MISS MARY KINGSLEY ON EFFICIENCY AND EMPIRE. [To THE EDITOR
OF THE "SPECTATOR-1 SIR,—In the Spectator of December 30th you cite that fine passage from R. L Stevenson's letters regarding mission work.
May I add w bat I think is its companion passage,—namely, Stevenson's opinion of the right way to set about under-
standing the people you are working among—quite an essential thing from his point of view " When I desired any detail of savage custom or of super- stitions belief, I cast back in the story of my fathers and fl-h-cl for what I wanted with some trait of equal barbarism. Michael Scott, Lord Derwentwater's head, the second sight, the water kelpie : each of these three I have found a killing bait. The Black Bull's Head of Stirling procured f■tr me the legend of Rabas. What I knew of the Cluny Macphersons or the Appin Stewarts enabled me to learn and helped me to understand about the Levas of l'ahiti. The native was no longer ashamed, his sense of kinship grew warmer, and his lips were op-ned. It is this sense of kinship that the traveller must rouse and share, or he had better confine himself to travels from the blue bed to the brown ; and the presence of one cockney titterer will cause a whole party to walk in clouds of darkness."—(" In the South Seas," R. L. Stevenson.)
There are possibly still many among us who question the importance of our understanding alien races, or, indeed, any race, with a lower culture-level than our own. Recent events, I hope, may have convinced many of these people that it is an excellent thing to know details concerning the possibilities and powers of those peoples with whom in our widespread Empire we have to deal. Whether we may have to use that knowledge in peace or in war will depend upon circumstances, but I think it is undeniable that a true, accurate, and wide- spread knowledge is an essential factor to our permanence as a world-Power. It will act in the direction of preventing us from engineering our good intentions in such a manner as to make them appear tyrannous and hateful to those whom we wish to benefit by them. It will keep us out of Majuba Hills and their after-consequences to a greater extent than any- thing else can. The history of our Imperialism is an interest- ing one. Our commercial expansion in the days of Elizabeth was marked by an intense love of knowledge of the minor details. If you turn back and read your Dampier or any of that school of Imperialism, you will find chronicled all manner of domestic details about the strange countries and peoples they came in contact with. Oar colonial, or emigrant, ex- pansion of the age of Victoria, either to the Americas or to Australia, has been marked by no such love of detailed knowledge ; in its place there is emotionalism. The reason for this is obvioas, but it has produced tiresome results. A back-wave of this emotionalism gave us the Indian
Mutiny, but our Indian Empire, being a direct descendant of our older Imperialism, survived, and has returned to its earlier tradition. In other regions, however, emotion- alism has had fuller play, and has been regarded as a substitute for detailed knowledge. I sincerely hope among the many good things this South African affair will surely give us, one will be the recognition that emotionalism is sitting at our council board in a place that should be occupied by know- ledge. I beg you will not misunderstand me, and think that by emotionalism I mean either true religion or true human sympathy. That emotionalism I so deeply detest and
distrust is windy-headed brag and self-satisfied ignor- ance. "I did not know" would have been no safe excuse to offer to Sir Francis Drake for a disastrous enterprise. This emotionalism has not spread danger-
ously yet among us. It is the nearest thing an Englishman can have to hysterics, and his constitution is not naturally inclined to them, but when he has them they are no use to him. They cannot help him to spread abroad his power, his. religion, his justice, or his commerce. Yet undoubtedly he has, of late years, chosen this emotionalism for his counsellor in place of his Elizabethan counsellor, detailed knowledge, and this emotionalism has poisoned many of his noblest enter- prises, has cost him much blood and money and heart- ache, and it has, above all things in the way of harm, made him suffer that grievous delusion, "the end justifies the means." I sincerely hope, now that it has had a showy breakdown, he will depose it, and replace that counsellor who so greatly helped to give him world-power, and that will so greatly help him to both keep and expand it. The lesson detailed knowledge teaches is hard and dry. It says: Learn things as they are and keep your given word ; let it coat you what it may, be just. Emotionalism says: Mean well, be merciful and generous; forgetting that mercy and generosity are only compromises made towards the attain- went of justice, not in themselves justice, that perfect thing by which alone an Empire can endure and prosper, and which is attainable by honourable-minded Englishmen by knowledge of the facts of the case.—I am, Sir, &c., M. H. KINGSLEY. 32 St. Mary Abbott's Terrace, Kensington, W.
[We publish Miss Kingsley's letter with sincere pleasure, and trust her plea for patience, thoroughness, and clear and clean intention, as against sloppiness, mental and moral, and vague well-meaningness, will not pass unheeded.—Eh. Sp(ctator.]
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