soldiery. To arm and drill these men would be a tempting policy, not altogether lost sight of by those who are exhibiting such interest in Morocco and other parts of those territories.
Yet when all is said, and all allowance is made for the importance of our African dominion, Asia must be the touchstone of our greatness still. For us, Asia dominates Africa, or, more accurately, is linked with it. If, for instance, we can be friends with our 70,000,000 of Mohammedan Asiatics, these can whisper in our favour from Eastern Bengal to Lucknow, from Lucknow across the Indus, until their goodwill journeys to Cairo and the heart of Africa. For though the staff of the Prophet is bent, it is not broken. As he wished it in his last sermon, there is a brotherhood in Islam.
Of the tremendous and even terrible importance to us of Asia, we seem to try not to think. Some eighty years ago, Macaulay said that three pitched battles in India were less accounted of here than a broken head in Coldbath Fields. Later, Dalhousie wrote that scarcely anything could rouse even a transient interest in Indian affairs. And, to-day, Lord Curzon confesses that "the indictment still remains true." So we attempt to forget that India is one-fifth of the human species, and that we are sponsors for the external safety, internal order, contentment, and prosperity of it all.
Indeed, our future there is even compromised by the slight acquaintance of Englishmen with
