journalistic sympathy with the men that misrepresent everything that has
happened to the Indian; but of the Victorian virtues, nothing.

All that was right or wrong in Kipling was expressed in the final
convulsion that he almost in person managed to achieve. The nearest that
any honest man can come to the thing called "impartiality" is to confess
that he is partial. I therefore confess that I think this last turn of
the Victorian Age was an unfortunate turn; much on the other side can be
said, and I hope will be said. But about the facts there can be no
question. The Imperialism of Kipling was equally remote from the
Victorian caution and the Victorian idealism: and our subject does quite
seriously end here. The world was full of the trampling of totally new
forces, gold was sighted from far in a sort of cynical romanticism: the
guns opened across Africa; and the great queen died.

* * * * *

Of what will now be the future of so separate and almost secretive an
adventure of the English, the present writer will not permit himself,
even for an instant, to prophesy. The Victorian Age made one or two
mistakes, but they were mistakes that were really useful; that is,
mistakes that were really mistaken. They thought that commerce outside a
country must extend peace: it has certainly often extended war. They
thought that commerce inside a country must certainly promote
prosperity; it has largely promoted poverty. But for them these were
experiments; for us they ought to be lessons. If _we_ continue the
capitalist use of the populace--if _we_ continue the capitalist use of
external arms, it will lie heavy on the living. The dishonour will not
be on the dead.