and Lorraine because of the strategic and economic importance of those
regions to Germany, and he was arguing that before we English got into
such a feverish state of indignation about that, we should first ask
ourselves what we were doing in Gibraltar, etc., etc. That is a
different thing altogether. And it is an argument that is not to be
disposed of by misrepresentation. The British have to think hard over
this quite legitimate German _tu quoque_. It is no good getting into a
patriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question. We British
people are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we
discharge our imperial responsibilities, we have been so trained in
imperial self-satisfaction, we know so certainly that all our subject
nations call us blessed, that it is a little difficult for us to see
just how the fact that we are, for example, so deeply rooted in Egypt
looks to an outside intelligence. Of course the German imperialist idea
is a wicked and aggressive idea, as Lord Robert Cecil has explained;
they want to set up all over the earth coaling stations and strategic
points, _on the pattern of ours._ Well, they argue, we are only trying
to do what you British have done. If we are not to do so--because it is
aggression and so on and so on--is not the time ripe for you to make
some concessions to the public opinion of the world? That is the German
argument. Either, they say, tolerate this idea of a Germany with
advantageous posts and possessions round and about the earth, or
reconsider your own position.

Well, at the risk of rousing much patriotic wrath, I must admit that I
think we _have_ to reconsider our position. Our argument is that in
India, Egypt, Africa and elsewhere, we stand for order and civilization,
we are the trustees of freedom, the agents of knowledge and efficiency.
On the whole the record of British rule is a pretty respectable one; I
am not ashamed of our record. Nevertheless _the case is altering_.