Imperialist

“ The most impressive thing in his book is the analysis of imperialist forces, the sense he conveys of the vast sweep of the great modern populations in their push toward subsistence. He searches honestly for ‘antidotes to imperialism’ and has no smug ‘liberal’ illusions about the beneficence of a ‘liberal’ imperialism. ”

“ The Imperialist effort OFFENSIVELY, AGGRESSIVELY and VIOLENTLY tending to the continuous and unmeasured expansion of a Sovereign Power, with the objective of universal domination by all possible means, however unjust, immoral and savage they may be, is a most guilty effort deserving the severest condemnation. Such is the German autocratic Imperialism. ”

“ And so there is created the bond between imperialism and opportunism, which has revealed itself first and most clearly in England, thanks to the fact that certain characteristics of imperialist development have been observable much sooner than in other countries. ”

“ We hear, in these days, a good deal about imperialism in politics. We are encouraged to teach this imperialism to our children, and the argument advanced in support of the advice is that the learning of the lesson will have influence on the way in which the scholar will perform the humblest tasks awaiting him in life. The Imperialist, it is said, will find himself saved by his imperialism from sordid views and actions, from all temptation to make small personal ends the measure of his service as the days go by. ”

“ There is the depopulation of the countryside, and the influx of foreign paupers into our already overcrowded towns. There is the undermining of old-established and valuable British industries by unfair foreign competition. That is not an exhaustive list, but it is sufficient to illustrate my meaning. Well, wherever these and similar evils are eating away the health and independence of our working people, there the foundations of the Empire are being undermined, for it is the race that makes the Empire. Loud is the call to every true Unionist, to every true Imperialist, to come to the rescue. ”

“ Although she had herself taken a hand in the imperialist activities of the 'nineties, the general attitude of her citizens towards the imperial controversies of Europe was one of contempt or undiscriminating condemnation. Her old tradition of isolation from the affairs of Europe was still very strong—still the dominating factor in her policy. She had not yet grasped (indeed, who, in any country, had?) the political consequences of the new era of world-economy into which we have passed. ”

“ It is impossible at the present day for any political thinkers to do what Sir Henry Maine did at the beginning of the Imperialist reaction, and speak of change as a phenomenon peculiar to Western Europe and of a stationary condition as the general rule. ”

“ It is to be noted that as soon as the ordinary Imperialist gets anywhere near the solution of an imperial question he gets unconsciously on to the Socialist track, as for instance in the growing demand for the imperialisation of our great carrying lines. ”

“ IMPERIALISM Excess of insularity makes a Briton an Imperialist. Excess of local self-assertion makes a colonist an Imperialist. A colonial Imperialist is one who raises colonial troops, equips a colonial squadron, claims a Federal Parliament sending its measures to the Throne instead of to the Colonial Office, and, being finally brought by this means into insoluble conflict with the insular British Imperialist, “cuts the painter” and breaks up the Empire. ”

“ Fashionable Imperialism not only has no ideas of its own to extend; but such ideas as it has are actually borrowed from the brown and black peoples to whom it seeks to extend them. The Crusading kings and knights might be represented as seeking to spread Western ideas in the East. But all that our Imperialist aristocrats could do would be to spread Eastern ideas in the East. ”

“ Taking for granted that the present economical conditions of the universe, likely to intensify, are working for great political organisations, from the causes previously explained, any intelligent observer could not fail to see that for the last century four great imperialist evolutions have been concurrently—or rather simultaneously—developing themselves; they were the British, the Teutonic, the Russian, the Republican in the United States. ”

“ State—for plenty of smaller, weaker nationalities have long been exploited and enslaved by most of the so-called Great Powers. The imperialist war is just a scramble for more division and repartition of the same kind of booty. ”

“ They have been so few, and the development of their own Colony has taxed their energies so fully, that they have had no time as yet to dream of Empire.
Yet—and here comes the seeming paradox—they are Imperialists; not Imperialists in the sense of men whose vision is to dominate inferior races, rule subject territory, and maintain powerful fleets and armies with which to assert mastery, nor is any very large share of their time and attention devoted to Imperial politics. ”

“ The rowdy bravoes of the Imperialist flotilla being unacquainted with the principles of military honour, seemed to believe that their sole mission was to kill, burn, and destroy; as for extending mercy to those who were unable to resist their appliances of modern warfare, or treating the vanquished with magnanimity, they never entertained such ideas. ”

“ She has persuaded herself that she has a monopoly of power, of wisdom, and of knowledge, and deserves to rule the earth. Of the magnitude and far-reaching nature of her imperialist ambitions, we have said something in a previous chapter. ”

“ If the entire imperialistic process could be directed by one omniscient individual, representing the interest of all industrial and agricultural countries, the progress of imperialism would be regular, rapid and easy. ”

“ It is this dim mystic conception, this sense of an identification of a man's small personality with a vast Imperium, that inspires the democracies, which year by year vote supplies for imperialistic ventures, far-sighted or absurd. Though this idealism is partly the expression of an unrecognised economic need, yet for the most part, though perhaps decreasingly, the average citizen looks at imperialism as a sort of aura to his beloved nation, and the conceptions {149} of national prestige and of imperialistic dominion fuse. ”

“ Even he who did not realize at the outset that the world war, in its causes, was purely imperialistic, cannot fail to see after a dispassionate view of its effects that war, under the present conditions, automatically and inevitably develops into a process of world division. ”

“ There is much that is removed from the merely covetous in the ambitions of statesmen to extend their country's dominion over alien peoples and territory, and in the imperialistic impulses of nations from which statesmen derive the necessary support for their actions. ”

“ The abnormal growth of national-imperialism, in particular, wrought fatal havoc. The exponents of imperialistic propagandas like Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism put forth literally boundless pretensions, planning the domination of the entire planet by their special brand of national-imperialism. ”

“ The imperialistic tendency that, at the beginning of hostilities, may have been existent only in embryo, will shoot up and expand in the hothouse atmosphere of war until they will in a short time, determine its character, its aims and its results. ”

“ Though we are still upon the whole anti-imperialistic, voices already are raised in favour of a vigorous imperialistic policy. "The imperialism of the American," writes one defender of a policy of indefinite expansion, "is a duty and credit to humanity. ”

“ They are precipitated and evolved by statesmen, whose actions are propelled in part by nationalistic impulses, and in part by personal ambitions—by the will-to-power. The driving force behind them is essentially imperialistic, the desire for national dominion and world-power. ”

“ There is a still deeper antagonism to these imperialistic ventures. From the beginning, the dominant classes in societies which are developing towards democracy have used foreign adventure to allay domestic discontent and to oppose democratic progress. ”

“ Imperialists often speak of the Empire as if it consisted entirely of self-governing dominions of white men. In fact, by far the greater part of it is governed despotically, and consists of countries where white men cannot make permanent settlements. This part of the Empire the Liberal regards from two points of view. ”

“ While the number and moral power of the Ti-pings increased together, those of the Imperialists as rapidly declined; their extortion and cruelty driving numbers of the people to the ranks of the insurgents. ”

“ The steady deterioration which has taken place in the ideals of Imperialism has already been indicated. Its moral failure is due simply to the fact that the object of expansion was never in any case moral. Incidentally, as in India, Egypt, and Nigeria, an enlightened bureaucracy has avoided the blunders of exploitation and oppression. ”

“ Considering that the Imperialists had vastly superior numbers, and, moreover, held the whole of the revenue, and completely surrounded the insurgents upon every side, the greatly superior organization and courage of the Ti-pings is sufficiently proved by the fact that they were able to compete with their more advantageously situated enemy so successfully. ”

“ Now, the Imperialism of the hour is in one sense only the expression of this shifting of interest from the internal problems of Europe to the outward expansion of her influence; and if we are to believe its enemies, who will admit the possibility of no Imperialism but the Imperialism of conquest, it is that in its worst form, and nothing more. ”

“ The spectacle of German Imperialism, boastful, selfish, narrow, and altogether hateful, in its terrible blood-dance through Europe, has been an object-lesson to humanity against excesses of national vanity and national egotism and against Imperial pride. ”

“ There are two sides to all great questions. But whether or not we can settle with the light of modern knowledge such a point as this, I look upon the defence of imperialism in itself, in preference to constitutional government with all its imperfections, as an outrage on the whole progress of modern civilization, and on whatever remains of dignity and intelligence among the people. ”

“ However wholesome the effects of Imperialism may be elsewhere, its continual tendency in this country during all these years has been nothing else but an attempt to force our national life and national character into foreign grooves ”

“ On the contrary, we shall then refine that imperialism, into a common wealth of nations which will combine, if they do, for the purpose of giving their best to the world and of protecting, not by brute force but by self-suffering, the weaker nations or races of the earth. ”

“ Instead of being Little Englanders, they were all through their lives the advocates of a sane but ardent Imperialism. They loved their country, and they believed in it—believed in it not only as the foremost nation of the earth, but as a great instrument for good among the peoples of the world. ”

“ Every nation to a greater or less extent has an imperialism of its own, and whether it be military, financial, feudal, republican, social, or intellectual, it is always the octopus sucking the best blood of Europe. ”

“ But it is also true that I have dwelt on this Imperialism that is an amiable delusion partly in order to show how different it is from the deeper, more sinister and yet more persuasive thing that I have been forced to call Imperialism for the convenience of this chapter. In order to get to the root of this evil and quite un-English Imperialism we must cast back and begin anew with a more general discussion of the first needs of human intercourse. ”

“ That form of Imperialism was not associated with a policy of aggrandisement, but was associated with the policy that would tend to promote the peace of the world, and the prosperity and the betterment of humanity generally. ”

“ The forces of America are the forces of Empire,—the geography, the economic organization, the racial qualities—all press in the direction of imperialism. There is logic [Pg 165] behind the two centuries of conquest in which the American people have been engaged; there is logic in the rise of the plutocracy. Now it remains for the rulers of America to accept the implications of imperialism,—to thrill with the will to power; to recognize and strengthen imperial purpose; to sell imperialism to the American people—in other words to follow the call of manifest destiny and conquer the earth. ”

“ An Imperial policy must, of course, be carried out with reasonable prudence, and the principles of government which guide our relations with whatsoever races are brought under our control must be politically and economically sound and morally defensible. This is, in fact, the keystone of the Imperial arch. The main justification of Imperialism is to be found in the use which is made of the Imperial power. If we make a good use of our power, we may face the future without fear that we shall be overtaken by the Nemesis which attended Roman misrule. ”

“ The conception of a rich and powerful race extending the blessings of order, good government, and industrial enterprise into the backward parts of the earth for the universal benefit of all mankind is a magnificent conception. But if it ever was Imperialism it is not the Imperialism of to-day. ”

“ Imperialism within limits defined by common sense and the Ten Commandments is a very different thing from the blatant Jingoism which some years ago made the very name of empire stink in the nostrils of all decent people. ”

“ Here, then, I lay it down that Imperialism, of which petrifacts such as the Egyptian empire, the Roman, the Chinese, the Indian may continue to exist for hundreds or thousands of years—dead bodies, amorphous and dispirited masses of men, scrap-material from a great history—is to be taken as the typical symbol of the passing away. Imperialism is Civilization unadulterated. 37In this phenomenal form the destiny of the West is now irrevocably set. The energy of culture-man is directed inwards, that of civilization-man outwards. ”