare the reader for the tragic fate of the Sicilian expedition.  The same writer describes the break-up of all social morality during the civil war in words which seem to herald the destruction not only of Athens but of Greek freedom.  Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ shows how history can repeat itself, reiterating its lesson that a nation which gives itself to immoral aggrandisement is far on the road to disintegration.  Seneca’s rebuke to his slave-holding countrymen, ’Can you complain that you have been robbed of the liberty which you have yourselves abolished in your own homes?’ applies equally to nations which have enslaved or exploited the inhabitants of subject lands.  If the Roman Empire had a long and glorious life, it was because its methods were liberal, by the standard of ancient times.  In so far as Rome abused her power, she suffered the doom of all tyrants.

The illusions of imperialism have been made clearer than ever by the course of modern history.  Attempts to destroy a nationality by overthrowing its government, proscribing its language, and maltreating its citizens, are never successful.  The experiment has been tried with great thoroughness in Poland; and the Poles are now more of a nation than they were under the oppressive feudal system which existed before the partitions.  Our own empire would be a ludicrous failure if it were any part of our ambition to Anglicise other races.  The only English parts of the empire were waste lands which we have peopled with our own emigrants.  We hauled down the French flag in Canada, with the result that Eastern Canada is now the only flourishing French colony, and the only part of the world where the French race increases rapidly.  We have helped the Dutch to multiply with almost equal rapidity in South Africa.  We have added several millions to the native population of Egypt, and over a hundred millions to the population of India.  Similarly, the Americans have made Cuba for the first time a really Spanish island, by driving out its incompetent Spanish governors and so attracting immigrants from Spain.  On the whole, in imperialism nothing fails like success.  If the conqueror oppresses his subjects, they will become fanatical patriots, and sooner or later have their revenge; if he treats them well, and ‘governs them for their good,’ they will multiply faster than their rulers, till they claim their independence.  The Englishman now says, ‘I am quite content to have it so’; but that is not the old imperialism.