Racial Supremacy I IMPERIALISM: ITS NATURE AND THE RISE AND GROWTH OF MODERN THE advance of Imperialism during the present generation, at first more or less fitful, but very pronounced in the last two decades, is probably the most important sign of the times, and one of ominous political portent. Eight years ago Lord Rosebery uttered some weighty words on the subject, and the fact that his Imperialist instincts have since then developed into a dominant passion, and that he seems to have disregarded his own counsels, gives them added force. For the last twenty years, he intimated, and still more for the last twelve, we had been laying our hands with almost frantic eagerness on every commendable tract of territory adjacent to our own or otherwise desirable; we had during the later period added to our Empire twenty-two areas as large as that of the United Kingdom itself; with the result, first, that we had excited to an almost intolerable degree the envy of other colonising nations, and must reckon, not on their active benevolence, but on their active malevolence; and, secondly, that we had acquired so enormous a mass of territory that it would be years before this undigested empire could be consolidated, filled up, settled, and civilised-the admirable moral which he deduced being that, until this had been accomplished, our foreign policy must inevitably be a policy of peace. 1 The moral, however, has been ignored; and during the period which has elapsed since it was drawn, we have effected the conquest of the Soudan, and have in South Africa, after a long and costly struggle, added to our undigested Empire another area considerably larger than that of the United Kingdompresumably on the principle that we cannot have too much of a good thing. For the prevailing assumption seems to be that empire is a good thing; Lord Rosebery himself apparently did not suggest it was otherwise; he merely uttered a warning against its too rapid extension, and his later pronouncements clearly show that in itself he regards empire with fervent admiration. And for some time past we have had other prominent members of that political party which was supposed especially to stand for freedom and government by consent conspicuously labelling themselves Imperialists, and actively supporting a policy of subjugation and government by force. All this indicates a distinct change in public sentiment within a comparatively recent period; for, 1 Speech at Edinburgh, October 9, 1896. 1 although the British Empire is fairly venerable, we for long had little desire to add to our territory, and even our Colonies were at one time looked upon as burdens. Mr Disraeli, it will be remembered, referred to them as those wretched Colonies which were a millstone round our necks1; and it is a curious illustration of the irony of fate that it should have been reserved for him to have given birth to what may be termed modern Imperialism. It was the Earl of Beaconsfield who added the appellation of the Cæsars to the titles of the Crown; it was under his régime that the great god Jingo became an object of popular adoration; it was he who plunged us into war with Afghanistan to secure a "scientific frontier"; and it was he who first added the Transvaal to the Queen's dominions. In 1880, however, the new spirit received a decided check, owing chiefly to the fact that we had a Gladstone with us then. A born leader of men, with an intensely fascinating personality, and exercising a moral and intellectual influence almost unique, he denounced Imperialism in no unmeasured terms, and preached the equality of nations as a guiding principle of foreign policy; and he carried the vast majority of his countrymen with him. He did not succeed in absolutely crushing the opposing battalions; at times they were too strong even for him, and impelled him on occasions to actions reluctantly taken against his own judgment; but during his reign a much less aggressive spirit prevailed, whilst his subsequent zeal in fighting the cause 1 See Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, by the Right Hon. the Earl of Malmesbury, vol. i. p. 342, London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1884. |