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Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic) and Most Beneficent Achievement (S535ad: 1897)
In my opinion, the most striking characteristic of the Queen's Reign is the continuous growth of ideas of broad Humanity and Justice, as shown in our factory legislation, in checks to injurious manufactures, and in the protection from cruelty of children and animals. We are also beginning to recognise--far too late--that the inferior races have a right to justice and fair treatment as well as ourselves. Though these principles are as yet very imperfectly recognised and but partially carried into action, there seems to be no doubt that they have attained to a force in public opinion far beyond that of any earlier period of our history, and they may be thus said to form a most gratifying characteristic of the present long reign. Among the most beneficent achievements I would rank-- 1) Anæsthetics and the Antiseptic treatment of wounds. (2) The spread of Arbitration in settling international differences; and our reparation of an act of national injustice, by the restoration of the Transvaal to the Boers in 1881.
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