Self-government of a simple kind has existed in numberless simple societies, and I shall always think it a horrible responsibility to interfere with it.
But representative government, or theoretically representative government, of an exceedingly complicated kind, may exist in certain complicated societies without their being bound to transfer it to others, or even to admire it for themselves.

At any rate, for good or evil, they have invented it themselves.

And there is a moral distinction, which is perfectly rational and democratic, between such inventions and the self-evident rights which no man can claim to have invented.
If the Arab says to me, "I don't care a curse for Europe; I demand bread," the reproach is to me both true and terrible.

But if he says, "I don't care a curse for Europe; I demand French cookery, Italian confectionery, English audit ale," and so on, I think he is rather an unreasonable Arab.

After all, we invented these things; in _auctore auctoritas_.
And of this problem there is a sort of working model in the presence of the snow in Palestine, especially in the light of the old proverb about the impossibility of snow in Egypt.