human
Yes, I remember my father saying.
gpt
Yes. And then after reflection,
human
But those coolies, those Chinese coolies. You can't build up an imperial population by importing coolies.
gpt
I don't like that side of the business myself, I said.
human
It's detail.
gpt
Perhaps. But the Liberals will turn you out on it next year. And then start badgering public houses and looting the church.... And then this Tariff talk! Everybody on our side seems to be mixing up the unity of the empire with tariffs. It's a pity. Salisbury wouldn't have stood it. Unity! Unity depends on a common literature and a common language and common ideas and sympathies. It doesn't unite people for them to be forced to trade with each other. Trading isn't friendship. I don't trade with my friends and I don't make friends with my tradesmen. Natural enemies--polite of course but antagonists. Are you keen over this Tariff stuff, Steve?
human
Not a bit, I said.
gpt
That too seems a detail.
human
It doesn't seem to be keeping its place as a detail, said my father.
gpt
Very few men can touch tariffs and not get a little soiled. I hate all this international sharping, all these attempts to get artificial advantages, all this making poor people buy inferior goods dear, in the name of the flag. If it comes to that, damn the flag! Custom-houses are ugly things, Stephen; the dirty side of nationality. Dirty things, ignoble, cross, cunning things.... They wake you up in the small hours and rout over your bags.... An imperial people ought to be an urbane people, a civilizing people--above such petty irritating things. I'd as soon put barbed wire along the footpath across that field where the village children go to school. Or claim that our mushrooms are cultivated. Or prosecute a Sunday-Society Cockney for picking my primroses. Custom-houses indeed! It's Chinese. There are things a Great Country mustn't do, Stephen. A country like ours ought to get along without the manners of a hard-breathing competitive cad.... If it can't I'd rather it didn't get along.... What's the good of a huckster country?--it's like having a wife on the streets. It's no excuse that she brings you money. But since the peace, and that man Chamberlain's visit to Africa, you Imperialists seem to have got this nasty spirit all over you.... The Germans do it, you say!
human
Let _'em_, he said....
gpt
Fancy!--quoting the _Germans_! When I was a boy, there weren't any Germans. They came up after '70. Statecraft from Germany! And statesmen from Birmingham! German silver and Electroplated Empires.... No.
human
It's just a part of our narrow outlook, I answered from the hearthrug, after a pause.
gpt
It's because we're so--limited that everyone is translating the greatness of empire into preferential trading and jealousy of Germany. It's for something bigger than that that I've returned.
human
Those big things come slowly, said my father. And then with a sigh:
gpt
Age after age. They seem at times--to be standing still. Good things go with the bad; bad things come with the good....