text:  We shall pursue our task to its completion before we proceed to draw and sum up those conclusions which must follow from the premises established before we enter in order upon the analysis and dissection of the one absolute principle or theory by which in the conceit of certain sage travellers on the royal railroad to wisdom eager for the end and impatient of the toil of thinking the economical destinies of all nations should be cut carved and adjusted _secundum artem_ with mathematical precision and uniformity according to the rule invariable of robber Procrustes the ancient founder of the sect who constructed a bed--that is a system of certain proportions of size--that is upon a certain principle--upon which he laid his victims; those found too short to fit the dimensions of the pallet he stretched and tortured into the length required; those too long he fitted by decapitating the superabundance of head and shoulders or by squaring off the legs and feet; just as economists would sever nations with their invariable system; just as with their selfish and one-sided sordid idea the junta of Leaguers rule and plummet in hand would deal with the British empire with its vast possessions in every clime on which the sun never sets peopled by races numerous and diverse of origin as of interests multifarious complicated often conflicting