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Section 3 of Imperialism and World Politics, Part 1 of 4 By Parker Thomas Moon This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Alistair Chapter 3a

Why Europe Shouldered the White Man's Burden Subsection The Logic of Economic Necessity Europe was converted to imperialism not by logic alone, nor by economic necessity alone, but by a combination of argument and interest arising from an almost revolutionary alteration

of economic and political conditions the old order the good old mid-victorian order had passed away and if not a new heaven at least a new earth was seen by the keen eye of business and politics first consider the alteration of economic conditions four signal changes appear and the first of these is the waning of the comfortable supremacy which English cotton mills and iron works had achieved by the inventions of the Industrial Revolution. As long as other nations

worked with their hands, while Englishmen worked with machines and steam, England was secure from serious competition, and other nations were slow to install machinery. For approximately three quarters of the 19th century, English industry was as mighty as Gulliver in Lilliput. Even as late as 1870, Great Britain was smelting half the world's iron, and more than three times as much as any other nation. She was making almost half the world's cotton goods. Her foreign commerce

was more than twice that of any rival. But during the last quarter of the century, the industries of Germany, the United States, France and other powers, after a long period of infancy, suddenly waxed mighty. England's share of the iron industry diminished with startling rapidity until, before the close of the century, United States had won first place and Germany was about to forge ahead of England into second place. The following table tells the story. Table ends at about three minutes

in 35 seconds. Production of pig iron in thousands of tons. 1870. Production in the United Kingdom. 5,960. Production in the United States. 1,670. Production in Germany. 1,390. 1896. Production in the United Kingdom, 8,660. Production in the United States, 8,623. Production in Germany, 6,260. 1897. Production in the United Kingdom, 8,796. Production in the United States, 9,653. production in Germany

6760 1903 production in the United Kingdom 8935 production in the United States

18,009 production in Germany 9860 end of table even more important

and this needs emphasis then the absolute volume of production is the rate of increase, because a high rate means reinvestment of surplus profits in the industry, whereas a low rate means either that the profits will be low and work slack, or else that profits must seek other opportunities for investment. From this point of view, the figures are startling. During the period 1870-1903,

the period of the great outburst of imperialism. The British ironmasters were able to expand their business by a meagre 50%, as compared with the 966% for their aggressive American competitors and 609% for the Germans. Though Great Britain's monopolistic grip on the cotton industry seemed more secure, American and German, not to speak of other foreign competition,

began to make itself very uncomfortably felt in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The following table shows the percentage increase in 10-year periods. Table ends about 5 minutes and 35 seconds. Percentage increase in the cotton industry. 1870 to 1880.

Percentage increase in Great Britain. 19. Percentage increase in the United States. 90. Percentage increase in the continent of Europe, 33. 1880-1890

Percentage increase in Great Britain, 18. Percentage increase in the United States, 42. Percentage increase in the continent of Europe, 53. 1890-1900 Percentage increase in Great Britain, 3. Percentage increase in the United States, 50. Percentage increase in the continent of Europe 25. End of table. Export trade tells the same tale. In the three decades from 1870 to 1900,

while American exports were almost quadrupled and German exports doubled, English exporters increased their business by only 45%. While American captains of industry were accumulating fabulous fortunes, in England the pace was on the whole much slower. This fact is particularly impressive for England's two major export industries, iron and cotton goods. In the former, the exports of iron and steel during the decade of the 80s were slightly less than in the 70s.

For expansion, the British iron industry had to rely wholly on domestic consumption, and that increased only by 41%. Cotton exports in the 90s stood at almost the same figure as in the late 70s. Here again, Great Britain failed to secure her share in the growth of the world market and, as the table on the preceding page shows, the domestic market did not afford compensation. This situation meant cutthroat competition. Each of the great industrial

nations was making more cloth, more iron and steel, or more of some other manufacture than its own inhabitants could possibly consume. Each had a surplus which must be sold abroad. Surplus manufacturers called for foreign markets, but none of the great industrial nations was willing to be a market for the other's surplus, at least in major competitive fields. All except Great Britain built around themselves forbidding tariff walls. United States solicitous for

infant industries, took the lead in establishing a protective tariff during and after the Civil War, and raised it still higher in 1890 and 1897. Russia built up her tariff by degrees from 1877 onward. Germany began the erection of her tariff wall in 1879, France in 1881, and other countries followed the lead. Businessmen and statesmen were not slow to take alarm. A French Prime Minister, Jules Ferry, described the situation in 1885 clearly enough.

What our great industries lack, what they lack more and more, is markets. Why? Because Germany is covering herself with barriers. Because beyond the ocean, the United States of America have become protectionist, and protectionist to an extreme degree. There appeared, however, one bright ray of hope, one solution, colonies. How earnestly the rulers of Europe in the 80s and 90s viewed this situation, and how hopefully they sought to acquire colonies

whose markets could be monopolised by the mother country's industries, cannot fail to impress any reader of political debates and imperialistic literature of the period. I cannot forbear to add one more quotation from The Rise of Our East African Empire, 1893, by Sir Frederick Lugard, who was at the time an influential advocate of imperialism, as well as an administrator most active in securing new domains for his country. As long as our policy is one of free trade,

we are compelled to seek new markets, for old ones are being closed to us by hostile tariffs, and our great dependencies, which formerly were consumers of our goods, are now becoming our commercial rivals. It is inherent in a great colonial and commercial empire like ours that we go forward or backward. We are accountable to posterity that opportunities which now present themselves of extending the sphere of our industrial enterprise are not neglected,

for the opportunities now offered will never recur again. Surplus manufactures, then, provided the chief economic cause of the imperialist expansion of Europe in the last quarter of the 19th century. Footnote, the tendency of some writers to ascribe imperialism wholly or chiefly to capital investment is unhistorical. Footnote ends, And surplus manufactures still provide an incentive to imperialism,

though other factors have surpassed this one in importance. Colonies today proved a market for one-fourth, perhaps more, of the manufactures exported by industrial nations. And colonial markets are growing more rapidly than all other markets. Nations owning colonies are striving to monopolise their trade by means of tariff barriers.

Even Great Britain, strong as the British tradition of free trade may be, has in the last few years quietly introduced into a number of the British Crown colonies tariffs giving British goods a preference over foreign goods. And the British self-governing colonies are likewise practising imperial preference. Rivalry for colonial markets is a consequence of surplus manufactures.

The second great change in the economic world, to be noted as an explanation of Europe's conversion to imperialism in the last quarter of the 19th century, was the revolution in means of communication. To make colonial produce profitable, on a large scale, steamships were needed. To make commercial and military penetration of the interior wilds of Africa and Asia possible, railways were required. to bind colonies close to mother countries. The telegraph had to be invented.

To be sure, steamship, locomotive and telegraph were invented long before the age we are considering, but their effect was not felt in the world at large until the last two or three decades of the 19th century. The following table offers the reason.

Table ends about 12 minutes and 30 seconds. Railways, 1850, 24,000 miles 1880, 224,000 miles 1900, 500,000 miles Steamshipping has percent of world's total shipping

1873, 25% 1890, 59% 1900, 77% Telegraphs, 1850, 5,000 miles, 1880, 440,000 miles, 1900, 1,180,000 miles. End of table.

The victory of steam and electricity over space made possible the gigantic increase of colonial trade between 1870 and the present. It also made possible the extension of empires by transporting the troops that conquered the tropics. Incidentally, as it will later appear more clearly, the building of railways, the laying of cables and telegraphs, the operation of shipping lines, were the economic enterprises which themselves were, and still are, prizes of imperialism. The third economic factor to be examined is the demand of industrial nations for tropical and subtropical products.

Cotton factories in Lancashire, England are one of the reasons for British troops in Egypt and India. The millions of bales of raw cotton devoured by busy British spindles and looms had to be produced in southern United States, or in colonies. When the American Civil War cut off supplies of American cotton, England and other countries looked about for other sources of supply. and since that time colonies have become increasingly important as cotton producers. Egypt, for example, produced only 87,000 bales in 1850

but by 1865 this quantity had multiplied by 5. By 1890 it had multiplied by 9 and Egypt became the chief producer of fine, long staple cotton. British India likewise multiplied its production and in many other colonial plantations were laid out.

Rubber affords another instance, spectacular in its effects. When the civilised world began to wear rubbers and raincoats, to put tyres on its wagons and bicycles and automobiles, Europeans had to invade tropical jungles and, by persuasion or by force, induce the natives to tap wild rubber trees and vines,

which grew in the Congo and Amazon Valleys. The Congo became a colony where the natives were compelled to labour, and its rubber output increased from about $30,000 in 1886 to $8 million in 1900. The Amazon, protected by the Monroe Doctrine against European annexation, was subjected to economic imperialism, almost as if it were a colony.

And as the demand for rubber grew still more insatiable, vast rubber plantations were established in British colonies in the Malay Peninsula and Ceylon and in the Dutch East Indies. Rubber means imperialism. Coffee, cocoa, tea and sugar have also founded empires. Coconuts and coconut oil provided motives for the conquest of sunny islands in the South Pacific. The use of phosphate for fertilisation of the soil in France

is one of the reasons why France prizes her North African colonies. To obtain tin, the French endeavoured to dominate the southernmost part of China. Gold mines caused the British conquest of Transvaal. The universal hunger of industrial states for coal, iron and oil has been the leitmotif in world politics.

Perhaps, one speculates, these objects of desire might have been bought in the normal manner of trade, without imperialism or conquest. Perhaps. But in fact they were not.

Sometimes the complaint was that African Negroes failed to appreciate the dignity of labour, and preferred their accustomed life of sloth. Or that South Sea Islanders were unwilling to toil, conquest and compulsory labour were demanded. Or sometimes, when the Europeans laid out plantations or open mines,

or drilled oil wells in a backward country, they found the native government little to their liking and desired the protection of their own imperial flag. Or, in another case, one European government believed that only annexation of coconut-bearing islands would secure the output to its own citizens. In short, the northern world's desire for tropical products has been one of the conditions causing imperialism. One more economic

factor, the fourth, must be added. It is surplus capital, although, as a careful reading of imperialist utterances in the 80s and 90s clearly shows, surplus manufactures rather than surplus capital provided the chief incentive at the outset, the latter has become the dominant force in 20th century imperialism. That anyone can possess too much capital will perhaps be denied by impecunious readers if this volume should have such, but by surplus capital is meant a

superfluity too great for profitable reinvestment at home. That such surpluses must be created by the industrial expansion of the last century was an inevitable result of the economic laws governing capitalist production. The large incomes from factories, mines, rentals return a profit on the capital. Owners of the capital receive larger profits than they care to spend. Wealthy capitalists reinvest most of their income. Fortunes accumulated from rents and finance must also be invested.

Now, it is a commonplace business law that the capital investment in an industry cannot be indefinitely increased by reinvestment of earnings, and still obtain a profitable return, unless the industry can be indefinitely expanded. But unlimited expansion is usually impossible. The world's demand for cotton stockings or for steel girders cannot be arbitrarily increased. If capital accumulation is proceeding more rapidly than industrial and agricultural expansion,

the excess of capital must either be invested in relatively unprofitable enterprises, such as construction of new railways along comparatively undesirable routes at a profit lower than in the past or lent out at lower rates of interest to be used in relatively unprofitable enterprises or invested in less advanced countries where capital is scarcer and returns larger. To make this abstract statement more convincing we may turn to a

French economist Paul Le Roy Bollieu who in 1886 observed the same capital which will earn three or 4% in agricultural improvements in France will bring 10, 15, 20% in an agricultural enterprise in the United States, Canada, La Plata, Australia or New Zealand. Sums invested in building new railways in France would hardly earn 2 or 3%, but in new countries they would earn 10 to 20%.

Here we see plainly enough the reason why the investment of French capital in foreign countries, rapidly increasing after the middle of the 19th century, reached a total of 50 billion francs by 1914. Why British capitalists before 1914 invested two billion pounds sterling in British colonies or dependencies and almost two in other undeveloped countries. Why Germans invested 28 billion marks abroad before 1914. Only a very small percentage of these staggering sums

was invested before 1875, the age of large-scale foreign investments, like the age of imperialism, began in the 1870s. Those who like to speculate on the future may find food for thought in the fact that the investment of surplus capital in colonies and backward countries is still on the increase, and that the accumulated profits of the Great War enabled the United States to become, very suddenly, the foremost investing nation in the world, sending out its capital at an average

rate of a billion dollars a year. Footnote. The Department of Commerce has estimated that the private investments of United States citizens have reached a total in 1925 of nine and a half billions of dollars. Of this sum, 43% is invested in Latin America, 27% in Canada and Newfoundland, 7.5% in Asia and Oceania and 22% in Europe. It is significant that almost four-fifths of the total is placed in non-European, undeveloped, relatively weak countries and that the greater

portion is in industrial and railway enterprises rather than in government bonds. These figures, of course, do not include the war debts owed to the United States government by European governments. On this subject, see R. W. Dunn, American Foreign Investments, New York, 1926. Footnote ends. Money-lending countries of Europe in the past have shown a marked tendency to annex their creditors in Africa and Asia. Need America do the same? Is investment in backward countries

a certain cause of imperialism. Why investments have so often led to annexations needs just a word of explanation. French bankers lend money, let us say, to Morocco. It is a speculative venture, but the rate of interest is attractive. Morocco, being inefficiently governed by its native rulers, fails to pay interest. The French bankers appeal to their own government, and presently, Morocco is a French protectorate, a French colony in which efficient French officials make sure that French investors receive their due.

Whether there is any other way, one may well ask, but the question of solutions must be left for consideration after we have mastered the fact. Subsection. The logic of nationalism. the economic stage is now set for imperialism with surplus manufactures steam transportation raw materials and surplus capital ready to play their roles the cast is not complete however until we add another actor the new doctrine of politico-economic nationalism upon this all the

plot hinges for if most men still believed as they did a half century or so ago that the state has no concern with economics, the economic factors mentioned above would have been impotent to spur national governments to imperialist deeds. But the mid-Victorian doctrine of liberalism, which brooked no government intervention in business affairs, was, after all, a mid-Victorian doctrine. And it soon yielded the centre of the stage to the rival doctrine of economic nationalism,

or neo-mercantilism, a reincarnation of that early modern mercantilism which we have been at pains to describe. If ever there was a spirit of the age, the spirit of the second half of the 19th century was political nationalism. Germany achieved national unity by blood and iron. By blood and iron was Italy welded into nationhood. The civil war cemented the American Union. the Balkan nations emerged from the Near Eastern turmoils. The Poles valiantly but vainly fought

in 1863 to regain national independence. Russia began to practice the nationalist policy of Russification. Disraeli revived British patriotism. The same ferment was at work among the Czechoslovaks and Yugoslavs and Magyars of Austria-Hungary. And in France, nationalism became a bitter passion after the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. The nationalist wars of the period 1848 to 1878 were succeeded by imperialist conquests. Nationalism means that people considering themselves similar in language,

race, culture or historical traditions should constitute a separate sovereign state. Imperialism, on the contrary, means domination of non-European native races by totally dissimilar European nations. Antithetical as these two principles may seem, the latter is derived from the former through economic nationalism or neo-mercantilism. German economists in the middle of the 19th century were particularly prominent in developing this doctrine. If Adam

Smith's Wealth of Nations laid the theoretic foundations for free trade England, Friedrich Liszt's National System of Political Economy, Das National System der Politischen Economy, 1841, offered a basis for the protectionist policies of continental nations. Liszt boldly blasphemed against the first article in the creed of the orthodox or classical British and French economists, namely, that by the working of natural law, the free pursuit of self-interest by each individual

would produce the greatest welfare for society collectively. Instead, List offered the dogma that the nation is a continuous and supremely important entity whose well-being must be promoted by wise regulation of business. Private interests must bow to national needs. Nations with infant industries should adopt educational tariffs until industry, agriculture and commerce reached mature development and harmonious balance. List is cited as one among a host of European

theorists who led the movement of ideas in favour of economic nationalism. And such doctrines fitted in well with practical exigencies of politics. The votes of working men demanded labour legislation, industrialists demanded tariff protection, humanitarians pleaded for social reform, and each of these urgent political forces made for greater control over economic matters by the national state. In tariffs, in labour legislation, in social reforms,

economic nationalism became the order of the day in the waning years of the century. Imperialism naturally ensued once it was assumed that government should promote business. From then it follows that nations may legitimately reach out for colonial empire in order to pre-empt markets for their surplus manufactures, protect investments of their surplus capital, obtain business and coaling stations for their shipping, and secure raw

materials, such is the logic which combined with economic facts to make imperialism a necessity. More humanly interesting, doubtless, than the abstractions and statistics through which it has been necessary to make our way thus far is the story of the actual conversion of England, France, Germany, and other nations to imperialism. Conversions are always interesting, and this one is a peculiarly intriguing display of man's ability to combine egotism and altruism in a

plausible amalgam. On the eve of conversion, individual sinners often possess a dual personality, an unregenerate dominant ego, and a more devout but suppressed self struggling to gain the upper hand. Without carrying over the ethical implications of this metaphor, we may say that the conversion of a nation to imperialism meant not an instantaneous fault fuss on the part of the entire people, but the triumph of a hitherto submerged imperialist agitation reinforced by

general economic and political changes over a gradually weakening anti-imperialist party. Subsection. England's absence of mind. That England acquired an empire in fits of absence of mind is a remark which Englishmen have been curiously fond of quoting, perhaps because it parries any charge of self-seeking imperialism. Not absence of mind, but absence of Gladstone, the historian might almost say. It was the brilliant mind of Benjamin Disraeli,

unrestrained by the respectable humanitarian moralities of a Gladstone, that conceived the idea of brazenly reintroducing imperialism into British politics, scandalised though the Gladstonians might be. It required Disraeli to divine that the British public, growing weary of high-minded but unexciting commercialism, was ready for an emotional debauch and would welcome the thrill of a patriotic outburst. He made the rearing of a great British empire in Asia seem

a romantic feat of daring, not a sordid business enterprise. He appealed to the popular imagination the British empire was a magnificent structure to be consolidated and enlarged, not permitted to disintegrate. He announced his campaign on June 24th, 1872, in his famous Crystal Palace speech, adopting imperialism as one of the three chief aims of the Conservative Party. To be sure, in addition to this adventurous paladin, imperialism had its lesser nights.

A clever youth, Sir Charles Dilk, returning from extensive travels, had published a fascinating two-volume description of Greater Britain in 1866-67, and the rather surprising demand of the public for new editions, attested the influence of the book. Footnote. Dilk anticipated latter-day imperialism by emphasising the economic and military value of uncivilised, i.e. tropical exploitation colonies, while disparaging the alleged worth of white colonies

such as Canada. Footnote ends. A small but influential group of enthusiasts, with the historian Burry at their head, had founded the Royal Colonial Institute, 1868, to promote the ideal of a united empire as opposed to the Gladstonian belief in inevitable disintegration. Footnote. Proceedings of the Royal Colonial Institute, Volume 1, 1869, London, 1870, Giving the names of those most actively participating and the speeches,

Viscount Bury was president. The lists of fellows of the Institute, given in subsequent proceedings, afford a fair index of the organisation's rapid increase of influence. Its members desired not merely to consolidate the existing empire, but to expand it. For instance, Lieutenant Cameron is cheered when he declares,

I hope the day is not far distant when we shall see the Union Jack flying permanently in the centre of Africa. Volume 7, page 282, June 13th, 1876. The same year Coleman Phillips urges expansion in the Pacific. He bid page 193. There are similar exhortations in almost every meeting during this period.

Footnote ends. Sir George Grey, a former explorer and colonial governor, returning to England in 1868 had made a valorous but vain attempt to enter politics as a champion of imperialism. Professor John Seeley was just beginning 1869. The brilliant lectures at Cambridge on modern history, which subsequently won so many converts to imperialism. Another and very influential

historian J.A. Froude entered the lists in 1869, and in 1870-71 his articles in Fraser's magazine were trenchant attacks on the prevalent anti-imperialist or indifferentist attitude. Several prominent politicians too had been converted before Disraeli. A number of British cotton manufacturers had been quietly working since the American Civil War to develop colonial cotton growing. And one might add, the Rothschilds and other financiers with whom Disraeli was at

times connected were beginning to become interested in the profits to be made by investment in colonial and backward countries. Thanks partly to the efforts of these lesser profits to make straight the path, but more to the magnetic quality of Disraeli himself, the British parliamentary elections of 1874 swept Gladstone's Little England cabinet out of office and returned Disraeli and the Conservatives to power. For six years, Disraeli's ministry pursued a

forward policy of aggressive imperialism and flamboyant patriotism. The Fiji Islands in the South Pacific, twice refused by earlier governments, were promptly annexed in October 1874. The next year, 1875, came the celebrated episode of the Suez Canal shares, a chance to purchase control of the French company, which had just dug the Suez Canal, had been offered to the British Foreign Office in 1870 during Gladstone's administration, and had been declined.

But when Disraeli's Foreign Minister, Lord Derby, learning through a London journalist, the Khedive of Egypt was offering his block of 176,602 shares in the company to French purchases, brought this news to Disraeli, the impulsive Premier seized the opportunity eagerly. Without waiting for a parliamentary appropriation, which might have been difficult to obtain, Parliament was not sitting, Disraeli bewitched his hesitant Foreign Secretary and Cabinet to

give him a free hand, borrowed £4 million sterling from the Rothschilds, who, by the way, made £100,000 on the transaction, and hastily purchased the shares for Great Britain. Though Gladstone, of course, was opposed, and cautious spirits were a bit breathless, Disraeli's coup was popularly applauded. Footnote, Buckle, Opsit, Volume 5, pages 413 and 439 FF. As there were 400,000 shares in all, Great Britain acquired not a majority interest,

but practically a controlling interest. Footnote ends. Hard on the heels of this event came the dispatch of a financial investigator, Stefan Cave, to examine the state of Egypt's public treasury with special reference to British loans to Egypt, and thus began the English intervention in Egyptian finance, which led later to British conquest. In the following spring 1876, Disraeli again startled parliament by introducing a royal titles bill enabling queen victoria that housewifely

model of virtuous royalty to assume the resounding title of empress of india the title that had been born in oriental splendor by muslim despots here again was a challenge to gladstonean anti-imperialism a trumpet blast announcing the new imperialism israeli said you have a new world new influences at work, new and unknown objects and dangers with which to cope. The Queen of England has become the sovereign of the most powerful of Oriental states. And again British Parliament

followed its master. In the same year the declaration of a British protectorate over the Carnate of Baluchistan, an important country on the north-western borders of British India, showed clearly enough that empire meant conquest. Another winter passed, and the returning spring smiled on the annexation of Transvaal, the Boer Republic in South Africa, which an earlier generation of British statesmen had allowed to become independent. But the climax was yet to come.

When Russia in 1877 launched her armies against Turkey, obviously bent on conquest, and Constantinople seemed within the Tsar's reach. Disraeli sent the Mediterranean squadron to guard the Sultan's city, and war between Britain and Russia was hourly expected. Popular excitement reached a fever pitch.

London re-echoed with the music hall ballad of the day. We don't want to fight, but by jingo if we do. We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too. Jingoism, in a word, was the spirit in which the country supported Disraeli. Great Britain's threatening mean, the hostile attitude of Austria and Bismarck's diplomacy,

induced Russia to submit the whole question of carving up the Turkish Empire to a congress of the great powers at Berlin in 1878. To this, Disraeli went in person, armed with a secret Anglo-Russian convention regarding the Balkans and Armenia, a secret convention with Austria and a secret Anglo-Turkish treaty pledging England to defend Asiatic Turkey against Russia

and permitting England to occupy and administer the Turkish island of Cyprus, ostensibly to facilitate the fulfilment of this pledge. To mollify the indignation felt by the French when these bargains were disclosed, a hint was dropped to the French delegate at the Berlin Congress that Great Britain would not object, should France take Tannus. Here we have imperialist world politics in full swing.

Disraeli returned home from Berlin, boasting he had brought back Peace with honour, meaning peace with Cyprus. And there were at least some in Parliament who would have him bring more of this kind of honour. Whether it was honour, however, and whether it was peace, could be questioned. Gladstone heaped vials of his wrathful oratory on his rival for sanctioning

the iniquitous provisions of the Berlin Treaty as regards the Macedonian Christians, for dishonourably annexing Transvaal, and for embarking on the aggressive policy of Jingo imperialism. Dishonour rather than honour, he felt, had Disraeli brought upon England, and Jingoism did not mean peace. The annexation of Transvaal, mentioned above, brought on a cruel war with the fierce tribe of Zulus in South Africa, while aggressive imperialism in India led to trouble

with the Mohammedan mountaineers of Afghanistan on the border of India. Learning that Russian intrigue was active at the Afghan court, the British government sent a mission, followed by army into the country, and imposed what amounted to a British protectorate. But in September 1879, the British resident and embassy in Afghanistan were butchered by Afghan mutineers, and a new invasion, new bloodshed, ensued. Aghast at the consequences of Disraeli's imperialism,

many Englishmen turned to the Pacific Gladstone, whose anti-imperialist Midlothian campaign produced a liberal landslide in the 1880 elections. Gladstone's return to power for the years 1880 through 1885 was not so definite a setback to imperialism as might have been supposed. To be sure, Gladstone endeavoured to refrain from aggression. He even undid the work of his predecessor, in the case of Transvaal, by restoring independence to the Boer Republic.

But against this courageous fulfilment of a campaign pledge, there was a storm of indignation in England, for, unfortunately, the Boers had won a minor victory over British troops shortly before, and the grant of independence could be interpreted as a cowardly surrender. Emancipation of Transvaal had the effect of stimulating, rather than discouraging, imperialism. Furthermore, Gladstone found himself involved in the financial control.

Disraeli had established, with France, over Egyptian finances, and presently the force of circumstances coupled with pressure from British financiers and diplomatic officials drove Gladstone into the military occupation of Egypt. Let him promise as solemnly as he would to withdraw his troops. Gladstone had become helplessly enmeshed. He had done what he had denounced Disraeli for intending. He had conquered the Nile. Imperialism had gained the upper hand

in England. On every hand there were evidences in the 80s of imperialist awakening. Professor Seeley's book on The Expansion of England, portraying imperial expansion as Britain's historic mission, was published in 1883, took the public by storm, sold 80,000 copies in two years, and won its author knighthood on the recommendation of Lord Roseberry. Roseberry himself, then a prominent liberal, destined to become Prime Minister in later years,

had just returned from a trip around the world in 1883. When he read Sealy's pages, he became a convinced imperialist and as Foreign Minister in Gladstone's cabinets of 1886 and 1892 and as Premier in 1894-5, he was in a position to give influential support to his new faith.

Roseberry's conversion was significant as an indication that imperialism, no longer confined to Disraeli's conservative followers, had invaded the Liberal Party too. It was another liberal, Mr William E. Forster, who founded the Imperial Federation League in 1884,

to work for closer ties between self-governing colonies and the mother country. The colonial conferences, beginning in 1887, lent additional force to this movement. Kipling's Indian tales and ballads cast a romantic glamour of poetry over even the most sordid features of this conquest. There is no need to follow through all its details the story of the development of this imperialist agitation in England,

yet in passing it is not inappropriate to notice four men who may stand as types of the many who toiled to extend Britain's empire. There is Sir Harry Johnston, versatile combination of explorer, anthropologist, administrator, historian, and, in his last years, novelist, whose autobiography tells the story of indomitable labours to extend the advantages of British rule to barbarous African tribes, and of hardly less courageous efforts

to arouse lethargic Downing Street officials, careless of abuses in colonial administration and negligent of opportunities for expansion. There is Cecil Rhodes, business adventurer and magnificent egotist, amassing millions by ruthless monopoly of South African gold and diamonds, dreaming of continents as British provinces, and using all the power of his wealth and personality to advance, by fair means or foul, the imperialism of which he was so lusty a son.

There is the stalwart figure of Sir Edward Grey, high-minded Liberal Foreign Secretary for many a year, earnestly desiring to promote fair dealing and peace among nations, yet so permeated with what, by his time, had become an unquestioned faith in Britain's world mission, that he barters in secret with France and Russia and Germany for the division of spoils in Asia and Africa. Last, there is Joseph Chamberlain, a successfully aggressive manufacturer,

entering British politics as a radical liberal in Gladstone's time, but wrecking the old party, and later joining hands with the Tories, fearlessly preaching a doctrine of stark commercial imperialism. The empire, he said, is commerce. India, he candidly claimed, was

by far the greatest and most valuable of all the customers we have, or ever shall have. His arithmetic may have gone astray in computing India's commerce, but his argument was plausible. British capital and British working men must have employment. They could get employment only if there was a market for their manufacturers. The colonies would afford the market, now and for future generations. Annexing colonies, said Chamberlain, quoting a happy phrase of Lord

Roseberries, his pegging out claims for posterity. Chamberlain could not persuade England to adopt a preferential tariff in 1906, but he did help mightily to persuade British manufacturers that civilising Africans and Asiatics was a profitable business. End of section three.