THE CHARACTER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
NOTE.The following essay is based mainly upon a book by the same author entitled "The Expansion of Europe," in which an attempt is made to estimate the part played by various nations in extending the civilisation of Europe over the whole world. A few references are therefore given to the fuller treatment of various aspects of the subject contained in the book.
I
Nearly all the great self-governing nations of the world are now combined in a desperate struggle against the scarcely-veiled military despotism of the Central European Powers, and the object of the struggle has been well denned by President Wilson as the securing of freedom for democracy, so that it shall be safe from the threats of militarist and conquering empires.
In the forefront of the group of States engaged in the defence of democracy stands the British Empire, the greatest dominion that has ever existed in history, which covers a quarter of the earth's surface, and in which a quarter of the earth's population is subject (at any rate, in form) to the rule of two small European islands.
The very existence of this huge Empire seems to many people to stultify in some degree the cause for which the world's democracies are fighting. It seems, at first sight, to be simply the greatest example of that spirit of conquest and of military dominion against which we are striving. This is the view taken by some neutrals. "Imperialism is the enemy," says one Swiss writer; "whatever form it takes, German or Russian, British or French, it is equally the foe of free government." The Germans themselves make great play with this notion. They describe the British Empire as a vast, greedy tyranny, built up by fraud. They invite us to free the oppressed millions of India before we talk hypocritically about liberty. They assert that the naval supremacy of Britain is far more dangerous to the freedom of the world than the military power of Germany could ever be. Some people even in the allied countries are affected by doubts of this kind. The Russian Socialists, for whom imperialism has in the past meant nothing but a hideous repression of freedom, are ready to assume that the British Empire, because it is called an empire, must mean the same ugly things. And criticism of the same kind can sometimes be heard in France, in Italy, in the United States, and in Britain herself.
Our purpose, in this short paper, is to examine the truth of these superficial impressions. But before we do so there are two preliminary observations worth making.
The first is that men's minds are extraordinarily easily influenced by mere words. The word "Empire" suggests, to many, conquest and dominion over unwilling subjects. In so far as it does so, it begs the question. As we shall try to show, this word is really misapplied to the British realms. The character of their government and of the bond which holds them together would be much better expressed by a phrase which is now being widely used in Britainthe British Commonwealth of Nations. Of course, that title also begs the question in a way. But the reader is asked, at the outset, to keep in his mind, while he reads, the question, "Is the title 'Empire,' or the title 'Commonwealth of Nations,' the truer description of this extraordinary aggregate of lands and peoples?"
The second preliminary observation which we shall make is, that there are certain outstanding features of the war which must have thrown a striking light upon the character of the British Empire.
Over a million volunteer soldiers have come from the great self-governing Colonies of the British Empire without any compulsion being imposed upon them. The princes and peoples of India have vied with one another in their generous and spontaneous gifts to the cause, while Indian forces have fought gallantly in all parts of the world, and at the same time India has been almost denuded of British troops. That is not the sort of thing which happens when the masters of a tyrannical dominion find themselves fighting for their very life. Apart from the unhappy troubles in Ireland (which were the work of a small minority) and the rebellion in South Africa (which was promptly put down by the South African Dutch themselves), there has been no serious disturbance in all the vast realms of this Empire during the three years' strain of war. Even the most recently subdued of African tribes have shown no desire to seize this opportunity for throwing off "the foreign yoke." On the contrary, they have sent touching gifts, and offers of aid, and expressions of good-will. It appears, then, that the subjects of this "Empire" have, for the most part, no quarrel with its government, but are well content that it should survive.
II
The creation of the British Empire has been simply a part (though, perhaps, the greatest part) of that outpouring of the European peoples which has, during the last four centuries, brought the whole world under the influence of western civilisation. That is a great achievement, and it has brought in sight the establishment of a real world-order. It is merely foolish to condemn the "lust of conquest" which has driven the European peoples to subdue the rest of the world, though, of course, we ought to condemn the cruelties and injustices by which it has sometimes been accompanied. But without it North and South America, Australia, and South Africa would have remained deserts, inhabited by scattered bands of savages. Without it India would have been sentenced to the eternal continuance of the sterile and fruitless wars between despotic conquerors which made up her history until the British power was established. Without it the backward peoples of the earth would have stagnated for ever in the barbarism in which they have remained since the beginning. The "imperialism" of the European nations has brought great results to the world. It has made possible that unification of the political and economic interests of the whole globe which we see beginning to-day. It is one of the fine aspects of this grim and horrible war that it affects the interests of the whole world, and that the whole world knows this.
The giant's part which has been played by Britain in the conquest of the world by Western civilisation, and the peculiar character of her work, have been due to two thingsBritish institutions and the British Navy.
It ought never to be forgotten that down to the nineteenth century (that is, during all the earlier part of the process of European expansion) Britain was the only one of the greater European States which possessed self-governing institutions. She has been, in truth (this is not a boast, but a mere statement of indisputable historical fact), the inventor of political liberty on the scale of the great nation-state, as Greece was the inventor of political liberty on the scale of the little city-state. And wherever free institutions exist to-day, they have been derived from Britain, either by inheritance, as in America and the self-governing British colonies, or by imitation, as in all other cases.
When the outpouring of Europe into the rest of the world began, the British peoples alone had the habit and instinct of self-government in their very blood and bones. And the result was that, wherever they went, they carried self-government with them. Every colony of British settlers, from the very first, was endowed with self-governing institutions.
