“Rule Britannia,” or England’s exclusive dominion of the seas, is a temporary (in my opinion, an unfortunate) episode in our history. To brag about it and fight for it is the part of a bad citizen; to maintain it would be a crime against the human race. To have founded, not an empire, but a scattered congeries of possessions in all parts of the world by conquest, intrigue, or arbitrary seizure, is a blot upon our history; to perpetuate it is a burdensome inheritance to bequeath to our children. To ask that this inorganic heap of possessions shall be perpetually extended, made absolutely secure against all comers, and guarded by a fleet which is always ready to meet the world in arms—this is a programme which it is the duty of every good citizen to stamp out. Whilst this savage policy is in vogue, the very conditions of national morality, of peace, of true industrial civilisation are wanting. The first condition of healthy national progress is to have broken for ever with this national buccaneering. The commerce, the property of Englishmen on the seas must protect itself, like that of other nations, by just, prudent, and civilised bearing, and not by an exclusive dominion which other great nations do very well without. The commerce and the honor of Americans are safe all over the world, though their navy is not one-tenth of ours. And Germany can speak with us face to face on every ocean, though she can hardly put a first-rate ship in array of battle. To talk big about refusing to trust the greatness of England to the sufferance of her neighbors is mere clap-trap. It is the phrase of Mexican or Californian desperadoes when they fill their pockets with revolvers and bowie-knives. All but two or three of the greatest nations are obliged, at all times, to trust their existence to the sufferance of their stronger neighbors. And they are just as safe, and quite as proud, and more civilised than their great neighbors in consequence. Human society, whether national or international, only begins when social morality has taken the place of individual violence. Society, for men or nations, cannot be based on the revolver and bowie-knife principle.