The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1899-01-27
EXPANSION AND LIBERTY.

facts is given in an address just oe-
Iivered by John Morley, the we'll
known British statesman, in which ne
depIored the present tendency to ex>
pansion which is seen in the policy of
England and the United States.
Speaking for England he said that
t'the prevailing spirit of imperialism
must inevitably bring miIitarism, q
gigantic and daily growing expendi-
ture, increased power to aristocrats
and privileged classes, and war." Mr..
Morley is one of the best informed
on matters of history of all the states
men now at the front in England. He
is a typical scholar in politics. More
over, he has been in public for about
a quarter of century, and has thus
had an incentive to study public
questions on their practical side. He
is a radical, too, and must be sup
posed en- that account to be familiar
with the differences in the political
conditions in England between the
present time and the recent and the
remote past. He has overlooked
those differences in this eXigency,
however, for the history of his coun-
try in the past three quarters of a
century proves that there is no such
relation between imperialism and
prerogative as that which he tells.
What Mr.. Morley calls imperialism
has found Its most conspicuous as
sertion as settled policy In England
within the past sixty or seventy years,
and yet no country in the world has
made such advances in liberalism as
England has in that time. When
England in 1888 lost all her Ameri-
can colonies except Canada the world
for time supposed that her power
was ended, and that the fate of
Athens, Rome, Venice and other
states which had once been great,
but which had vanished from the
map of the world, would soon be
hers. But in the wars with Bona
parte shortly afterward she revealed
power and a persisteLcy which she
had not shown before, and immediate
ly afterward she began a career of
expansion which has no parallel in
history. With this territorial expan-
sion an expansion in the rights and
privileges of her people have gone
hand in hand. The franchise act of
1882 added 100000 voters to the
British electorate. The act of 1867
increased the list by about 100000.
The act of 1884 added more than
100000 to the roll. Shortly be-
fore Mr.. Morley was born, or before
1882, only 100000 persons in Eng
land were permitted to vote for
members of the house of commons.
The number which voted in the last
general election was about 6.000,000
Previous to 1882 only one In fifty OF
the inhabitants of the United King.
dom were electors. One in six have
that status today.
The period of England's greatest
expansion, that is to say, is coinci-
dent with an extension of popular
rights and a diffusion of liberty ir
that country such as the world never
saw in any great nation before, fol
the basis of the franchise in the
United States, Notwithstanding The
property qualifications in many Of
the states at the outset, was broad
from the beginning. England, dur
ing the period in which she has ex
tended her rule over Asia, Afric:
and the islands of the sea, has pro-
gressed nearer to Democr acy thai
any other grest nation of ancient O
modern times except the United
States. Lord Derby a little owe
forty years ago advocated the raising
of ''barrier against the current o
that continually increasing and en-
croaching Democratic influence il
this nation which Is bent on throw