Stray Military Papers Classic Reprint

Author : Edward Sullivan
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781331263500
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (635 download)

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Download or read book Stray Shots (Classic Reprint) written by Edward Sullivan and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-12 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Stray Shots "If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to he an Englishman," said a French Minister, with a complimentary how, to an English Minister. "If I were not an Englishman, I should wish to be one," was the blunt reply. Here spoke the pride of race, the proud feeling of superiority, the conviction that England was the greatest nation in the world; that her mission, her motives, her policy were for the good of civilization and of mankind. Pride of race has been the birthright of Englishmen for 300 years, handed down from father to son as a priceless heirloom. For the time it is gone, vanished out of sight. If any of the mighty dead - Chatham, Pitt, Canning, Palmerston, Russell, or even peace-loving Aberdeen - were to revisit the House of Commons, they would scarcely recognise the English breed. They would see defeat, disgrace, humiliation to our arms and our diplomacy, condoned without a murmur, treated with absolute apathy and indifference. They would see a class to whom the glory of the British Empire is a distasteful theme, who look upon it rather as an incubus to be got rid of, who shudder at the strains of, "Rule Britannia," as Mephistopheles shudders at the church bells! They would find the age of patriotism dead, and in its place an age of sophisters, economists, and calculators. If they should inquire what has caused this great wreck of national pride, they will learn that during his Midlothian campaign Mr. Gladstone and his followers set themselves to undo everything that Lord Beaconsfield had done. whether it was working well for the country or not; every stone of the edifice he erected with so much care and forethought was to be destroyed, not because it was working badly for the country, but because it was the work of Lord Beaconsfield. By exaggeration, by inaccuracies, by passion, by insinuation, Mr. Gladstone so distorted the aspect of the Imperial policy of Lord Beaconsfield that the people began to believe that the Empire was a curse rather than a blessing to them; that it existed for the benefit of the rich alone at the expense of the poor; that it was a Tory institution, in which the rest of the community had no share. It is this feeling that has caused the present alarming apathy on all national matters. But this feeling cannot last. A nation cannot change its skin like a snake. It cannot be completely transformed in two years. It may be confused and bewildered by sonorous verbosity, by mock sermons on humanity and national humility, and fancy it has got rid of the old Adam, but it has not. As sure as the sun rises, England will soon awake again, and the awakening may be dangerous. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.