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INTRODUCTION

perialism sought to base it on higher grounds. It desired to make the Empire a united and self-subsistent whole, not merely on the ground of safety, but on the wider ground of the richer life which it would afford. Seeing in England an old, crowded, and complex society, with little room for internal development, it sought to open a wider horizon to its view, and to remedy some of the greater evils of the social organism by means of the wide, untried territories at its command. At the same time it transmitted to the daughter States those very principles which had contributed to England's undisputed naval and commercial hegemony in the world—the principles of religious and political liberty, the spirit of commercial enterprise based on the Puritan maxim of self-development and self-reliance to which she owed the foundation and growth of her Colonial possessions. The creed has found many detractors. Some have labelled it 'Jingoism,' and defined it as a hectoring and braggart attitude towards other peoples. Some have called it Chauvinism, and described it as an extreme self-satisfaction, the glorification of our own merits at the expense of all the world. But the truth is that such hostile definitions are irrelevant They have no relation to Imperialism, even on its least worthy side; indeed, they are far more descriptive of the vices of the opposite school For the true Imperialist, so far from seeking war, seeks a security for peace by remedying the weakness and isolation which are the primary causes of war; and so far from being a Chauvinist, he implores his people to believe that they have not necessarily said the last word on all things, and that it is their business to learn from and, if necessary, to follow the methods of other States. In a practical sense we have seen its working in the South African War. Far from producing evil qualities,