Imperial dignity

“ I admitted the nation’s responsibility on the ground of their having supported the Imperial Government and accepted a régime which had the power of plunging them into such a war and in such circumstances. ”

“ These have never known peace and comfort and prosperity until our coming, but are learning ever more keenly to appreciate and to require those advantages. To strengthen the concrete aspirations, to fortify the bodily desires, to elevate the standard of living of those nations entrusted to us, this is, in its material aspect, the imperial office. ”

“ To-day the words 'Empire' and 'Imperialism' fill the place in everyday speech that was once filled by 'Nation' and 'Nationality.' In the never-ending struggle of political principles authority rather than liberty seems for the moment to have the upper hand; power and dominion rather than freedom and independence are the ideas that appeal to the imagination of the masses; men's thoughts are turned outward rather than inward; the national ideal has given place to the Imperial. ”

“ But if the Imperial ideal were only an appeal to the lust of conquest, it would not possess the immense attraction it now possesses for the best minds of our generation. It is not the mere glorification of conquest and dominion as compared with internal improvement; it is not the mere preference of power to freedom; it is not the enemy of nationality and liberty. ”

“ Almost unaided, the Motherland, not for herself alone, but for us as well, is sustaining the burden of a vital Imperial duty, and confronting an overmastering necessity of national existence. Bringing the best assistance that we may in the urgency of the moment, we come thus to her aid in token of our determination to protect and ensure the safety and integrity of this Empire, and of our resolve to defend on sea as well as on land our flag, our honour, and our heritage. ”

“ What is birth in a whole nation composed of upstarts? Who can name ancestors, shew privileges, or have pretensions, in a monarchy which has not yet existed a century? The imperial favour, then, free from every obstacle, falls sometimes upon elevated heads, sometimes upon those that are grovelling in the dust. ”

“ Yet I can not but admit, however reluctantly, that there is some force in the arguments with which you support that course, based as they are upon your special and personal relation to that portion of the controversy which deals with Colonial preference. You have done more than any man, living or dead, to bring home to the citizens of the Empire the consciousness of Imperial obligation, and the interdependence between the various fragments into which the Empire is geographically divided. ”

“ Is it strange that, penetrated and nerved with the high motives to be derived from these solemn considerations, the American people are prepared to accept the responsibilities of the great occasion, and even to wade through blood for the realization of the grandeur of those human hopes which are now intrusted to their keeping? One nation—one government—one universal freedom within those imperial boundaries which have heretofore been the theatre of our glorious achievements as a people! ”

“ I need not urge this upon you, my people, who are, I believe, deeply conscious of the benefits which have come to us from a strong and unselfish Imperial government. It is our desire that this power should be strengthened rather than weakened, and set on a broader rather than a narrower basis. ”

“ National honor is an artifice for defending a claim to superiority and concealing an actual inferiority, and it relates to values which, in general, do not exist. Its work is concerned with the maintenance of prestige.
These ideal values and the integrity of the appearance of supremacy, are sustained by the assumption of the forms of empire or the imperialistic attitude. Empire is indeed what is dramatized in the forms which nations assume, and this dramatization of imperial form is the background of all the ideas of honor. ”

“ At the centre, to pursue our examination, we have the nation to whose political genius the Empire owes its existence—a nation renowned, apart from its other achievements, as the parent of free government wherever it exists, and as having carried it in her own case to perhaps its highest pitch of perfection. ”

“ If you think you can best serve the interests of Imperial unity, for which you have done so much, by pressing your views on Colonial preference with the freedom which is possible in an independent position, but is hardly compatible with office, how can I criticise your determination? ”

“ Once more on this old earth of ours is witnessed the spectacle of a vast people stirred by one ideal impulse, prepared for all sacrifices for that ideal, prepared to face war, and the outcry of a misunderstanding or envious antagonism. Whither is this impulse to be directed? What minister or parliament is to dare the responsibility of turning this movement, this great and spontaneous movement, to this people's salvation, to this Empire's high purposes? How shall its bounds be made secure against encroachment, its own shores from coalesced foes? ”

“ To invite this imperial race, this, the greatest commercial nation in the world, the nation that has taught the world in the principles of self-government and liberty—to invite this nation itself to sign a decree that declares itself unfit to govern itself without the guardianship of such people, that is an insult which I hope will be thrown back with ignominy. ”

“ The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Imperial German Government left us no self-respecting choice but to take up arms in defense of our rights as a free people and of our honor as a sovereign government. ”

“ An added solemnity invests the resolutions of senates, and the prayer on the battlefield, "Through death to life," acquires a sincerity more moving and a simplicity more heroic. And these, I imagine, will be the results of Imperialism and of this deepening consciousness of its destiny in Imperial Britain, whether in war which is the act of the State as a whole, or in the career of the soldier which receives its consummation there in the death on the battlefield. ”

“ But in the faith, the undying faith, that it, and it alone, can perform the fate-appointed task, dwells the virtue of every imperial race that History knows. How shall any empire, any state, conscious of its destiny, imitate the self-effacement prescribed to the individual—"In honour preferring one another"? ”

“ Like the power to make war, peace and treaties, and to establish uniform weights and measures, it is called regalia, because it belongs to and must be exercised alone by sovereign states, as a prerogative which is necessary to their welfare, and essential to their autonomy, dignity and authority. ”

“ The imperial power must contend against all the ancient prejudices of our old Europe: it must centralise, as far as possible, all the powers of the State in the hands of one person, in order to destroy the abuses which the feudal and communal franchises have served to perpetuate. ”

“ Being thus convinced of the impossibility of being any longer enabled to fulfil the duties of our imperial functions, we owe it to our principles and our duty, to renounce a crown which was only valuable in our eyes whilst we were able to enjoy the confidence of the electors, princes, and other states of our Germanic empire, and to perform the duties which were imposed upon us. ”

“ Modern Dahomey and Russia, as well as ancient Peru, Egypt, and Sparta, exemplify that owning of the individual by the state in life, liberty, and goods, which is proper to a social system adapted for war. And, that, with changes further fitting a society for warlike activities, there spread throughout it an officialism, a dictation, and a superintendence, akin to those under which the soldiery lives, we are shown by imperial Rome, by imperial Germany, and by England since its late aggressive activities. ”

“ Among the Allies, the two chief Imperial Powers, measured by the extent of territory they control, are Britain and France, and each of these is more completely prepared to-day than ever it has been before to consider its imperial possessions as a trust for their inhabitants and for mankind, and its position in the more fertile and less settled regions of the world as that of a mandatory and trustee. These admissions involve a plain prospect and promise of the ultimate release and liberation of all the peoples in these great and variegated Empires to complete world-citizenship. ”

“ The imperial house seeks to extend its power. Those vast designs of conquests, which the sire Has gloriously begun, the son will end. This petty nation is a stumbling-block— One way or other it must be subjected. ”

“ Four main motives can be perceived at work in all the imperial activities of the European peoples during the last four centuries. The first, and perhaps the most potent, has been the spirit of national pride, seeking to express itself in the establishment of its dominion over less highly organised peoples. In the exultation which follows the achievement of national unity each of the nation-states in turn, if the circumstances were at all favourable, has been tempted to impose its power upon its neighbours, [2] or even to seek the mastery of the world. ”

“ The question is not for crowned heads and imperial dynasties; not for diplomats with their balance of power, a balance that a touch may upset; but for the peoples, left entirely free to choose the modes and forms of government which they prefer. ”

“ In truth, the measures Your Imperial Majesty has taken for the increase of civilization, and especially for the moral culture of your people, call for the praise and approval of all who desire the welfare of nations and that interchange of benefits which are the natural fruit of a more refined culture,—the more so that, with greater moral polish, the minds of men are more fitted to imbibe wisdom and to embrace the light of truth. ”

“ At the same time, I would beg to call the attention of your Imperial Roundness to the fact that, in the systems of law of all the nations of the globe, a man may not be held responsible for an act which he is made to commit by a force or strength greater than his own.”
I saw that my flattery was telling upon King Bô-gôô-gôô, so I proceeded to make a still further application of the same remedy:
“However, most Royal Globe and perfect Sphere of Strength and Beauty, if, in thy great wisdom, thou dost decide that we must die, crushed beneath the weight of thy people’s bodies, so be it! ”

“ The Ten Commandments are in one sense 'imperial.' Now, I think the word as used in the phrase British Empire has, in the most modern and best sense, quite a different savour or flavour from that of Napoleon's Empire, or the Turkish or Mahommedan Empires of the past. It has come to mean the 'Dominion of Freedom' or the 'Reign of Liberty,' rather than the giving of despotic or tyrannical or oligarchic commands. In fact, our Imperialism is freedom for all races and peoples who choose to accept it, whilst Boer Republicanism is the exact opposite. How strangely words change their weight and value! ”

“ Our Imperial Ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue; Our subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and herein also lies the source of Our education. Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious, as friends true ”

“ We, the Successor to the prosperous Throne of Our Predecessors, do humbly and solemnly swear to the Imperial Founder of Our House and to Our other Imperial Ancestors that, in pursuance of a great policy co-extensive with the Heavens and with the Earth, We shall maintain and secure from decline the ancient form of government. ”

“ We are persisting in governing the country in direct opposition to the wishes of the people as expressed through their representatives, in refusing to recognise what is, in my opinion, the first principle of Imperial Government, viz., the right of each part of the Empire to manage its own local affairs. ”

“ But being, as I am, thus uncompromising, and quite prepared to find myself unpopular, on these vital questions of national security, and of our Imperial duties and responsibilities, I can perhaps afford to say, without being suspected of fawning or of wishing to play the demagogue myself, that in the matter of domestic reform I am not easy to frighten, and that I have a very great trust in the essential fair-mindedness and good sense of the great body of my fellow countrymen with regard to questions which come within their own direct cognisance. ”

“ But what does all this come to, gentlemen? It comes to this, that you are increasing your engagements without increasing your strength; and if you increase engagements without increasing strength, you diminish strength, you abolish strength; you really reduce the empire and do not increase it. You render it less capable of performing its duties; you render it an inheritance less precious to hand on to future generations.
My fifth principle is this, gentlemen: to acknowledge the equal rights of all nations. You may sympathize with one nation more than another. ”

“ In language of mingled firmness and courtesy he proceeded to point out how impossible the constant shiftings of the imperial policy made it for his government to establish any permanent hold on the good will of the English people. ”

“ Peaceful succession in accord with the people's will has replaced the forcible seizure of power permitted by the people's indifference. Loyalty to country, its peace, its dignity, its honor, has arisen above partizanship for individual leaders. ”

“ At this moment Englishmen are engaged in the earnest endeavour to prove that popular government in Great Britain is compatible with the maintenance of Imperial power and Imperial peace. What may be the issue of this effort to combine honest democracy with sane Imperialism no prophet is daring enough to foretell. Yet upon its success may well depend the fate of popular government throughout the civilized world. ”