Imperial myth
Robert Blake
Reappraisais irt British Imperial History Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin (Macmillan E10.00) The authors of these studies seek to puncture a certain mythology about the history of the Empire. According to them the version which they wish to destroy goes roughly thus. The first' British empire ended with defeat in America. A 'second' empire based on economic rather t an political considerations arose with its centre in Asia. Vast areas were annexed, as Seeley put it, "in a fit of absence of mind". These, however, came to be regarded as millstones round our nerkt" or "r1Par-hvaiahf,,
(Disraeli before 1870); alternatively, as ripe fruit which would naturally drop off the bough. Then Disraeli after 1870 changed his mind and started the "new imperialism", later said to be largely based on surplus capital pushing the flag ever further afield, and characterised by a drive towards economic unity, which culminated in the campaign for tariff reform, and political unity which culminated in the movement for imperial federation.
Neither succeeded, partly because disillusionment with the jingo hysteria which had led to the Boer War transformed public opinion. A new concept based on the Durham Report of 1839 came into being — the notion of Commonwealth, an association of nations both united and free. Gladstone sought to reconcile Ireland by the grant of self-government, and Campbell-Bannerman, inspired partly by this example and partly by the success of Canada, was persuaded by Smuts to make a "magnanimous gesture of reconciliation" towards the Boers when he granted responsible government to the Transvaal in 1906. The price paid for this was the sacrifice of black African interests. Finally, to quote the authors, "these imperial headwaters flowed together into a great Commonwealth stream, to the direction of which the overseas members, from Canada, the Irish Free State and South Africa, increasingly contributed."
The authors concede that a large part of this version has already been refuted during the last twenty years, although much of it still passes for the truth in text books and general works, and still constitutes the background against which more limited regional studies are written. It is probably true that Hobson's economic explanation of the 'second' empire cuts little ice today; nor would many people now believe that Disraeli did much for the empire, apart from talking about it, although language itself can have more effect than is always alloWed and can sometimes create the myths that affect actions.
One of the most effective of the ten pieces of demolition in this book is Ronald Hyam on the 'Magnanimous Gesture', The story has been repeated in book after book that Smuts inspired Campbell-Bannerman with the idea of abrogating the Lyttleton Constitution which would have given representative government to the Transvaal and substituting responsible government as an act of trust and generosity towards the "defeated Afrikaners. Mr Hyam effectively demonstrates that Smut's dem arche to the British Prime Minister could not have influenced him in the least since he had already decided what to do before it was made. He also shows that there was nothing at all magnanimous about it. Het Volk, the Afrikaner party, won the ensuing election, but the British government never expected such a result. What the Liberals had done was to make, not a magnanimous gesture, but a mistake in electoral arithmetic which, with the characteristic adroitness of politicians who have blundered, they tried to cover up by saying that the result was just as they had intended all along.
A secret memorandum by Churchill written on 15 March, 1906 lets the cat out of the bag. In this Churchill poured scorn on the idea that the Boers could be trusted, and argued strongly for the maintenance of "a numerical majority of a loyal and English population." Churchill did, it is true, say that he would prefer to "give back the country as a great act of renunciation than to fritter it away piecemeal." But this implies that the current policy was in fact one of frittering away piecemeal and not one of magnanimity. Significantly Churchill removed every copy of his paper from the archives. There is a slip in the relevant place — "removed by Mr Churchill" — a procedure which Mr Hyam says has no known parallel. Luckily a copy survived in Churchill's private papers and Randolph Churchill presented a photostat to the Record Office.
Equally falacious, in Mr Hyams's view, is the idea that the Liberal Government consciously sacrificed black African interests to the cause of reconciling English and Afrikaners. On the contrary it was solely a matter of power. There was no effective means of protecting black men in the former Boer republics, whatever the constitutional arrangements. In the High Commission territories there was, and the Colonial Office consistently opposed moves to transfer them to the South African government despite strong pressure from Smuts and Hertzog — with the result that they have survived to this day, islands of black self-. government in the sea of apartheid.
The great omission from these pages, as the authors themselves concede, is India, but they disclaim any wish to relegate India "to the imperial back kitchen". They argue that other historians are engaged in a major reassessment of the role of Indian affairs, and observe that "in an era of specialisation we are rather reluctant to enter more minefields of study than we can manage". What one likes about this book is that although by its very nature it is a criticism of previous opinions, its authors are good humoured and tolerant and seldom display that irritating omniscience which is often found in such studies. They have tried to look at the whole scene with a fresh eye, and a healthy scepticism about accepted modes of categorisation. Above all — and here they are surely right — whatever one thinks about individual ,essays — they avoid simplistic mono-causal explanations. The reasons for the growth and decline of the British like the Roman.empire are diverse, subtle and complicated. Mr Hyam and Mr Martin have between them made a contribution to the subject which no future imperial historian can ignore.
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