Low Countries

“ Low Countries must have, traditionally, regarded their former tyrants, that so few traces of their dominion or their presence should now be discernible in the country which they so long blasted with their presence. ”

“ The Tract of Land, which we usually call the Low-Countries, was so wasted by the Invasions or Marches of this raging People, (who past by them to greater Conquests,) that the Inhabitants grew thin; and being secure of nothing they possest, fell to seek the support of their Lives, rather by hunting, or by violence, than by Labour and Industry ”

“ There in the Low Countries our worst trouble was that the home government never backed us as they should, and more than once we felt we were forgot and neglected; but in the warfare we have to wage here in the wilderness we can never fear that. ”

“ In the Low Countries, as in Germany, the middle class, a sedate and somewhat dull people, restricted to their own narrow circle and attached to ancient usages, preserve much better than court-seigniors the faith and the fervor of the middle ages: Their literature bears witness to this. ”

“ The independence of the Low Countries was a European question. The maritime conquests concerned England alone. Were Britons to shelve their own interests for a question of international import? The statesman who does so will not long hold the reins at Westminster. Besides, no device for weakening France was deemed more effective than that of seizing her wealthiest group of colonies. ”

“ The Low-countries appear to have afforded ample room for ridicule at all times. In "A brief Character of the Low-countries under the States, being Three Weeks Observation of the Vices and Virtues of the Inhabitants, written by Owen Felltham, and printed Lond. ”

“ Whole countries are laid waste by only the passing of an immense army: houses are defaced, furniture broken to pieces, the stores of families eaten up, cornfields trodden down, fences torn away and used for fuel, and everything swept in its train as with the besom of destruction more terrible to the inhabitants than the storms of heaven when sent in judgment. ”

“ We are simply making it possible for less fine politicians to do anything they like. I don’t pretend to be an educated woman, but I have a slight understanding of human nature and a positive nose for politics and politicians. Political education should begin with the A B C of politics. It should begin right down low, and for many of us it should begin right now. We have here one of the greatest countries in the world—it’s a country which differs from any country in Europe, not only on account of its size and nature and [82] natural resources, but because of its hopefulness. ”

“ They come not only from our hemisphere and from our neighborhood here in the Caribbean but also from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, from countries as diverse as Israel and Poland, Belgium and Bangladesh, countries with problems of their own, economic problems, political problems, even security problems. ”

“ Without affirming or denying, that the actual practice of Europe with regard to their colonies is injurious to the mother countries, I may be permitted to doubt whether a mother country may not sometimes be benefited by the restraints to which she subjects her colonial possessions. ”

“ But the European who measures the unpreparedness of the nation in the terms of the unpreparedness of his own, or any other European, country, not taking into account the colonial character of the population, the alertness and audacity of the national mind, the resourcefulness and confident self-reliance of the people, is likely to fall into error. ”

“ Now, in the first place, a country where the population is not crowded, where the resources of the soil are more than sufficient for the inhabitants,—a country of recent origin, not burdened with the worn-out institutions and clumsy lumber of past ages,—ought not to be satisfied to do only as well as countries which have to struggle against all these evils. ”

“ It is therefore essential that the continent should have a constant policy, based upon the study of the problems which are raised by the facts of race, just as there is an agrarian policy in Russia, a protectionist policy in Germany, and a free-trade policy in England. ”

“ Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those countries may grow stronger, or those of Europe may grow weaker; and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at that equality of courage and force which, by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe the injustice of independent nations into some sort of respect for the rights of one another. ”

“ Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West. ”

“ Even France, the most narrowly European in interest of European countries, has yet her Algeria, her Tunis, her Tonquin. Spain has Cuba and the Philippines. Holland has Java. Germany is burdening herself with the unborn troubles of a Hinterland. And as for England, she staggers on still under the increasing load of India, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, the West Indies, Fiji, New Guinea, North Borneo—all of them rife with endless race-questions, all pregnant with difficulties. ”

“ This planetary structure, with Europe as the center of wealth, power, art, science, free business enterprise and wage slavery, progress and poverty, left the majority of mankind living as dependents and colonials. ”

“ No fears of our country driving into neighboring countries such immense resources as emanate from the peculiar labor of these people; but when worst comes to worst, they have among them educated freemen of their own color North, fully competent to lead the way, by making negotiations with foreign states on this continent, which would only be too ready to receive them and theirs. ”

“ Our experiment on this continent was intended to be something more than the creation of a nation on the old pattern, that should become big and strong, and rich and luxurious, divided into classes of the very wealthy and the very poor, of the enlightened and the illiterate. It was intended to be a nation in which the welfare of the people is the supreme object, and whatever its show among nations it fails if it does not become this. ”

“ From Brazil to South Africa, from Turkey to South Korea, from India to Indonesia, people of different races, religions, and traditions have lifted millions out of poverty, while respecting the rights of their citizens and meeting their responsibilities as nations. ”

“ Such a policy is intolerable under modern conditions when both population and capital pass frontiers in normal times with insignificant difficulties and do so in response to invitation and even solicitation by foreign countries and their citizens.
All around the world the problems of the weak states promise to hold the front of international attention during the coming decade. ”

“ With the filling up to the full limit of the remaining territories suitable for European occupation, and the growing pressure of population therein, it may be expected that the inexpediency of allowing a great extent of territory in the richest region of the globe—that comprised within the tropics—to remain undeveloped, with its resources running largely to waste under the management of races of low social efficiency, will be brought home with ever-growing force to the minds of the Western (Northern) peoples. ”

“ All countries are not equally rich and fertile, do not possess equally favourable geographical locations or equally good neighbours—so it is natural that the smaller, less rich states and nations (whether by nature or by their degree of economic and cultural development) cannot afford to their citizens all the advantages which may be found in the richer and larger states. But where is it written that all nations must be equally rich or that they must be equal in general? ”

“ The soil of the European continent is too poor, wages too small, hours too long, and distaste for the military and caste systems too great, to tempt those who have tasted the equality and the freedom of America. ”

“ At this period of imperfect policy, accidental circumstances alone could determine distant states to afford one another a mutual support. The differences of government, of laws, of language, of manners, and of character, which hitherto had kept whole nations and countries as it were insulated, and raised a lasting barrier between them, rendered one state insensible to the distresses of another, save where national jealousy could indulge a malicious joy at the reverses of a rival. ”

“ The various countries of the world naturally fall into groups. The nations of western Europe, such as France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Sweden and Norway, fall into a group with Great Britain as creditor nations, while Canada, Australasia and the South American countries fall into a group with the United States as undeveloped and indebted countries, So also of other countries, each belongs naturally to one group or another. ”

“ The map, which now is crowded with the names of cities where red men roamed in terra incognita so recently as the beginning of this century, should reprove any incredulity. The nations are like water. When a country is filled above its capacity, its surplus overflows. ”

“ Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, possibly Russia, will soon have such footholds in Africa as, whatever else may occur, will tend to the development of century-paralyzed resources.
What other superior races have done, and are doing, for the government and uplifting of the inferior races, which, from treaty or conquest, have been placed under their responsible jurisdiction, may help in the solution of our problem. ”

“ If a great country benefits every time it annexes a province, and her people are the richer for the widened territory, the small nations ought to be immeasurably poorer than the great, instead [Pg 48] of which, by every test which you like to apply—public credit, amounts in savings banks, standard of living, social progress, general well-being—citizens of small States are, other things being equal, as well off as, or better off than, the citizens of great States. ”

“ Will the present movement of the nations of Europe toward the East result in good by introducing into these lands the blessings of our civilization? or shall we, as blind instruments of boundless ambition, come hither as a scourge to add to their present miseries? Here are millions of unhappy creatures in great poverty in the midst of the richest and most fertile region imaginable, bowing shamefully under a servile yoke, made viler by despotism and the most barbarous customs, living and dying in utter ignorance of the only true God! ”

“ Can the American worker profit by that experience? Can he realize that he is living in a country whose rulers have adopted an imperial policy that threatens the peace of the world? Can he see that the pursuit of this policy means war, famine, disease, misery and death to millions in other countries as well as to the millions at home? The workers of Europe have learned the lesson by bitter experience. Is not the American worker wise enough to profit by their example? ”

“ It’s not always so easy to take what you feel is the right way in any country, but here I am—a proof to all countries that England and America will give you a chance if you can prove to either of them that what you are striving for is something which will hurt no man, woman, or child of any country, but which you earnestly feel is going to help all countries. ”

“ The rest being equal, the government under which, without external aids, without naturalisation or colonies, the citizens increase and multiply most, is beyond question the best. The government under which a people wanes and diminishes is the worst. ”

“ We require (or, at least, our people believe, rightly or wrongly, that we require) wider territorial scope for our growth than we possess in our own country and in our colonies. We require, too, an assurance of greater security as to the conditions of our national existence and our economic development. ”

“ The second of these causes is that when the representatives of more backward countries, representing a lower standard of living and of industrial demands, have once begun to come, the members of more advanced races cease coming. They are unwilling to take up residence in a country where they must enter into competition with their inferiors, and where all will be classed together by the natives. ”

“ The conduct of some of the European states during our troubles shows the lack of conscience of communities where the responsibility does not come upon a single individual. Seeing a nation that extended from ocean to ocean, embracing the better part of a continent, growing as we were growing in population, wealth and intelligence, the European nations thought it would be well to give us a check. ”

“ At present, that the Nations scattered over the Face of the Earth are better united by Trade, Travelling, and Conquest, and their Manners and Customs grow every Day more and more like each other in Consequence of a more frequent Intercourse, certain national Differences are greatly diminished. ”

“ Isolated, occupying an ill-favored country, it was circumstances, rather than any inherent incapacity for improvement, that held these poor people in their low state; for, as we shall see at some future time, in their intercourse with civilized foreigners, they were not lacking in cunning, diplomacy, selfishness, and other aids to intellectual progress. ”

“ The eighteenth coolly and deliberately set Europe at the task of depopulating whole districts of western Africa, and of transporting the captives, by a necessarily brutal, vicious and horrible traffic, to the new civilization of America. ”