[lit-ideas] Lloyd George on Imperialism
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 21:55:58 -0800
Macmillan on page 43 writes, "People have often assumed that, because Lloyd
George opposed the Boer War, he was not an imperialist. This is not quite
true. In fact, he had always taken great pride in the empire, but he had
never thought it was being run properly. It was folly to try to manage
everything form London and, he argued, an expensive folly at that. What
would keep the empire strong was to allow as much local self-government as
possible and to have an imperial policy only on the important issues, such
as defense and a common foreign policy. With home rule - he was thinking of
Scotland, his own Wales, and the perennially troublesome Ireland as well -
parts of the empire would willingly taken on the costs o looking after
themselves ('Home Rule for Hell,' cited a heckler at one of his speeches.
'Quite right,' retorted Lloyd George, 'let every man speak up for his own
country.') The dominion s-Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland and
South Africa - were already partly self-governing. Even India was moving
slowly to self-government, but with its mix of races, which included only
the merest handful of Europeans, and its many religions and languages, Lloyd
George doubted it would ever be able to manage on its own. (He never
visited India and knew very little bout it but, in the offhand way of his
times, he considered Indians, along with other brown-skinned peoples, to be
inferior.)
"In 1916, shortly after he became prime minister, Lloyd George told the
House of Commons that the time had come to consult formally with the
dominions and India about the best way to win the war. He intended,
therefore, to create in Imperial War Cabinet. It was a wonderful gesture.
It was also necessary. The dominions and India were keeping the British war
effort going with their raw materials, their munitions, their loans, above
all with their manpower - some 1,350,000 soldiers from India and another
million form the dominions. Australia, as Billy Hughes, its prime minister,
never tired of reminding everyone, had lost more soldiers by 1918 than the
United States."
Well, there you go -- good grief. Two points for you to consider Mr. Billy
Hughes, 1) the United States was not one of Britain's dominions - at least
not at that time. And 2) It has been our policy here in America, very much
unlike the policies of Britain, France and Germany in WWI, to take comfort
in the deaths of our enemies, not in those of our own soldiers.
Lawrence
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