TOPICS OF THE DAY THE TWO IMPERIALISMS -VV E are in
the heartiest sympathy with Lord Hugh Cecil in what he said as to the two Imperialisms in his eloquent speech in the Education debate on Tuesday. He touched, and with the alchemy of a true orator turned into gold, what we have often set forth in the plain talk that becomes a newspaper,—the fact that if the Empire is to stand and endure it must be in the last resort founded, not upon ships and soldiers, not upon swift cruisers and "all-shattering guns," not upon blood and iron, but upon the character of the British people, and upon the spirit that possesses them. Sir Thomas Browne said, speak- ing of mankind, that we live by an invisible flame within us. His words are equally true of Empires. If the British Empire is not to founder and go out as did the Empires of Nineveh and Tyre, of Carthage and Rome, it must be because that Empire has an invisible flame within it. All else is vain. If that flame is not kept burning we are but expanding and developing to our own destruction. It is the spirit that quickens, and if the spirit is not there we are but heaping up dross for stronger men to plunder. "Each fatal triumph brings more near the inevitable end." But if the spirit is not dead but alive, we need have no fears for the Empire. How, then, are we to keep the invisible flame burning, how are we to make sure that the spirit shall live within the Empire ? The answer is that given by Lord Hugh Cecil. There are two Imperialisms, one false and the other true, one the Imperialism of material, the other of moral, greatness. The true Im- perialism, he rightly tells us, rests on the character of the citizens of tha Empire. If we build on character our foundations are well and truly laid, and the building, though raised more slowly, will last. Wordsworth has been accused of priggishness because in his 'Character of the Happy Warrior" he told us that the heroic man of his thought "makes his moral being his prime care." But he spoke the words of truth for nations as well as for men. If we are to maintain the Empire, it must be by maintain- ing the character of the citizens of the Empire, and by making them worthy of their trust.
In the last resort this must be done through education.
• " We ought," said Lord Hugh Cecil, "to do all we can to improve the national character, and we ought to enlist in that task the educational forces of the country." There- fore he appealed to all "who desire to make national education fulfil its noblest purpose, who desire to make he schools of the country not only schools where the people will learn to be successful, to make wealth rapidly, to be learned, and to cultivate their intellect, but schools where they will also learn to serve the right, with a know- ledge of the Finpreme powers that lie beyond the region of the senses. So we may maintain—both in our Imperial function, both in the many problems that crowd upon us in every quarter of the world, and also in those domestic matters that are not less anxious and important--the supreme law as governing our national policy, the law of trying to do that which is right and that which is noble, and not merely following that which is sordid and that which is profitable." It is needless to say again that we agree with every word of this eloquent appeal. Education fails if it does not make good citizens, for unless we have good citizens the heart of the Empire will be of stone and will meet the fate of all the Empires of the past. Even mere material prosperity will not last unless the State is made up of good citizens. That which constitutes a nation's wealth, prosperity, and great- ness—we venture to repeat what we wrote in the Spectator of February 18th, 1899—is not the possession of mines, or rich lands, or good harbours, or any other physical advan- tages, however great, but only the energy and character and enterprise of its people. "But what is it that in the long run keeps a nation alive, makes it eager, zealous, adventurous, full of energy and power? As Mr. Kidd has taught us, the ultimate cause of national welfare is the possession of moral and spiritual ideals,—a devotion to what is non-material and non-rational. These are the things that quicken a nation and give it life and strength."
If we appeal to history we shall see that what we have said is no fine-spun theory but a fact. During those periods when the nation has been sunk in materialism, as it has been from time to time, it has always loosened its grasp on the Empire. When it has been most alive to its high duties and has been most inclined to regard the Empire as a trust, it has been most successful in the work of Imperial expansion. No doubt he who would desire an Imperialism based on moral ideas because it was most successful would make as capital an error as he who is honest because it is the best policy; but it is a fact that the Empire has never flourished greatly when it was based on pure materialism. We pointed out this by a detailed appeal to our history in 1897. In that year Mr. William Watson published a poem of great literary beauty and power in answer to Me, Kipling's "Recessional." Mr. Watson wrote :— " Best by remembering God, say some,
We keep our high imperial lot. Fortune, I fear, hath oftenest come When we forgot—when we forgot. A lovelier faith their happier crown, But history laughs and weeps it down!"
But no one can look back impartially at our history and not note that the years of Imperial retrogression were the years in which we forgot. Did the Empire flourish in the days of Charles II.? We did not win but lost provinces in those evil days. Again, when at the end of the eighteenth century the hard materialism of the age was joined to an outburst of sensuality and profligacy—the epoch typified by the political action of Charles James Fox and the Coalition Government of North—the Empire was almost at its lowest ebb. Never had the standard of public duty been lower, never had the Empire been in such danger. We hold, indeed, as we pointed out in dealing with Mr. Watson's poem (September 4th, 1897), that a broad and general survey of our history cannot fail to support the view that we have taken,—namely, that our Empire rests upon a moral, and not on a non-moral, base, and that it is not accurate to say that fortune has oftenest favoured us when we forgot. "We believe that in the long run we have won because we remembered our duty to God and to our fellows, and that only by remembering it shall we keep the gift of Empire. If we hold it for selfish ends we are doomed. If we hold it as a trust we may and shall retain it till the trust is accomplished The ideal of duty may be, in the scientific sense, the least rational of ideals, for no man can define how he knows and why he follows the stern daughter of the voice of God.' When, then, we say that the nation, if it is to survive, must not forget to do the will of God, we are only stating a truth taught by history. Doubtless, strive as we may, we shall in the future, as in the past, fail to reach our ideal, for nations are as fallible as men. That, however, matters little. Honesty in intent, not success, is what is essential. What is wanted to keep the nation sound is to preserve it from the belief that God is an unknown God,' far and in- different, who reeks not of human concerns and human good and evil, and that it matters little whether we do or do not do our duty. That is a belief which, except in a few mystically minded men, tends to kill the sense of duty,—is in the end what ruins kingdoms and lays cities flat. To get ordinary men to make, in Cromwell's phrase, a conscience of what they do, you must allow them some- thing more life-giving than the unknown God."
Before we leave the subject of the false Imperialism and the true Imperialism we will, if our readers will pardon yet another reference to ourselves, point out that the reason why we have thought it our duty to resist the in- fluence of Mr. Rhodes as far as in us lay was due to the fact that we regarded him as the representative of the false Imperialism,—the Imperialism based on great material, even if patriotic, aspirations, and not on the sense of duty. Whether Mr. Rhodes also held in theory that it was neces- sary to build up the Empire on a foundation of good citizen- ship and of the sense of duty we do not know. What we do know is that the Rhodesian stamp of Imperialism was not, in fact, the true Imperialism. Mr. Rhodes did not, either by his example or by his methods, encourage high and noble ideals. Let us make every allowance for his actions—and we fully admit that they were not selfish but meant to be patriotic—and then ask any impartial judge whether his political methods were of a kind to raise the standard of citizenship and inspire men with noble ideals. We know how that question would be answered in the case of, say, John Lawrence, among dead expanders of the Empire, or say, Lord. Cromer, among those who are living ; but can it be honestly asserted that Mr. Rhodes's influence went to increase that vital spirit of righteousness and good citizen- ship without which, in our belief, the Empire must fall ? Mr. Rhodes may have meant well, nay, we believe did mean well, but if he lowered. the standard of Imperial duty and of good citizenship, as we hold that he did, the gain of his good intentions cannot for a moment be set against the loss of his actual influence. Mr. Rhodes no doubt spoke loosely and without reflection When he said that the Union Jack was the greatest of commercial assets, and we do not wish to push the point against him unduly, but the phrase was an indication of the influence he exerted on men's minds. He may have cherished in his heart of hearts an ideal Imperialism, but the Imperialism which he taught the world was material- istic, and based not on duty but upon mere power and policy. Character and the sense of duty, those in truth are the greatest of Imperial assets. If we want the Empire to continue we must endeavour to build it on the characters of our citizens and on the sense of duty.
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