The population of the United Kingdom in 1876 was estimated at near
thirty-four millions; in the last few decades the decennial increase had
been considerably over two millions; at that rate the population in 1900
would be near forty millions. How can they live in their narrow limits?
They must emigrate, go for good, or seek employment and means of wealth
in some such vast field as India. Take away India now, and you cut off
the career of hundreds of thousands of young Englishmen, and the hope of
tens of thousands of households.
There is another aspect of the case which it would be unfair to ignore.
Opportunity is the measure of a nation's responsibility. I have no doubt
that Mr. Thomas Hughes spoke for a very respectable portion of Christian
England, in 1861, when he wrote Mr. James Russell Lowell, in a prefatory
note to "Tom Brown at Oxford," these words:
"The great tasks of the world are only laid on the strongest
shoulders. We, who have India to guide and train, who have for our
task the educating of her wretched people into free men, who feel
that the work cannot be shifted from ourselves, and must be done as
God would have it done, at the peril of England's own life, can and
do feel for you.
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