In administration, in education,
in police work, the Sirdar[12] and his lieutenants, great and small,
have performed to perfection a task equally important and difficult.
The Government officials, civil and military, who are responsible for
this task, and the Egyptian and Sudanese who have worked with and
under them, and as directed by them, have a claim upon all civilized
mankind which should be heartily admitted. It would be a crime not to
go on with the work, a work which the inhabitants themselves are
helpless to perform, unless under firm and wise guidance from outside.
I have met people who had some doubt as to whether the Sudan would
pay. Personally, I think it probably will. But I may add that, in my
judgment, this fact does not alter the duty of England to stay there.
It is not worth while belonging to a big nation unless the big nation
is willing when the necessity arises to undertake a big task. I feel
about you in the Sudan just as I felt about us in Panama. When we
acquired the right to build the Panama Canal, and entered on the task,
there were worthy people who came to me and said they wondered whether
it would pay. I always answered that it was one of the great world
works which had to be done; that it was our business as a nation to do
it, if we were ready to make good our claim to be treated as a great
world Power; and that as we were unwilling to abandon the claim, no
American worth his salt ought to hesitate about performing the task.
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