Adams J.T. Empire on the Seven Seas. The British Empire 1784-1939
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BREAKDOWN
OF LIBERALISM
believe
that
if
it
had
not been
for
Parnell's
weakness
for
Mrs.
O'Shea,
the
character
of
her
worthless
husband,
and
the
miserable
family
lawsuit,
the
relations
of
Britain
with
Ireland
might
at
long
last have
taken
a
marked
turn
for
the
better
and
the
crises
of the
next
century
been
avoided or minimized. Neither
tie
Liberal
Party
nor
Home
Rule
were
dead
but
both
passed
out
of
the
sphere
of
practical politics
for
a decade.
It
is
true
that
in
Salisbury's
third
Ministry,
in
which
he
at
last included
some
of the
Liberal-Union-
ists,
an
effort
was made
to conciliate
Ireland and to
"kill
Home
Rule
by
kindness."
Local
county
government
was much
improved,
and
Sir
Horace
Plunkett's
co-operative enterprises
and
other
means of
solving
the
agrarian problem
did much to restore
a
de-
gree
of
prosperity,
but the desire
for
Home Rule
remained,
and
as
we
shall
see later
was,
after
the
turn of the
century,
to
give
rise
to the sinister
Sinn Fein
movement.
IV.
BREAKDOWN OF LIBERALISM
AND
RISE
OF LABOR
We
have
already
spoken
of
the
Whigs
and
Radicals
as
dis-
cordant
elements
among
the
Liberals and before
passing
to the
story
of the
Empire
outside the
United
Kingdom
in this
period
we
may
review
briefly
that
of
Radicalism and labor. From
1880
to
1885,
there was constant
friction even in
the
Cabinet between
the
two
wings
of
the
party,
Joseph
Chamberlain
being
the chief
leader
of
the
Radicals within the Government.
An
astute
Birmingham
businessman,
an ardent
imperialist
and later
to become
Colonial
Secretary
in
Salisbury's
Conservative
government
in
1895,
he
was
in the
early
1 8 8o
3
s
regarded
as
a
demagogue
and
a
dangerous
man.
Although
a member of
Gladstone's
Cabinet
he did not
hesitate
to
put
forward
in
the
election
of
1
885
an
"unauthorized
program,"
as
it was
called,
of
his own
with which
his
chief
had
little
sym-
pathy,
and
which
included
such
planks
as free education
for
all,
disestablishment
of
the
English
Church,
denunciation
of
the
House
of
Lords
as in
the
way
of social
progress,
a
progressive
in-
come
tax
bearing
heavily
on
the
rich,
and
a
vast
agricultural
re-
adjustment
which would
give
rural laborers land of
their
own.
The
247
EMPIRE
ON
THE
SEVEN SEAS
campaign
slogan
of "three
acres
and
a
cow"
recalls to
an
Amer-
ican
the
earlier
one
after
the
Civil
War
of
"forty
acres and
a
mule"
for
emancipated
slaves.
After
the
failure
of the
Chartists,
Socialistic ideas had almost
disappeared,
but
in
this
period
they
were revived.
Karl
Marx
and
Friedrich
Engels,
who
were to
have
such vast influence on the
development
of
Continental
Socialism,
had
long
been
living
in
England,
but
partly
because
of
a
personal
quarrel
between
Marx
and
H.
M.
Hyndman,
the
leader
of
English
Socialism in
this
period,
the
English
Socialists
were
but
little
moved
by
the
Marxian
theories.
The
Socialism
of the
period
was,
indeed,
of
a
mild
type
and
meant
rather an
extension
of
social
services
by
the
govern-
ment,
such
as
education,
factory
legislation
and
such
matters,
than
the
inevitable
class
war
of the
pure
Marxian
doctrine.
Chamberlain's
own brand
was
of
the
"gas
and
water"
variety,
that
is,
municipal
ownership
of certain
public
utilities and
not na-
tionalization
of
all resources.
Hyndman
did
try
to
impregnate
the
laboring
class
with
Marxian
ideas but
made
little
headway
and if
we
have
succeeded
in our
effort
to illustrate
the
British
character
the
answer is
not
far
to
seek. Class war
and
violence are
not
in
the
English
tradition. Another
group
of
Socialists,
of whom
William
Morris
was
a
member,
were rather
Utopian
dreamers
of
a
happy
social
order
for
the
future
as
pictured
in
Morris's still
delightful
News
from
Nowhere.
In
1883
yet
another
type
emerged
in
the
formation of the
Fabian
Society,
named for
the
Roman
general
whose
method
was
"slow but
sure,"
and
which,
under the
guidance
of Mr.
and Mrs.
Sidney
Webb,
aimed
at
gradual improvement
of
social
conditions,
in
a
collectivist
direction
to
be
sure,
but
without
revolution. Far
more
influential
than Marx was
the
American
Henry
George,
whose lectures
and
volume
Progress
and
Poverty
made
a
profound
impression.
As
yet,
however,
although
a
more
equitable
distribution
of
wealth
was much
discussed,
the sources
of
wealth
and
the
modes of
its
acquisition
were rather
taken for
granted
as
forever
to
remain
what
they
were
at the time.
After
the
successes of
Trades-Unionism
in
the
yo's
the
move-
ment
had
become
more
or
less
atrophied,
and
interested in
sick
248
BREAKDOWN
OF
LIBERALISM
and
old-age
benefits
rather
than
in
fighting
employers.
In
1888
Sir William
Harcourt,
a
Gladstonian
Liberal,
might say
jokingly
that "we are
all
Socialists
now/
7
but in
fact
the
government
was
not
moving
very
fast
even
in
the
direction of
what we
have
de-
scribed
above. On
the
other
hand,
genuine
Marxian
Socialism had
been
making
such
rapid
headway
in
the
autocratically
ruled Ger-
many
that
Bismarck
attempted
to
take
the
wind
out of its
sails
by
means
of
government
measures
providing
insurance
against
sick-
ness
(1883),
accidents
(1884),
and old
age
(1891).
Britain was
far
behind
in
such
legislation,
and
the United States
Federal
Gov-
ernment
did
not
embark
on
any
such
course
until a
half
century
later.
Possibly
the
failure of
the British
Government to
act
hastened
the
change
which
now
occurred,
ushering
in
what is called the
"new
Unionism."
Among
Trades-Unionists who were
dissatisfied
with
the
lack of
union action
were
Tom
Mann
and
John Burns,
both of the
Amalgamated
Society
of
Engineers.
The
latter
de-
clared that the "reckless
assumption
of the duties and
responsi-
bilities that
only
the
State
or
whole
community
can
discharge,
in
the
nature of sick and
superannuation
benefits,
at the instance of
the
middle
class,
is
crushing
out
the
larger
unions
by
taxing
their
members
to
an unbearable
extent.
. .
.
The
result
of
this is that
all
of them
have
ceased to
be
unions
for
maintaining
the
rights
of
labor,
and
have
degenerated
into
mere
middle
and
upper
class
rate-reducing
institutions."
1
Not
only
was
there
a
more
militant
note sounded
than
by
the
old
Unionism,
but
the
new
was
espe-
cially
directed
toward
organizing
the
weaker trades
and
the
un-
organized
manual
laborers.
Public
opinion
in
general
was
sympathetic
rather
than hostile.
The
trade
depression
of
the
yo's
had
given
way
for
a
brief
period
to
a mild
prosperity
between
1881
and
1883,
but
then had
bogged
down
again.
To
use one
index,
the
tonnage
of
ships
built
annually
fell
from
1,250,000
in the
latter
year
to
only
473,000
in
1886.
The
suffering
of
the
working
classes was
intense
and was
beginning
to
be
recognized
by
those
above
them
in
the
economic
scale.
A
series
iCited
by
J.
F,
Rees,
Social and
Industrial
History
of England
1815-1918,
London,
1932, p.
134-
249
EMPIRE
ON THE
SEVEN
SEAS
of
Reports
by
Royal
Commissions
displayed
shocking
conditions.
Arnold
Toynbee,
who
had
wished to
learn of
these
at first
hand,
moved
from
his
post
at Oxford
and
settled
in
the
slums
of
the
East
End
of
London
in
1883,
establishing
the first
"settlement"
among
the
very
poor.
Four
years
later
William
Booth,
a
great
organizer
and
one
of
the
world's
noted
religious
leaders,
had
founded
the
Salvation
Army
to work
among
those
at
the
very
bottom
of
society,
and
in
a
few
years
was
to
arouse
the
people
to
what
was
going
on,
in
his
Darkest
England.
Although
the
finical
might
object
to
some
of
the
crude
emotionalism
of the
methods
employed
by
the
"Army,"
they
were
successful
in
rescuing
to
a
better
life
and
hope
millions
of
human
beings
in
the
course
of
the
Army's
subsequent
work,
and the
movement
has
proved
one
of the
greatest
in
the
history
of
Christianity.
Still
the
government
did little to ameliorate
the
conditions
of
the
poor,
and in
1888
the
new
Unionism
swung
into
action.
Mrs.
Besant,
who had
been
deeply
shocked
by
discovering
the
abomina-
ble
conditions under
which the
poor girls
of London
who
worked
on
making
matches were
forced
to labor and
live,
wrote a
scathing
article,
thinking
they
could
do
nothing
to
help
themselves.
To
her
surprise
some
of them read her
article
and
700
of
them
went on
strike.
Apparently
among
the most
helpless
creatures in
the
great
city
and
with no
chance,
they finally
won
against
their
employers,
with the
financial
aid of
Mrs.
Besant
and
others.
Some months
later
the
newly organized
gas
workers struck
for
an
eight-hour day,
and
won,
but the
greatest struggle
came in
August,
1889.
The
dock
laborers,
among
the
lowest-paid
and
most
sweated
labor
in
London,
were
organized
by
Mann,
Burns,
and
Ben
Tillett
and went
on
strike.
They
asked
only
for
sixpence
an
hour
for
their
casual
work
and
for
some minor
reforms,
but the
employers
would
not even confer with
them,
thinking
that
the workers
were
wholly
within their
power,
as
they
lived
on
the
edge
of
starvation.
Day by
day
they
marched
peaceably
through
the
streets,
usually
ending
at
Hyde
Park,
and
carrying
stuck
on
pikes
samples
of
the
horrible
food
which
was
all
they
had
to
eat.
After
two
weeks
their
resources
were
exhausted
and
as
a
last
desperate
throw
they
asked for
a
250
BREAKDOWN
OF
LIBERALISM
general
strike,
though
there
was
no
chance
the
request
would
be
heeded.
Then
one of
the
most
dramatic
events
in
the
history
of
Empire
labor
occurred.
Far off
in
Australia the dock
workers
of
Brisbane
met
to
consider
what to
do to
help
their
fellow
workers in
Lon-
don.
Although
the
Port of London
had had
to be closed for the
first time
since
1797,
the
employers
had
remained
adamant,
count-
ing
on
starvation
of
the
workers. Then came the
amazing
response
from
Australia.
The
British
island-continent
went wild
with
sympathy.
Money
was
collected from
every
direction,
and the
un-
imaginable
sum of
30,000
was
cabled
to the
strikers.
The des-
perate
employers
resorted
to
every
means to
bribe,
coerce or
bring
on conflict
with
the
strikers
and
refused mediation
until in
Sep-
tember
they
had
to
yield.
The
victory
was
not for
the
dockers
in
London
alone,
and it
gave
an enormous
impetus
to the
Labor
Union movement
throughout
the whole
country.
It
also marked
the
beginning
of
an
alliance between the
Union
and the women's
movements
which
was to bear
fruit in
the future.
Moreover,
the
victory,
instead of
increasing
the
revolutionary
movement,
which
had
never
been
strong
in
labor
ranks,
had
the
reverse effect. Revival
of
trade and
the
increased
strength
of
the
Unions led
labor
to
look to
increased
representation
in
Parliament,
with
possible
eventual control
of the
constitutional
machinery
of
the
state,
to
secure their
ends. Three
Socialists were
elected in
1892, John
Burns, J.
Havelock
Wilson,
representing
the
sailors,
and
Keir
Hardie,
the last
arriving
at
the
House
escorted
by
a
brass
band
and
wearing
a
cloth
cap
and a red
tie.
A
new
day
had evi-
dently
dawned
and
a
shudder
went
along
Pall Mall.
All
three
of
the
new
members
were Socialists but
not
Marxians
or
revolutionaries.
They
realized,
however,
that
a
mere
infiltration
of
Parliament
by
a
few
of
their
own kind
might
not
bring
results
for
generations.
Hardie
made
up
his
mind
to form
a new
party
devoted
solely
to the
interests
of
labor
and
established the
Scottish
Labor
Party,
the
first Labor
Party
in Britain.
It
was
decided,
how-
ever,
to
establish
one for
the
United
Kingdom,
and
in
January,
1893,
representatives
of
Trades-Unions,
the
Fabian
Society,
the
251
EMPIRE
ON
THE SEVEN SEAS
Scottish
Labor
Party,
and
other
organizations
met
at
Bradford.
The
Fabians
and some
of
the
other
withdrew,
but
under
the
lead
of
Hardie
the
Independent
Labor
Party
then
came into
being.
Two
years
later,
in
the election
of
1895,
it
put
forward
twenty-
eight
candidates,
but
not
one
was
elected,
even
Hardie
losing
his
seat
for a
while
until
returned
in
1898
for
Merthyr
in
Wales,
which
seat
he
held
for life.
Coming
to
the
fore
in
the
movement
now, however,
were
such
men as
Philip
Snowden
and
Ramsay
MacDonald,
although
owing
to
renewed
apathy
on
the
part
of
labor
in
general
as to
Socialism
and
its
methods,
the
party
had
still
long
to
wait
for
the
control of
which
it
dreamed.
In
fact
the
"I.
L.
P." was
scarcely
a
party
as
yet,
coming
really
into
being
in
1900,
but the
foundations
had
been
laid,
and
chiefly
by
Hardie.
He
was
a
portent
of
which the
com-
fortable classes
failed
wholly
to
grasp
the
meaning.
Set to
work in
Glasgow
at seven
years
of
age,
he toiled
in
the
coal
mines
from
the
time
he
was
ten
until
twenty.
The manner
of
his
arrival
in
Parlia-
ment
noted
above
was not
intended
to
be either
a
demonstration
or
an
affront,
but
the
press
and
upper
classes
made it
out to
be
such.
Feeling
with
the
whole
depth
of
his sensitive nature
the
misery
of
his own class he moved an
amendment
to the
Address
to
the
Throne
at
his
first
session,
asking
that some
attention
be
paid
to
the
1,300,000
people
then
out
of
work,
which
again
brought
a
storm
of
disapproval
from
the Conservatives.
The next
year,
1894,
the
Duchess
of
York
gave
birth
to the
future Duke
of
Windsor
and
260
miners were killed
the same
day
in a
disaster. The
next,
the
French President was
assassinated.
When
the House
was asked
to
pass
a
resolution
of
sympathy
for
the
French,
Hardie
asked
for
another
for
the
families of
the
killed
miners,
whose
dangers
and
lives he knew so
well.
Har-
court
refused and
turned off
the
request
casually.
Hardie,
infuri-
ated
by
what
he
thought
callous
indifference,
then
opposed
the
message
congratulating
the
Duchess
on
the
birth
of
a future
heir
to
the throne.
The
storm
which
then broke on
him indicated how
little
Britain's
governing
class
still
understood
the
people
it
gov-
erned,
and
the
new forces
which were to
mould
their
world.
252
CHAPTER
XII
THE
NEW
IMPERIALISM
I.
CHANGE
IN
IMPERIAL
FEELING
IN
THE
last
quarter
of
the
nineteenth
century
there
was
an out-
burst of
imperial
zeal
in
Europe
which
can
be
compared
only
to
that
of
the
seventeenth
century.
As in
the
earlier
period
England,
France,
and
Spain
had
contended
for
empire,
so another
group,
Britain,
France,
Italy, Germany,
and
others
seemed
no
less
intent
on
staking
out claims
to
what
available
acquisitions
re-
mained.
Many
factors were
at
work
in
the international
rush
to
appropriate
the
remaining
lands
of
the
world
inhabited
by
back-
ward
races.
One
was the enormous increase
in
population
which
had
been
one
of the
most
marked
and
important
features
of
Euro-
pean
development
in
the
century
since
the
industrial
revolution.
The
increasing
desire
to
control
sources of
raw
materials and
markets
for manufactured
goods
was
another.
Among
yet
others
were
psychological
ones,
such
as
the
pride
engendered
by
the
new
nationalism,
which had
been
growing
since
the
Napoleonic
days.
As
a
rich
man
builds
himself
a
great
house
and
spends
much of
his
money
in
ostentation,
so the
new and
even
older nations
felt
the
urge
toward
the
ostentation
of
imperial possessions
to show
how
great
they
were.
For
Britain,
at
least,
history
and
poetry
also
played
their
parts.
In
1884
Seeley
published
his
book,
Expansion
of
England,
which
reviewed
the
growth
of
the
Empire
for three
centuries
in
a
way
to
stimulate
the
pride
of the
nation
in its
imperial
work
and
achieve-
253
EMPIRE
ON THE
SEVEN SEAS
ment.
Much
shorter
and written
in
a far more
popular
fashion
than
Dilke's
Greater
Britain
of
nearly
twenty
years
earlier,
it
caught
the
popular
imagination
and was
of vast
influence. Another
fillip
to
the
pride
of
the British
in the
part
they
had
played
in
world
affairs
was
afforded
by
a
book
by
an American
naval
officer.
Captain,
later
Admiral,
Mahan
on
The
Influence of
Sea
Power
in
History,
which
for
the
first
time
demonstrated the
overwhelming
part
played
by
the
British
navy
in the
history
of the
globe.
This
was
a work for
statesmen
and
scholars,
but
the
great
read-
ing
public
lapped
up
the
emotional
appeal
for the new
imperialism
in the
volumes
of
Rudyard
Kipling,
both
prose
and
verse.
His
work
was
enormously
popular
and made
the
blood
of
a
seagoing
and
imperial
race
pulse
as
the war
tom-tom did that
of
the
savages
in
the
jungle.
If
there
was
much that
was
crude,
blatant
and
mercenary
in
the
race
to
"paint
the
map
red,"
we
must
not
forget
that
this
had
also
been true in
the
glorious
days
of
Elizabeth.
There
were,
however,
some
of
the finer motives
which
had
likewise
been
present
in
the
earlier
era
of
expansion
with
which
the new
movement had
much
in
common.
After
a
long
period
of
paying
little
attention to
overseas
empire,
the British
suddenly
felt
the
old
emotions stir-
ring.
There
was
much
of
the adventurous
and even
buccaneering
spirit
and
the
British were
enthralled
when
Kipling sang:
c
*You
have
heard
the
song
how
long!
how
long!
Pull
out
on
the
trail
again!"
"The Lord
knows
what
we
may
find,
dear
lass,
And
the
deuce knows
what
we
may
do-
But we're back once
more
on
the
old
trail,
our own
trail,
the out
trail,
We're
down,
hull
down on the
Long
Trail
the trail that
is
always
new."
There was
a
new
feeling,
as in the
days
of
Queen
Bess,
of ad-
venture,
wealth
to be
gained,
somebody's
beard,
though
it
was not
now the
King
of
Spain's,
to be
singed,
and
the
glitter
of
imperial
spoils.
Like
the
"Manifest
Destiny"
of the United States to
ex-
pand
across the
American
continent
to
the
Pacific,
Britain had re-
254
CHANGE IN
IMPERIAL
FEELING
discovered its
imperial
destiny
to
govern
more
of the
globe
than
any
other
race.
The
Conservatives,
under
Salisbury,
formed
the
party
of
ad-
vance,
but
among
the
Liberals,
though
the
party
was
split,
the
Radical
wing
was
rapidly
reviving
the
creed
of
imperialism,
par-
ticularly
in
the
form
of
some
sort of
Imperial
Federation. This
was
doomed
to
failure,
for
it
savored
too much of
the
doctrinaire
and "blue
print
mind,"
which
has
always
been
alien to British
character.
There
were,
indeed,
ample
difficulties
in
managing
the
group
of
colonies,
large
and
small,
now
scattered all over
the
worldto
say
nothing
of
the
peculiar
problem
of
India.
For
one
thing
even those
which
had
received
local
autonomy
and
responsi-
ble
government
were
neither
independent
nations nor
did
they
have
a
voice
in
the
foreign
policy
of
the
Empire,
though
deeply
affected
by
it.
Moreover,
as
we shall
see,
some of them
had am-
bitions of their
own
which
ran
counter
to
what
the
controlling
powers
in
London
might
desire or
consider
wise
for
the
Empire
as
a
whole.
Such
problems
of
conflicting
interests
between the
colonies
and
the home
country,
or
even between
the several
colonies and de-
pendencies,
bring
vividly
to
mind much
the
same
difficulties,
of
policy,
local
interest,
contribution
to
their own and
imperial
de-
fense,
and
so
on,
which
wrecked the
first
Empire
in
the
days
of
the
American Revolution.
The
problems
remained to
a
large
ex-
tent
unchanged.
What had
changed
was the broader
spirit
in
which
such
problems
were
now treated
in Westminster
and in
the colo-
nies themselves.
Imperial
Federation
was no more a solution
than
a
small
Parliamentary
representation
of
the American
colonies
would
have
been
in
1776,
but
although
the
movement
could
not
succeed,
it
did
do much
to
focus
attention
on
the
Empire.
It
brought
realization
of
the
fact that
the
Empire
no
longer
consisted
of
a
mere
disconnected
group
made
up
of Great
Britain
and
a
lot
of
scattered
dependencies,
but
was
something
far
greater
than
that,
a
gigantic
imperial
unit
which
in
territory,
population,
resources,
and
power
surpassed
any
Empire
of
which
the
world
had
yet
dreamed
and
made
even the
Roman
seem
insignificant
in
com-
255
EMPIRE
ON THE
SEVEN
SEAS
parison.
To
the
making
of
this
c
'Third
Empire"
in
British
history,
as
Professor
Ramsay
Muir
calls
it,
there went all the
inheritances
and
influences
of
raiding
Danes
and
Norse,
of Normans
and
feu-
dalism,
of
growing
sea
power
and
trade,
of
political
training
for
near
a
millennium,
of
dogged
character,
with its
good
and
bad,
and
all the
other
events and
factors
of Britain's
long history.
II.
VICTORIA'S
JUBILEE
In
1886
a
Colonial
and
Indian
Exhibition in
London interested
the
populace
in
the
resources
and
products,
as
well
as
the
extent,
of
the
Empire,
but
an event
of incalculable
influence
was that
of
the
Queen's
first
Jubilee
the
following year.
When
fifty
years
earlier,
as
a
young
girl,
she had
gone
to
the
Abbey
to be
crowned,
it had been
a
local
British
event,
though
naturally
celebrated in
the
colonies.
The celebration
of her half
century
of rule
demon-
strated
the
changes
which
had
taken
place
in
the
public
mind.
In
1837
little
thought
had
been
given
to
the
colonies,
and
the
Crown
itself
had
sunk to
perhaps
the lowest
point
of
public
respect
and
interest
in its
history.
But
by
1887
the
Crown
had
become
not
only
the
center
of
an almost
religious
devotion on
the
part
of
the
people
of
Great
Britain,
but
the
symbol
of
unity
of
a
great
Empire
of which
the
people
had become aware.
It
is
almost
impossible
for
us to realize
the
wave
of
emotion
which
swept
through
all
classes.
Merely
from her
age
it was
not
thought
that
the
Queen
would live
many
years longer,
and,
without
realization
of
the
future,
she seemed
to sum
up
in
her
own
person
a
half
century
of
marvellous
achievement,
both
material
and
spiritual.
The ceremonies
also
brought vividly
home the
pinnacle
which
the
Empire
had
then reached.
In
the
procession
from
Buckingham
Palace
to the
Abbey,
where a
thanksgiving
service
was
held,
there
were
representatives
of
almost
every
nation
in
the
world. As
the
Queen-Empress
drove in
state,
the
procession
which
followed
her
was one
of
the
most
remarkable
in
history.
Members
of
most
of
the
ruling
Houses
in
Europe,
envoys
from
far
countries over
the
globe,
fighting
forces
from
every
part
of the
Empire,
and
above
all the
retinue of
Indian
Princes,
made
a
spectacle
which
surpassed
256