The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-31
SEATTLE. SATURDAY,. OCT. 81.
THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.

The comments Of the British press, and
especially those of the London Times, on
the Chilean difficulty are characteristic.
With the peculiar tone, at once patron
izing and moralizing, with which English
newspapers usually discuss American
affairs, the Times declares that 1t would be
altogether unbecoming for a nation so
great and so strong as the United States
10 exact satisfaction from one so weak and
50 beset with difficulties as is Chile. The
United States, the Times blandly declares,
is strong enough to be magnanimous and
cannot afford to go to war with a country
weaker than itself.
The force of such an admonition from
such q source is not apparent when 1t Is
remembered that the military history of
Great Britain since the accession of Queen
Victoria is story of almost continuous
warfare waged against weak and compare
lively defenseless peoples. From China
to the Transyaal republic, from the irri-
waddy to the Red river of the North,
Great Britain has waged war wherever
and whenever it seemed to be to its COM
mercial interest to do so. Since Waterloo,
the British government has waged only
petty warfare and it has waged it only
where weakness seemed to invite attack.
From the infamous OPIUM War to the
conquest of Burmah there has been no
pause in the aggressive march of the Brit
ish army.
Queen Victoria was scarcely seated on
the throne, when her government entered
upon war against China for the sole pur-
pose of compelling that country to permit
the opium traffic against the wishes of its
government and its people. A more infa-
nous, a more uniustihable war was never
undertaken by civilized people. A more
gross infraction of the rights of nations, a
more unjust use of strength against weak
ness, is unknown to modern history.
This war, however, was but an indica-
ton of what the foreign policy of Great
Britain was to be. Since its close that ma
ton has waged war against almost every
defensless people whose misfortune it has
been to dwell upon the borders of a British
colony. Chinese, Ashantese, Burmese,
Egyptians, Arabs, Abyssinians, Beers
Zulus, Maoris and Indians have alike felt
the heavy hand of British aggression. The
government which goaded the peace-lov-
ing Beers to war did not hesitate to crush
Egypt, when, for the first time in more
than 1000 years, the sparks of genuine
national spirit began to glow amid its
darkness. II has been the same under
Gladstone as under Palmerston. As China
was Frustrated TO make a market for In
dian opium, the Egyptian uprising under
Arab Pasha was crushed because British
money-lenders feared that it might en-
danger the payment of the interest on
Egyptian bonds. Wherever English mer-
camille interests have seemed to demand
war, war has been waged.
# is needless to add that in all Of these
petty struggles the British government
has hsd the enthusiastic support of the
British press, and especially of the Lon
don Times. In view Of these facts the
criticisms passed by British journals upon
the government of the United States for
resentng insult and injury at the hands Of
a Chilean mob. are strangely inconsistent.
According to the British doctrine appar-
emily, the strong should never fight the
weak unless the strong happens 10 be
Great Britain.