attempt will be made to deal with the principles which should guide the
government of a people imbued with the teaching of the New Testament,
but rather with the subordinate, but still highly important question of
the treatment which a people, presumed to be already imbued with that
teaching, should accord to subject races who are ignorant or irreceptive
of its precepts. From this point of view it may be said that
Christianity, far from being an explosive force, is not merely a
powerful ally. It is an ally without whose assistance continued success
is unattainable. Although dictates of worldly prudence and opportunism
are alone sufficient to ensure the rejection of a policy of official
proselytism, it is none the less true that the code of Christian
morality is the only sure foundation on which the whole of our vast
Imperial fabric can be built if it is to be durable. The stability of
our rule depends to a great extent upon whether the forces acting in
favour of applying the Christian code of morality to subject races are
capable of overcoming those moving in a somewhat opposite direction. We
are inclined to think that our Teutonic veracity and gravity, our
national conscientiousness, our British spirit of fair play, to use the
cant phrase of the day, our free institutions, and our press--which,
although it occasionally shows unpleasant symptoms of sinking beneath
the yoke of special and not highly reputable interests, is still greatly
superior in tone to that of any other nation--are sufficient guarantees
against relapse into the morass of political immorality which
characterised the relations between nation and nation, and notably
between the strong and the weak, even so late as the eighteenth
century.[4] It is to be hoped and believed that, for the time being,
this contention is well founded, but what assurance is there--if the
Book which embodies the code of Christian morality may without
irreverence be quoted--that "that which is done is that which shall be
done"?[5] That is the crucial question.