Charles Prestwood Lucas

“ If the native element is insignificant, the community approaches more and more nearly to a colony proper.
The position, which the natives hold, depends partly on themselves, partly on the incoming people. Their own breed may be physically weak, incapable of amalgamating, and, when brought into contact with a higher race, doomed to stand still if not to decay. Such seems to be the case with the North American Indians. Or they may be a strong breed, like the negro or Chinese, holding their own with the white man, even if they do not adapt themselves to his civilisation. ”

“ The British Isles stand out, as the westernmost spur of Europe, on the way to the New World. Their position at first sight is not equally favourable to commerce with the East ; but it must be borne in mind that throughout modern history the trade and colonisation of the far East and far West have been closely bound up together. ”

“ The struggle between Spain and Holland was a struggle between Latin and Teuton, between absolutism and democracy, between Roman Catholic and Protestant, between continental Imperialism and a people who sought for trade not for empire, who looked to the sea not to the land, and who represented the rise of the middle class in the modern social system, as opposed to the old monarchy, church, and aristocracy. ”

“ Humanity to criminals is akin to humanity to slaves; but, as has been shown, transportation in the abstract cannot be considered to be, like slavery, essentially contrary to right and justice. Its immorality consists in the attendant circumstances and in the consequences which have been found by experience to flow from it: and it is chiefly, if not only, in England that a strong antipathy to the system has grown up.
As the slavery question in the main touched one group of colonies only, viz. the West Indies, so the transportation question affected one group only, viz. the Australian colonies. ”

“ A fighting, ruthless, and fanatical people, having vanquished the heathen at home, they were prepared to carry their conquests into other lands. At the end of the fifteenth century, the spirit of adventure, the desire of gold, and the crusading impulse all combined to stimulate and influence the Spanish mind : and the strong and ambitious government of Spain was only too ready to sanction schemes of annexation and conquest, hoping by such means to increase the prestige of the country, to add to its material resources, and so to make it the leading power of the world. ”

“ The chief event of the century however in the field of colonisation was the founding of the United States, the greatest colony, or series of colonies, which has ever been planted by a single people at one period of their history. ”

“ But as a means of making men outwardly honest, of converting vagabonds most useless in one hemisphere into active citizens of another, and thus giving birth to a new and splendid country, a grand centre of civilisation, it has succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history." And if any regular system of transportation to English colonies can now no longer be defended, little can be said against the humanity of sending out child-criminals, under due precautions, not to undergo penal sentences abroad, but to try and start a new life away from their old and bad associations. ”

“ In these Asiatic dependencies, far more than in any other part of the world, the English have been called to the task of governing native races. To speak of British colonisation in this quarter of the globe is really a misuse of terms: the climate is not for the English breed, and the waste places of the earth are not to be found in the East Indies. The Englishman came to Asia, and has held his ground in Asia, not as a settler, but as a merchant, a conqueror, and a ruler. ”

“ But it would be foolish to disguise the fact that, as years go on, generations must spring up who in a sense know not Joseph ; a race of men to whom England will be the land of their fathers but not of themselves; who will find in Australia alone an ever-widening sphere for their ambitions, and an evergrowing stimulus to their interests ; and in whose minds
the sentiment for what is past and for what is distant will be weakened by the ties and the realities of the present. ”

“ The Romans in ancient, the English in modern times stand out above all peoples for having built up and maintained a great empire of Colonies and dependencies. There was little power of assimilation in the Romans, and there is little in the English; but in the character of both nations might be traced a strong leaning to system, a strong love of justice and law, and some idea of governing for the sake of the governed. ”

“ A man who lives at the end of the telegraph wire, and within reach of the House of Commons, cannot think and act for himself as much as one who is cut off from the home government and is practically his own master: and now that each colony and dependency is brought into close connexion with the mother country, it is difficult to suppose that the class of men will yet be found in office, who, great alike in their merits and in their failings, built up the English Empire. ”

“ There have thus been nearly three centuries during which the English have been engaged in colonising, and a study of the manner in which the colonial possessions of Great Britain have been acquired will show that each century of colonisation has had a distinct character of its own. Any such comparison however can be only of the most general kind ; for in tracing the origin of the English colonies it is often difficult, and sometimes almost impossible, to decide how much should be attributed to cession or conquest and how much to settlement ”

“ ENGLAND closes the list of great colonising nations, for the Danes and Swedes hardly stand in the first rank as . colonisers: the Germans have sent out their emigrants to be the subjects of foreign governments, and have as yet formed but few and unimportant colonial dependencies of their own: and the expansion of the Russian power, though parallel to that of the Roman, is not as a rule regarded in the light of colonisation.
The great success of the English, at once in planting colonies and in retaining them when planted, must be mainly attributed to the character of the country and the race. ”

“ The connexion between religion and colonisation is a subject of the greatest historical interest; but only a few illustrations can here be given, to show how powerful the religious motive has been, and in what different ways it has operated.
Colonisation includes exploration, conquest, and settlement: at each of these three stages religion has played an all-important part. It was the desire to promote the Christian faith, which stirred up the father of modern exploration, Prince Henry of Portugal, to send expeditions to search out the African coast. ”

“ As compared with the Greeks, the Carthaginians had some idea of keeping together a series of colonies and dependencies, and of forming a dominion : and, being practical men of business, they knew in their best days where to stop, and were not carried away by vague lust of conquest. But as compared with the Romans they failed to grow out of a city into an empire, and from first to last they followed an exclusive and oppressive policy to their subjects and colonists. ”

“ If the proper aim of a nation is simply to own so many square miles of the earth's surface, there is no redeeming side to this failure. But if a people should look rather to leavening the world, and to building up strong and wholesome communities, then the loss of the United States was in a sense a gain. As far as can be judged, they have prospered in independence, at least as much as would have been the case if they bad retained their allegiance to the English crown ”

“ Their legacies to the world have been the law, which they formulated and administered, and the roads, radiating out from Rome to all quarters of the world, by which they overcame the difficulties of communication, and kept their provinces together.
They held their dependencies partly by their garrisons, partly by their policy and good government: for when compared not only with other ancient peoples, but also with the nations of Western Europe down to very recent
times, it must be allowed that they governed well. ”

“ They were perpetually served by great statesmen and soldiers at home and abroad, but the fruits of the greatness and foresight were as perpetually lost.
The successive failures of the French are attributed by historians to the bad policy and mismanagement of their rulers: and though every nation must be held responsible for the kind of government which it produces or to which it submits, yet it is true that the history of France beyond that of any other country can be read aright only by constantly distinguishing between the people and the government. ”

“ And as different temperatures suit different races, so, to take the case of a single colonising people, it is this element of climate, which has mainly determined what kinds of colonies or dependencies have been formed in various quarters of the world.
A nation may explore or conquer in any climate, but it can make its home in some climates only, not in others. An Englishman's constitution may be able to stand a voyage to the North Pole on the one hand, or an expedition into the heart of the Soudan on the other ”

“ Again there is a further contrast to be noticed. In the seventeenth century the world was younger and less explored than in our own time, and the colonies which were then planted were not so much extensions one of another as separate unconnected settlements. During the present century, on the contrary, colonisation has perforce taken more the form of expansion of existing settlements, or of the absorption of conterminous land : an absorption, which in Canada and Australia has been a more or less peaceful process, but which in India and South Africa has been accompanied by
constant wars. ”

“ All the great colonising peoples, in the ordinary sense of the word, except perhaps the Phoenicians, have had some conquering instinct in them. Even the Greeks, who formed isolated settlements rather than colonial empires, and who were utterly weakened by subdivision into small states, showed by their history—a history of constantly successful struggle against overwhelmingly larger numbers of barbarian foes—that they knew how to fight and conquer if not how to govern. ”

“ Again, as it would seem, the contention of the supporters of Imperial Federation implies that the English Empire should be exclusive as against the rest of the world. The noblest hopes for the future of the globe are directed to breaking down as far as possible the barriers between nations and races, whereas an English confederation, even if it included, as it is to be hoped it would include, the United States, would probably intensify the opposition between the Anglo-Saxon and other races. ”

“ The government of the empire too has been entirely revolutionised by science. Where there is governing to be done, it is done to a far greater extent from home, and in a far more methodical and systematic way than in old times ; while at the same time public opinion, both at home and in the colonies, is brought to bear on all foreign and colonial questions to a degree which was once unknown. ”

“ The most noticeable point in the foreign and colonial history of the French is that they have constantly been on the point of carrying all before them, and yet, on each occasion, have broken down just at the last from what at first sight appear to be almost accidental causes. Under Louis XIV, and under the great Napoleon, they were all but masters of Europe. In the eighteenth century they nearly held America and nearly conquered India. ”

“ Englishmen in England are among equals: they are no better and no worse than their neighbours of the same breed and colour. In the East, on the contrary, they are recognised by the natives as a ruling caste; they are expected to command, and find that they are implicitly obeyed. Under such circumstances it is impossible that a consciousness of physical and moral superiority should not breed a certain amount of arrogance, and that the Englishman in India should not be more overbearing than he is at home. ”