Extracts from Addresses 339
than that which has been committed to us. We have come to consider
with you how the institutions of higher learning, on both sides of the
Atlantic, may devise and use the most effective means of welding the
minds of these two peoples together. For we think, and you also, I am
sure, think with us, that, provided the two great English-speaking nations,
America and Britain, stand shoulder to shoulder in their reverence for
just dealing between the nations and the freedom of the people, it is as
certain as anything human can be, that such a world-war as that which
has just been held back, shall come no more. No, nor any worse war:
for the wars of the future, if they do come, will be worse—as the nations
grow in might and—some of them—in ruthlessness.
It seems to me that virtually the responsibility for the peace of the
world rests first of all on these two peoples—rests in virtue of their en-
dowments. We have our own defects, I do not doubt, which are more
clear to others than to ourselves. But we have this precedence—there
are no nations who have so intimate and directly practical a sense of
their obligations as rulers; none which find it so easy and natural a
duty to rule for the sake of the ruled. Respect for the rights of sub-
ordinate peoples was taught and learnt both by America and Britain
during the War of Independence; or should I say that it was taught
over again and learnt more fully? For, as you know, there were lovers
of liberty, who valued liberty for others as well as for themselves, both
in America and in Britain before the time when some of them struggled
in England and all struggled here against the stupidity of George the
Third. In your dealings with the Philippines you are continuing a tra-
dition to which Britain had been far more faithful than any political
rival in this workaday world of ours. You are ruling there for the
sake of the natives. You are not only respecting their independence, but
nursing them, so far as you can, into your own heritage of liberty and
of its right use.
We set no low value upon the form which civilization has taken in
our national traditions, laws, institutions and customs; but we have not
allowed our pride to degenerate into political stupidity: we have not
tried to force these things upon other nations, as the Germans have done.
Dealing with more primitive peoples, we have, so far as possible, tried
to make use of and sought to develop every grain of good that their own
habits and customs and beliefs and traditions might have. We know
that to be the way to their good, and also that the way to our own good
is through theirs. We crush no harmless native institution, we uproot
no creed, insult no ritual that implies reverence for that which is clean
and upright; and our reward has been very great. I believe that this
difference of policy, and difference of national temperament which it