Imperial examination

“ If war then be a permanent factor in the life of States, how, it may be asked, will it be affected by Imperialism and by such an ideal as this of Imperial Britain? The effects upon war, will, I should say, be somewhat of this nature. It will greaten and exalt the character of war. Not only in constitutional, but in foreign politics, the roots of the present lie deep in the past. In the wars of an imperial State the ideals of all the wars of the past still live, adding a fuller life to the life of the present. ”

“ Some extra-smart people shout at us: “You talk of imperialism! Nonsense! Where is your Emperor?” Why, what intelligent person does not know that it does not require a personal monarch to make an imperial government? Rome had an imperial government in her Senate long before Cæsar crossed the Rubicon. It may be the rule of a Republic over another people, arbitrary and irresponsible to the governed, and it will be an imperial government in its essence, however you may disguise the fact. ”

“ May our fellow-countrymen out yonder be firmly convinced that, no matter what their situation, be they priests or merchants, the protection of the German Empire will be extended to them with all possible energy by means of the warships of the Imperial fleet. And should any one ever infringe our just rights strike him with your mailed fist! If God so will He shall bind about your young brow laurels of which none, throughout all Germany, shall be jealous! ”

“ Italy fattening upon the unholy spoils wrested from effete Turkey, Russia recreating the armies and navies annihilated by Japan, Germany increasing her military forces to hitherto unheard of proportions, France answering her neighbor’s challenge by raising her enlistment period for citizens from two to three years, England insisting on a five-Dreadnoughts-a-year basis, and her colonies building ships for the imperial navy! ”

“ The progress of the people in science and art, in politics and military strength, was only seen in the larger secular territories, which, after 1648, enjoyed their own sovereignty; and even these were checked in their movements at every step by the remnants of the Imperial Constitution. The Members of the Empire alone, in whom the decaying remains of Mediæval existence still lingered on--the Ecclesiastical Princes--the small Counts--the Imperial Knights and the Imperial Towns,--clung to the Emperor and the Imperial Diet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The greater and necessarily prior problems of founding an assured empire and of framing the essential principles upon which it was to be regulated engrossed the thought and force of expansionists and overshadowed administration. The planting of new and the conquest of foreign colonies, the incorporation of new and the strengthening of old trading companies, the passage of the acts of trade, and the attendant wars with the Dutch are the notable events which bear witness to the emergence of England as an imperial power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Imperial power means sea power, and sea power and imperial power are so interdependent that the one cannot exist without the other.
As a token of this imperial sea power the squadron which has been strengthened by your division must now take its place, with all the comrades of the foreign fleet out there in close relationship and on good terms of friendship, but for the purpose of protecting our particular interests against every one who might be tempted to intrude upon the right of the Germans. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every aspect of policy affecting the conduct of the war and the question of peace has been examined by the Prime Ministers of the Empire and other members representative of all its parts.
'These meetings have proved of such value that the Imperial War Cabinet have thought it essential that certain modifications should be made in the existing channels of communication, so as to make consultation between the various Governments of the Empire in regard to Imperial policy as continuous and intimate as possible. ”

“ At his side is the imperial chancery, a body of officials who, in turn, have to do in each department with the affairs of the whole empire. The imperial court, too, in spite of all its limitations, is none the less a court for the whole empire. Not less clearly is the territorial unity expressed in the unity of legislation. In the circumstances in which we left the old empire there could scarcely be any question any longer of real imperial legislation. ”

“ The conception of the Nation is the clue to the solution of all the problems with which the people of Great Britain are confronted. They are those of foreign and imperial policy, of defence national and imperial, of education and of social life.
Foreign and imperial policy include all affairs external to Great Britain, the relations of Great Britain to Europe, to India, to the Colonies, and to the Powers of Asia and America. In all these external affairs the question to be asked is, what is Britain's duty? ”

“ There is only one way out of the difficulty—that is, to find the material basis of our defence policy, not in the United Kingdom, but in the British Empire. At present that Empire is unorganized and undeveloped; but if we can unite its scattered components, and develop its vast territories and immense natural resources, then we may hope to build up an industrial power, and to create a population fully capable of providing for the needs of Imperial policy without fainting beneath the burden. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We see a world practically divided between a few great States—the six so-called great Powers of Europe, the American Republic, and Japan, the Asiatic Power which has sprung like Pallas Athene in the full panoply of war, and in the foil vigour of mature nationality, into the circle of the European nations. We see these eight great Powers endeavouring to group themselves by alliances into a smaller number of systems, so that at the present moment they may be reckoned as four, and not as eight—the United States, England and Japan, the Dual Alliance, and the Triple Alliance. ”

“ Closely connected with the internal change in the Empire have been the changes in its external surroundings, which have again made the question of defence vital, and through the aspect of defence have helped on the movement for unity. Europe took much longer to recover from the great crisis of the Napoleonic? wars than England. A constant series of conflicts between the different States, and between the different classes in those States, retarded their economic development. ”

“ He stressed the danger that the nationhood of England should be absorbed and lost in the Imperial idea. The claim that in an empire the various races could learn much from one another he considered a bit of special pleading on the part of Imperialists. ”

“ On that reserve a nation interested in its military security, and aware of the means necessary to secure it, will be able to draw to whatever extent is necessary. How the Empire can be defended without that reserve against nations that possess it is a question that we are bound to ask ourselves, and to which there can only be one answer. ”

“ When our economic system has so developed that it will be impossible, in most cases, for an outside Power to interfere with English interests without at the same time interfering with Colonial or Indian interests, then we may hope to enlist the serious and permanent attention of the Colonies in the problems of Imperial Defence. What applies to the general policy of the Foreign Office applies no less to the details of its departmental work. ”

“ They all contribute handsomely to the cost of Imperial defence, and, though they are all exceedingly prosperous, an immense proportion of their populations are Asiatics—as peaceful, loyal, and law-abiding subjects of the Crown as are to be found in other parts of the Empire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A series of successful military and naval operations led to the treaties with China of 1842. The arts and appliances of modern warfare—the civilization of a powerful western nation—were directed against armies and defenses which represented the unimproved strategy of the middle ages, [2] and against regions pacific in their social organization, yet disordered, and even dislocated by internecine dissensions, which the enfeebled imperial authority was wholly incompetent to subdue or to control. ”

“ It is to be observed in reference to this interesting aspect of imperial development, that the multiplication and cheapening of channels of communication and means of travel throughout the empire will tend to modify the future accentuation of race difference, while the variety of elements in the vast area occupied should have an important, though as yet not scientifically traced, effect upon the British imperial type. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Heretofore, the nearest approach to a universal state has been an empire like that of Egypt or Rome built by conquest and maintained by military authority exercised by the imperial nucleus over its associated and subordinated territories. The universal state described above would be an association of sovereign states, each delegating a sufficient measure of its sovereignty to enable the World Federation to act as a responsible planet-wide government. ”

“ ART. VIII — Those territories of the empire and of the Austrian states, which are found within the line of demarcation of the French army, are under the safeguard of honour and good faith. Private property and existing governments shall be respected, and none of the inhabitants of these countries shall be disturbed, either for services rendered to the Imperial army, or for political opinions, or for having taken an active part in the war. ”

“ During the Napoleonic wars Germany, as every one knows, was, generally speaking, in the grip of the French Imperial power. To follow the vicissitudes and fluctuations of fortune throughout Central Europe during these years lies outside our present purpose. ”

“ Provided that neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every assurance would be given to the British Government that the Imperial Government aimed at no territorial acquisitions at the expense of France, should they prove victorious in any war that might ensue. ”

“ What was said of Canada and India a little earlier in the present article is equally applicable to the Empire as a whole. The economic development of the Empire, the increasing of its efficient population, and the raising of the efficiency of its less efficient population, are the really wider problems of Imperial Defence, It is only by enlarging the material basis that the burden of defence can really be made lighter, and prevented from weighing unduly on the other elements of the national life, and hampering their full development. ”

“ The heart of the matter lies in the transformation of mediaeval patriotism into modern imperialism, in the evolution or development which out of the Englishman of the earlier centuries has produced the Englishman of the present, moved by other and higher political ends. Is there any incident or series of incidents in our history, of magnitude enough profoundly to affect the national consciousness, to which we may look for the causes, or for the formative spirit, of this change? ”