with those same sad, earnest eyes, and the same tranquil
mien everlasting."

After the building of the Canal, the command of this short cut to India
made Egypt still more important. England bought shares in the Canal, so
using finance as a means to a political object; and it did so still more
effectively when it used the Egyptian default and the claims of English
bondholders as an excuse for taking its seat in Egypt and sitting there
ever since. The bondholders were certainly benefited, but it is my
belief that they might have whistled for their money until the crack of
doom if it had not been that their claims chimed in with Imperial
policy. It may have been wicked of us to take Egypt, but if so let us
lay the blame on the right doorstep and not abuse the poor bondholder
and financier who only wanted their money and were used as a stalking
horse by the Machiavellis of Downing Street. Mr Brailsford's own account
of the matter, indeed, shows very clearly that policy, and not finance,
ruled the whole transaction.

In South Africa there was no question of default, or of suffering
bondholders. There was a highly prosperous mining industry in a country
that had formerly belonged to us, and had been given back to its Dutch
inhabitants under circumstances which the majority of people in this
country regarded as humiliating. On this occasion even the pretext was
political. It may have been that the English mine-owners thought they
could earn better profits under the British flag than under the rule of
Mr. Kruger, though I am inclined to believe that even in their case
their incentive was chiefly a patriotic desire to repaint in red that
part of the map in which they carried on their business. Certainly their
grievance, as it was put before us at home, was frankly and purely
political. They said they wanted a vote and that Mr. Kruger would not