seems to me in its utterances at any rate tainted with humbug. I own that I hate the humbug in England's policy towards weaker races for the sake of all the misery on white and black it brings; and I think as I see you wasting lives and money, sowing debt and difficulties all over West Africa by a hut tax war in Sierra Leone, fighting for the sake of getting a few shillings you have no right to whatsoever out of the African,—who are you that you should point your finger in scorn at my tribe? I as one of that tribe blush for you, from the basis that you are a humbug and not scientific, which, I presume you will agree is not the same thing as my being a philanthropist.
I had the honour of meeting in West Africa an English officer who had previously been doing some fighting in South Africa. He said he "didn't like being a butter-man's nigger butcher." Oh! you're all right here then," I said; "you're out now for Exeter Hall, the plane of civilisation, the plough, and the piano." I will not report his remarks further; likely enough it was the mosquitoes that made him say things, and of course I knew with him, as I know with you, butchery of any sort is not to your liking, though war when it's wanted is; the distinction I draw between them is a hard and fast one. There is just the same difference to my mind between an unnecessary war on an unarmed race and a necessary war on the same race, as there is between killing game that you want to support yourself with or game that is destructive to your interests, and on the other hand the killing of game just to say that you have done it. This will seem a deplorably low view to take, but it is one supported by our history. We have killed down native races in Australasia and America, and it is no use slurring over the fact that we have profited
