Imperialism

A Study

J.A. Hobson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317241287
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de la Grande-Bretagne

Originally published in 1902, this study expands on the ideas of imperialism which were a key focus of many countries in the early twentieth century, particularly in Great Britain. Hobson starts by outlining the economic origins of imperialism with an analysis on methodology and results, before delving into the theory and practice of Imperialism and its political significance at the turn of the century. This edition was first published in 1938 and was completely revised to reflect the changes that occurred in world history from first publication. This title will be of interest to students of Politics or History.

PART I

THE ECONOMICS OF IMPERIALISM

CHAPTER I

THE MEASURE OF IMPERIALISM

QUIBBLES about the modern meaning of the term Imperialism are best resolved by reference to concrete facts in the history of the last sixty years. During that period a number of European nations, Great Britain being first and foremost, annexed or otherwise asserted political sway over vast portions of Africa and Asia, and over numerous islands in the Pacific and elsewhere. The extent to which this policy of expansion was carried on, and in particular the enormous size and the peculiar character of the British acquisitions, were not adequately realized even by those who pay some attention to Imperial politics.

The following lists, giving the area and, where possible, the population of the new acquisitions, are designed to give definiteness to the term Imperialism. Though derived from official sources, they do not, however, profess strict accuracy. The sliding scale of political terminology along which no-man’s land, or hinterland, passes into some kind of definite protectorate is often applied so as to conceal the process; “rectification” of a fluid frontier is continually taking place; paper “partitions” of spheres of influence or protection in Africa and Asia are often obscure, and in some cases the area and the population are highly speculative.

In a few instances it is possible that portions of territory put down as acquired after 1870 may have been ear-marked by a European Power at some earlier date. But care is taken to include only such territories as have come within this period under the definite political control of the Power to which they are assigned. The figures in the case of Great Britain are so startling as to call for a little further interpretation. I have thought it right to add to the recognized list of colonies and protectorates¹ the “veiled Protectorate” of Egypt, with its vast Soudanese claim, the entire territories assigned to Chartered Companies, and the native or feudatory States in India which acknowledged our paramountcy by the admission of a British Agent or other official endowed with real political control.

All these lands are rightly accredited to the British Empire, and if our past policy is still pursued, the intensive as distinct from the extensive Imperialism will draw them under an ever-tightening grasp.²

In a few other instances, as, for example, in West Africa, countries are included in this list where some small dominion had obtained before 1870, but where the vast majority of the present area of the colony is of more recent requisition. Any older colonial possession thus included in Lagos or Gambia is, however, far more than counter-balanced by the increased area of the Gold Coast Colony, which is not included in this list, and which grew from 29,000 square miles in 1873 to 39,000 square miles in 1893.

The list is by no means complete. It takes no account of several large regions which passed under the control of our Indian Government as native or feudatory States, but of which no statistics of area or population, even approximate were available. Such are the Shan States, the Burma Frontier, and the Upper Burma Frontier, the districts of Chitral, Bajam, Swat, Waziristan, which came under our “sphere of influence” in 1893, and have been since taken under a closer protectorate. The increase of British India itself between 1871 and 1891 amounted to an area of 104,993 square miles, with a population of 25,330,000, while no reliable measurement of the formation of new native States within that period and since is available. Many of the measurements here given are in round numbers, indicative of their uncertainty, but they are taken, where-ever available, from official publications of the Colonial Office, corroborated or supplemented from the Statesman’s year Book. They will by no means comprise the full tale of our expansion during the thirty years, for many enlargements made by the several colonies themselves are omitted. But taken as they stand they make a formidable addition to the growth of an Empire whose nucleus is only 120,000 square miles, with 40,000,000 population.

For so small a nation to add to its domains in the course of a single generation an area of 4,754,000 square miles¹ with an estimated population of 88,000,000, is a historical fact of great significance.

Accepting Sir Robert Giffen’s estimate² of the size of our Empire (including Egypt and the Soudan) at about 13,000,000 square miles, with a population of some 400 to 420 millions (of whom about 50,000,000 are of British race and speech), we find that one-third of this Empire, containing quite one-fourth of the total population of the Empire, was acquired within the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. This is in tolerably close agreement with other independent estimates.³

The character of this Imperial expansion is clearly exhibited in the list of new territories.

Though, for convenience, the year 1870 has been taken as indicative of the beginning of a conscious policy of Imperialism, it will be evident that the movement did not attain its full impetus until the middle of the eighties. The vast increase of territory, and the method of wholesale partition which assigned to us great tracts of African land, may be dated from about 1884. Within fifteen years some three and three-quarter millions of square miles were added to the British Empire.¹

Nor did Great Britain stand alone in this enterprise. The leading characteristic of that modern Imperialism, the competition of rival Empires, was the product of this same period. The close of the Franco-German war marked the beginning of a new colonial policy in France and Germany, destined to take effect in the next decade. It was not unnatural that the newly-founded German Empire, surrounded by powerful enemies and doubtful allies, and perceiving its more adventurous youth drawn into the United States and other foreign lands, should form the idea of a colonial empire. During the seventies a vigorous literature sprang up in advocacy of the policy² which took shape a little later in the powerful hands of Bismarck. The earliest instance of official aid for the promotion of German commerce abroad occurred in 1880 in the Government aid granted to the “German Commercial and Plantation Association of the Southern Seas.” German connexion with Samoa dates from the same year, but the definite advance of Germany upon its Imperialist career began in 1884, with a policy of African protectorates and annexations of Oceanic islands. During the next fifteen years she brought under her colonial sway about 1,000,000 square miles, with an estimated population of 14,000,000. Almost the whole of this territory was tropical, and the white population formed a total of a few thousands.

BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES, 1900.²

Similarly in France a great revival of the old colonial spirit took place in the early eighties, the most influential of the revivalists being the eminent economist, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. The extension of empire in Senegal and Sahara in 1880 was followed next year by the annexation of Tunis, and France was soon actively engaged in the scramble for Africa in 1884, while at the same time she was fastening her rule on Tonking and Laos in Asia. Her acquisitions between 1880 and 1900 (exclusive of the extension of New Caledonia and its dependencies) amounted to an area of over three and a half million square miles, with a native population of some 37,000,000, almost the whole tropical or sub-tropical, inhabited by lower races and incapable of genuine French colonization.

Italian aspirations took similar shape from 1880 onwards, though the disastrous experience of the Abyssinian expeditions gave a check to Italian Imperialism. Her possessions in East Africa are confined to the northern colony of Eritrea and the protectorate of Somaliland.¹

Of the other European States, two only, Portugal² and Belgium, enter directly into the competition of this new Imperialism. The African arrangements of 1884–6 assigned to Portugal the large district of Angola on the Congo Coast, while a large strip of East Africa passed definitely under her political control in 1891. The anomalous position of the great Congo Free State, ceded to the King of Belgium in 1883, and growing since then by vast accretions, must be regarded as involving Belgium in the competition for African empire.

Spain may be said to have definitely retired from imperial competition. The large and important possessions of Holland in the East and West Indies, though involving her in imperial politics to some degree, belong to older colonialism : she takes no part in the new imperial expansion.

Russia, the only active expansionist country of the North, stood alone in the character of her imperial growth, which differed from other Imperialism in that it was principally Asiatic in its achievements and proceeded by direct extension of imperial boundaries, partaking to a larger extent than in the other cases of a regular colonial policy of settlement for purposes of agriculture and industry. It is, however, evident that Russian expansion, though of a more normal and natural order than that which characterises the new Imperialism, came definitely into contact and into competition with the claims and aspirations of the latter in Asia, and was advancing rapidly during the period which is the object of our study.

The entrance of the powerful and progressive nation of the United States of America upon Imperialism by the annexation of Hawaii and the taking over of the relics of ancient Spanish empire not only added a new formidable competitor for trade and territory, but changed and complicated the issues. As the focus of political attention and activity shifted more to the Pacific States, and the commercial aspirations of America were more and more set upon trade with the Pacific islands and the Asiatic coast, the same forces which were driving European States along the path of territorial expansion seemed likely to act upon the United States, leading her to a virtual abandonment of the principle of American isolation which hitherto dominated her policy.

The comparative table of colonisation (page 369), compiled from the Statesman’s Year Book for 1900 by Mr. H. C. Morris,¹ marked the expansion of the political control of Western nations in 1905.²

The political nature of British Imperialism may be authoritatively ascerta...