How Did the Empire Strike Back?
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HOW DID THE EMPIRE STRIKE BACK? Andrew S. Thompson looks at three case studies to examine the impact of imperialism on democracy and liberalism in Britain between 1865 and 1920.1 For a century or more, the empire has been blamed for debasing British politics. The experience of governing the colonies is said to have imported The cartoonist t the start of the twen- introducing into our Houses of attitudes and values David Low created tieth century, the Parliament the coarsest and most the pompous New Liberal intel- selfish spirit of “Imperialism”’.2 into Britain that reactionary and lectual, J. A. Hobson, Thirty or so years later, yet in ultranationalistic railed against the fact a similar vein, the New Zealand- were inimical to the Colonel Blimp, originally for the Athat the south of England was born political cartoonist, David growth of a modern Evening Standard. ‘richly sprinkled’ with a class of Low (1891–1963), took great retired colonial soldiers and offi- delight in deriding the xenopho- democracy. Liberals cials, ‘men openly contemptuous bic and racist, if by then ultimately have been at the of democracy, devoted to mate- irrelevant and futile, attitudes of rial luxury, social display, and the that archetypal imperialist, Colonel forefront of such shallower arts of intellectual life Blimp.3 Jose Harris’s study of later- criticisms. … the wealthier among them Victorian and Edwardian political discover political ambitions, culture ploughs a similar furrow: 16 Journal of Liberal History 42 Spring 2004 HOW DID THE EMPIRE STRIKE BACK? Imperial visions injected a hungry blacks on the courthouse burnt in effigy by a large gather- powerful strain of hierarchy, of the small town of Morant Bay ing of working-class radicals at militarism, ‘frontier mental- in Jamaica. During a month-long Clerkenwell Green in London. ity’, administrative rational- period of martial law, people were Eyre’s supporters included ity, and masculine civic virtue shot, hanged and flogged, and clergymen, peers and members of into British political culture, at many houses were razed.5 Jamai- the armed forces. Their case was a time when domestic political ca’s white planters praised Eyre made at a welcome home din- forces were running in quite the for his handling of the crisis. But ner, in the pamphlet and periodi- opposite direction towards egali- the severity of the measures that cal press and at various provincial tarianism, ‘progressivism’, con- he had taken left the British gov- societies. They raised a significant sumerism, popular democracy, ernment with little choice but to sum of money (rumoured to be feminism and women’s rights.4 suspend this Australian explorer over £10,000) on Eyre’s behalf. turned colonial official, and to Surely in Some scholars have taken this Is it fair, then, to characterise set up a Royal Commission to episode as proof of a marked hard- imperialist ideology as essentially enquire into his conduct. times of ening of racial attitudes in mid- anti-democratic? Clearly this is a Opinion in the country, mean- colonial Victorian Britain. The view of big question that could be tackled while, was deeply divided.6 The black people as inherently inferior in a variety of ways. Here the focus Victorian intelligentsia, in par- crisis to whites is said to have gained a will be on the domestic political ticular, were at sixes and sevens much wider currency as a result of repercussions of three well-known as to whether the Jamaican Gov- there was the Eyre controversy.7 Elsewhere I episodes of colonial oppression ernor had acted responsibly or question this interpretation, argu- and settler rapacity: the Morant not. A Jamaica Committee, led by a strong ing that working-class racial atti- Bay rebellion in Jamaica (1865), John Stuart Mill, and backed by temptation tudes do not fit comfortably into the Anglo-Indian protest against such luminaries as John Bright, the ‘boxes’ to which they have Lord Ripon’s Ilbert Bill (1883) and Charles Darwin, Frederic Harri- to drop any often been assigned.8 Here it needs the Amritsar massacre at Jallian- son, Thomas Huxley, and Herbert to be emphasised that even though wala Bagh (1919). Surely in times Spencer, organised a campaign to pretence at the Jamaica Committee’s four legal of colonial crisis there was a strong prosecute Eyre privately, while an actions failed, Eyre was nonethe- temptation to drop any pretence Eyre Defence Committee, sup- inclusive- less forced into premature retire- at inclusiveness, liberalism and tol- ported by Thomas Carlyle, John ness, liber- ment, turned down for several erance, and to rally behind those Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, Charles government posts, and deprived of who were prepared to ‘save the Kingsley and Charles Dickens, alism and the patronage and perks to which Empire’ by upholding and defend- established a fund to pay his legal other ex-governors had grown ing racial privileges and, if neces- expenses. tolerance, accustomed. Even the debate on sary, by a show of armed force? Though the Jamaica Com- Eyre’s legal expenses in 1872 was mittee set out to mobilise ‘gen- and to rally enough to bring his opponents tlemanly opinion’, Eyre’s critics behind out of the woodwork and previ- Governor Eyre also comprised many people of ous passions back to the boil.9 Take the Governor Eyre contro- more modest means. From the those who Of course, martial law con- versy, an event that brought to the outset, abolitionist, missionary tinued to be invoked in the face forefront of British politics the and dissenting groups – known were pre- of future colonial disturbances, nature of colonial rule and the collectively as ‘Exeter Hall’ – had and a string of other massacres relationship between white settlers not only bombarded the Colonial pared to was to litter Britain’s twentieth- and black subjects. Eyre responded Office with petitions and memo- ‘save the century imperial record. Yet, in a swiftly and brutally to the march rials, but staged numerous mass sense, this is to miss the point. In of several hundred angry, land- meetings. Eyre’s figure was even Empire’? 1865, many of Eyre’s opponents, Journal of Liberal History 42 Spring 2004 17 HOW DID THE EMPIRE STRIKE BACK? especially Liberals, perceived a ‘The Jamaica risk of authoritarian and arbitrary Question’ (Punch, methods of government seep- 23 December 1865). White ing back from colony to mother planter: ‘Am not I country – this was why the debate a man and brother focused as much (or more) on the too, Mr Stiggins?’ uses and abuses of martial law as on rival theories of race. At a time when many people in Britain were agitating for a further exten- sion of the franchise, the prospect of West Indian methods of repres- sion being adopted at home was all the more alarming. Such anxi- eties may well have weighed with the British government when it decided to replace the old regime of rule by the planter class with a more direct form of government from London. Though this looks like a throwback to the past, the decision actually held out some hope for black Jamaicans in so far as it curbed the powers of the island’s ‘plantocracy’. In the words of Niall Ferguson, ‘the liberalism of the centre’ had prevailed over ‘the racism of the periphery’.10 Indeed, in the years that followed, the cry of ‘democracy in dan- ger’ continued to have consid- erable political purchase during moments of colonial crisis.11 The Ilbert Bill The determination and skill with which Anglo-Indians mobilised metropolitan opinion against the Ilbert bill (1883–84) may seem a more straightforward example of imperialists riding roughshod over the principle of racial equality (enshrined in the royal proclama- tion of 1858).12 Lord Ripon,13 Vice- roy of India from 1880 to 1884, was responsible for introducing a raft of liberal reforms, including those to promote local self-government. These were attacked by his Tory opponents as a ‘policy of senti- ment’, but Ripon returned to Eng- land to provide a vigorous defence of his policies at the National Lib- eral Club in February 1885. The Ilbert bill needs to be set in this context. It was a statutory ‘The Anglo-Indian amendment to the Criminal Pro- Mutiny – A bad cedure Code whereby Indian example to the elephant!’ (Punch, judges and magistrates in country 15 December areas (the Mofussil) would be given 1883) 18 Journal of Liberal History 42 Spring 2004 HOW DID THE EMPIRE STRIKE BACK? the power to try British offend- victory had not been achieved 1883 was ever, showed greater perspicacity, ers in criminal cases. It became without a fight. Several pro-bill regretting that Ripon had thrust the focus of a ‘White Mutiny’ newspapers – the Daily News, the not so the measure on Anglo-India at a – a heady cocktail of racial and Echo, Reynolds’ News, the Weekly moment when he was engaged sexual fears, which fed on memo- Times, the Pall Mall Gazette much a ‘in the gigantic and difficult task ries of 1857, and engulfed India’s and the Contemporary Review of introducing local govern- community of English business- – had rallied round Ripon. They crossroads ment reform’.21 There were also men, planters and professionals. argued for the importance of a in the his- those who supported the liber- A European and Anglo-Indian more sympathetic and sensitive alisation of municipal govern- Defence Association was formed. approach on the part of the Gov- tory of ment but opposed the Ilbert bill It staged protest meetings, threat- ernment of India to the ‘native because they felt that it would do ened boycotts and even tried to population’.