Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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The
Growth
of
Ann-Imperialism
225
the
voyage,
the
trials
of
which
were
then
a
serious
consideration
for
all
but the
favored
few.
No
one
cause
was
responsible
for this
outpouring
of
population.
The
demobilization
of the
armed
forces
was
a
factor,
but
apparently
only
a
minor one.
More
important
was
the
distress
occasioned
by
the
with-
drawal of
the
enormous
stimulus
that
war
had
given
to economic
activity,
and the
unemployment
produced
by
the continuance
of
the
industrial
revolution
with
its
substitution of machines for
men
in
pro-
duction.
Here,
however,
we
have
to
exercise
caution,
because
the
people
who
were
most
oppressed
were
the
least
numerous
among
the
emigrants,
and as the
century
wore on
emigration
became
a flood
though
the
country
was much
more
prosperous.
From
Waterloo
to the
Reform Bill
there was
some
pauper
emigration,
subsidized
by
the
gov-
ernment and
by
voluntary
societies
organized
for
the
purpose;
and
because
it
was
thus
publicized,
it has attracted
attention
out of
all
proportion
to its relative size. The unassisted
emigration
was
at
least
ten
times
greater,
and
in
so far as the
pressure
of hard
times drove
these
people
forth it
was
by
persuading
them that
they
had better
use
at
least
some
of their
capital
in
getting
out
while
they
could
still
afford
it.
The
overwhelming
proportion
of
emigrants
who
paid
their own
way
also
upsets
the old
theory
that
the Irish
and the
Scots
were still
migrat-
ing
in
larger
numbers
than
the
English
because
England
had
a
poor
relief
system,
Scotland
only
the rudiments
of
one,
and
Ireland
none
at
all.
Another
mistaken
notion
has
been
that a difference
in the
rate of
population
growth
largely
explains
the
disparity
in the
rate of
emigra-
tion from the
different
parts
of
the
British Isles.
From
1821,
the
date
of
the
first
reliable
census of
all
the
United
Kingdom,
4
the
Irish
rate of
population
increase
was
slightly
less
than
the
English
and
more
than
the
Scottish;
and
careful
investigation
indicates
that the
same
was
true
before
this
time.
How
then can
we
account
for
the
disparity
in
the
emigration
rate?
England
could
best
support
its
annual
increase
be-
cause
it
was
by
far
the
richest
of
the
three
countries
and
it was
the most
industrialized.
In
Scotland
most
of the
people
lived
in
the
Lowlands,
where
industrialization
had
pretty
well
kept pace
with
that of
England;
226
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:
but
the
Highlands
were
untouched
by
this
development,
and
there
the
land
was
very poor.
Ireland was in the
worst
way
of all.
English
policy
had
long
since
blighted
its
industries
and
absentee landlords
its
agri-
culture,
and
its
population
was
rapidly
outgrowing
the means
of
sub-
sistence.
Indeed,
for
many
years
Irishmen
had been
migrating
in
large
numbers
not
only
across the Atlantic
but
also to
England
and
Scotland
where,
as
cheap
labor,
they kept
wages
down but
got
more than
they
could
have
earned
at
home.
Conditions in
the
British Isles are
only
half
the
reason
for the
swell-
ing
emigration
from
them.
People
were
drawn as
well
as
pushed
out,
and
what
attracted them
was the
opportunity
to
improve
their
lot
across
the
sea.
To the
average
emigrant
it
was
the
call
of a new
world
where
wages
were
higher
and
the
ownership
of
land was within
the
reach
of
all,
where
a few
years
of
hardship
and
toil
offered
an
economic
inde-
pendence
that
was
denied at
home.
It was
the
appeal
of
adventure
and
hope
for
themselves
and
their
children
and their
children's
children.
Though
many
emigrants,
having
spent
their
all
on the
voyage,
needed
assistance
when
they
landed,
they
almost
always
found it
and
their
feet
for
they
arrived in
a
land where
they
were
more
needed
than
they
had
been
at
home,
and
they
were
of the
stuff
that
made
good.
Their
more
fortunate
fellows,
who
included
a
surprising
number
of
Highlanders,
each of
whom
managed
to
take
out 150
or
more,
were
of
course
no
less
welcome.
At
the
end
of
this
period,
the
British
govern-
ment's
agent
for
emigrants
in
Quebec
reported
that
in
one
year
the
new
settlers
brought
into
Canada a
total
capital
of
1,000,000.
Whether
this be
an
exaggeration
or
not,
it is
clear
that
those
who
were
migrating
from
the
mother
country
were
benefiting
themselves
and
the
land
to
which
they
went,
and
this
double
benefit
increased
the
human
pull
across,
the
Atlantic.
With
temporary
spurts
and
lags
due
to
passing
conditions,
emigration
from the
British
Isles
was
gathering
momentum
from its
own
success.
What was
the
government's
policy
on
emigration,
which
had
long
been
officially
discouraged
on the
ground
that it
would
weaken
the
mother
country,
whose
interests
were
paramount
over
those of
the
colo-
nies?
In
the
last
decade
of
the
eighteenth
century
private
individuals
at
home,
and more
or less
official
voices
in
some of
the
colonies,
began
to
urge
the
government
to
divert
to
British
North
America
the
stream
of
population
that
was
flowing
from
the
British
Isles
to
the
United
States. It
was
not
until the
War
of
1812
revealed
the
need for
British
settlers in
Upper
Canada,
however,
that
official
London
began
to
The
Growth
of
Anti-Imperialism 227
discard the
traditional
policy
of
frowning
on
emigration.
In
1813
Bathurst
proposed
a
plan
to
take
advantage
of the
Scottish
urge
to
emigrate.
As
soon
as
peace
returned
and
he
could find the
money,
he
would
strengthen
the
British
position
in
Upper
Canada
by
planting
Highlanders
there.
Parliament
had
not
been
consulted when this
scheme
was
launched
in
1815,
with the
interesting
result that in the
House
of
Commons
the
government
was
called
upon
to
refute
the
charge
of
encouraging
emigration
and
two
members of the
ministry
denied
it,
asserting
that
the
object
was
merely
"to
direct
those deter-
mined
to
emigrate
and
change
their
destination from
the
United States
to His
Majesty's
possessions."
This
was the
first
of
several
experiments
in
government
colonization
with
Scots
and Irish in
Canada down
to
1825.
Each
was
humanly
successful but too
expensive
to
be
adopted
on a
large
scale.
The
man
who
came
nearest
to
working
out a
positive
and
coherent
policy
of
emigration
was
Goulburn's
successor as
parliamentary
under-
secretary
of
state
for
the
colonies,
R.
J.
Wilmot Horton.
His
industry
was
tireless,
and
unfortunately
often
tiresome
to others.
On
taking
office he
soon
discovered
what
a
load the
mother
country
was
bearing
in the
colonial
establishments.
The
cause,
he
found,
was
"the utter
inefficiency
of
our
colonies,
as
to
self-support
and
self-defense,"
and
the
obvious
remedy
was
"to
give
them an
addition of
population
more
rapid
than their
natural
rate
of increase."
Like other
public-spirited
men of
the
day,
Horton was
also
gravely
concerned over the
problem
of
population
in
the British
Isles,
the
great
discussion
of
which
had been
started
by
Malthus,
whose
famous
Essay,
first
published
in
1798,
ran
through
six
editions
before his
death
in
1834. The
discussion
was,
of
course,
immensely
stimulated
by
the
widespread popular
distress of
the
times
and
the
staggering
cost
of
poor
relief,
which was
steadily
rising.
It was
almost
universally
admitted
that
there
was a "redundant
population,"
but there
was
no
consensus
of
opinion
on what should be
done about
it.
The
most
generally
ac-
cepted
solution
was
emigration;
but Malthus
and
others
argued
that
this would
only
create a vacuum
soon to
be filled
by
the
natural
in-
crease,
which
was ever
pressing
beyond
the
point
of
subsistence,
and
as
a
rule
the advocates of
emigration
were so intent
on
getting
rid of the
surplus
population
that
they
cared
naught
whither it
went.
Horton
put
the domestic
and the
colonial
problems
together,
the
surplus
of
population
at home
and the
deficit of
population
in
the
over-
seas
possessions,
and
sought
by
emigration
to
make
"the
redundant
228
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN:
labour
and
the
curse
of
the
mother
country,
the
active
labour
and
bless-
ing
of
the
colonies."
Those
who
could not
find
employment
at
home
would
find
it
waiting
for them
in
the
colonies
or,
if
it
did not
exist
there,
they
could
create
it
there
by
taking
up
virgin
land.
He
would
not
dump
paupers
on
the
colonies,
but
would
transplant
them,
supplying
them
with
capital
not
in
money
but in
kind
with
which to
become
estab-
lished so
that
they
would not
only
support
themselves
but
would
also
provide
labor
for
others.
The
cost,
he
calculated,
would be
much
less
than
the six
million
pounds
or
so
that
were
annually poured
down
the
drain
of
poor
relief at
home,
which
would then
be
stopped,
and
the
in-
vestment
of
the
smaller sum
would
pay
perpetual
dividends
to
British
society
as
a
whole.
Horton
could see no
limits
to the
possibilities
of
his
system,
which,
once set
in
motion,
might
go
on
indefinitely
transform-
ing
a
social
liability
into
a
social
asset
and
giving
an
imperial
direction
to the
stream
of
voluntary
emigration,
"until
all the
colonies
of
the
British
Empire
are
saturated,
and
millions
added to
those
who
speak
the
English
language,
and
carry
with
them
the
liberty
and
the
laws
and
the
sympathies
of
their
native
country."
Parliamentary
committees,
over
which
the
guiding
hand
of
Horton
was
more
and
more
evident,
made
exhaustive
inquiries
into the
state
of
the
poor
at
home
and
collected
voluminous
evidence
of
enormous la-
tent
potentialities
in
the
colonies.
But
the
undersecretary
of state
could
not
convince
his
fellow
members of the
House
of
Commons
that
he
had
the
right
policy
that
the
redundant
population
of
the
mother
country
should
be used
to
develop
the
colonies.
Neither
could he
convert his
seniors in the
ministry.
Why
did he
fail?
It
may
be
said that
the
fault
lay
in
him,
for
the task
demanded
qualities
that
he
did not
possess.
His
ideas were
much
bigger
than
his
personality,
his
powers
of
exposition
were
as weak
as
his
persistence
was
strong,
and
his
contemporaries
thought
him a
bore.
But it
would
have
taken
a
marvelous
man
to
get
the
action
he
wanted.
The
spirit
of
the
times was
against
Horton.
When
he
encountered
the
argument
that
the
addition
of
population
to
British
North
America
would
only
hasten its
annexation
to the
United
States
of
America,
this
was
believed
rather
than
his
prophetic
reply
that
the
effect
would
be
the
very
opposite.
Though
the
colonies
wanted
more
population,
they
objected
to schemes
of
"shoveling
out
paupers"
upon
them,
and this
criticism was
caught up
at
home.
Indeed
there
were
not a
few
who
were
skeptical
or
even
hostile to
the
whole
idea of
emigration.
Michael
Sadler,
the
Christian
socialist,
voiced the
opinion
of
many
when
he
The Growth
of
Anti-Imperialism
229
fought
it
as
"unnatural,
impolitic,
and
cruel."
Was
poverty
a
crime,
and did it
have
to
be
punished
by
transportation?
William
Cobbett,
the
radical
leader,
attacked
emigration
as a
mean
and dishonest sub-
stitute
for
domestic
reforms
that
were
long
overdue.
Still others saw in
emigration
no
permanent
relief
for
Scotland
or
England
until
they
could
somehow
be
protected
against
the invasion
of
cheap
Irish labor.
Of the
many
who
favored
emigration,
Horton
was almost
if not
quite
alone
in
maintaining
that
it
should be
at
public
expense.
This
seemed
like
a
frightful
gamble.
If
there
had been
much faith in the
colonial
empire,
there
might
have
been
more
willingness
to run the
risk,
but
this faith
was
lacking.
The
day
of
the
Little
Englander
was
dawning,
when the
concept
of
British
interests
was
confined
to the
interests of
the
British
Isles
as
separate
from
the
British
Empire.
It
was
so
charac-
teristic of
that
day
that
even
Sir
Robert
Peel
wrote in 1
824
:
"Extensive
settlement in
South
America
might
as
effectually
serve British
interests
as
if
they
were
formed in
North
America."
It
was also
characteristic
of
the
age
that
the
men
who
served
on
the
committees
mentioned
above
were much
less
interested
in
building up
the
colonies than
they
were
in
reducing
the
distress at
home,
and that when
at last
Horton
got
a
favorable
committee
report
in
1827
it
was
almost
immediately
shelved
because a
return
of
prosperity
relieved the
pressure
of
this
distress.
Horton
could not
succeed
because
he was
struggling
against
the
rising
tide of
anti-imperialism.
IV THE
ERA OF
REFORiM
Chapters
XIV. The
Flood
of Reforms
in
Britain
XV.
The British
North
American
Revolution
XVI,
South
Africa,
a
Workshop
of Native
Policy
XVII.
Australasia
and
Systematic
Colonization
XVIII.
The
Tropical
Colonies
under
the
Impact
of
Emancipation
and
Free
Trade
XIX,
Reform
and
Expansion
in
India
CHAPTER
XIV
The
Flood
of
Reforms
in
Britain
BRITAIN
HAD
never
seen
such
a
flood
of
reforms
as
came
tumbling
after
the
reform
of
parliament
in
1832,
and never
did
it see
the like
again.
There
was
scarcely
any phase
of
the
nation's
life
that
was
not
seriously
affected.
Indeed,
it
is
very
doubtful if
any
other
country
at
any
time has
carried
through
such
a
mass
of
sweeping
reforms without
a violent
overthrow
of
the
existing government.
Taken in
conjunction
with
the reform
of
parliament,
it
was a stable
and
orderly
British ver-
sion
of the
unstable
and
disorderly
French
Revolution
that
began
in 1789.
It
is also
worthy
of
note
that these
reforms
stirred
little
bitterness
between
the two
political
parties,
for
they
too
were
profoundly
changed.
The
Tories,
with the
exception
of
a few rare fossils
that
managed
to
survive,
had
enough
sense
to realize
that
they
had
to
move
with
the
times,
which were
moving pretty
fast. Under
the wise
leadership
of
Sir
Robert
Peel,
the
Tory party
was
quickly
transformed
into
the
Con-
servative
party,
which
competed
on
fairly
even
terms
with
the
Whigs,
now
becoming
Liberals,
for the
support
of
the enfranchised middle
class. So
it
came to
pass
that one
party
was
about
as liberal
as
the
other,
they
alternated
in
office,
and
the
great
reforms
of this
era
were not
carried
by party
divisions.
Therefore
we need not
bother with
party
politics
in
considering
the
radical
reconstruction
of
these
stirring years.
The
reforms
that
distinguish
this
period,
which lasted
from
the
early
thirties
to
the late
forties,
are so numerous
and so
varied
that it
almost
makes
one
dizzy
to
look
at them
as
they
come
pouring
forth. But
we
can
reduce
them
to some
semblance
of
order
by
grouping
them
accord-
ing
to
their
general
character
under the
following
heads:
the reform of
local
government;
social
reform,
including
labor
legislation;
economic
reform,
by
which
the
new
industrial
society
was freed and
organized
234
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN:
for
its
more
efficient
functioning;
and the
reform
of
the
empire,
in
which
we
can
see
the
modern British
Commonwealth
of
Nations
begin-
ning
to
take
shape.
In
this
chapter
we
shall consider each
of
these
in
turn
until
we
come to
the
last,
which will be
examined in the
next
chapter.
Municipal
government
was
revolutionized,
and
it
was
high
time
that
this
was done.
We have
sometimes blushed over
the
corruption
in
our
own
American
cities,
but we never saw
anything
so
bad
as
what
was
common in
England
until
this
great
reform.
The
government
of
the
old
towns
rested
upon royal
charters that were
centuries
old
and
had
been
seldom
if
ever revised. As a
consequence,
the
old towns had
al-
most
all
fallen
into
the
hands
of
petty
local
oligarchies
that
were
utterly
irresponsible
and
thoroughly corrupt.
The
council was
commonly
a
self
-perpetuating body
with
full
control over the
property
and
finances
of
the
corporation.
The
new
towns,
created
by
the
industrial
revolu-
tion,
were in a
worse
predicament.
They
had
no charters
and,
therefore,
no
municipal
government.
This
was such
an
intolerable
condition
that
in
many
of
them
local
authorities
with
taxing power
had been
created
by
private
acts
of
parliament
for
specific
purposes,
such
as
caring
for
the
streets
and the
drains.
The
reform of
parliament
made the
reform of
municipal
govern-
ment
inevitable,
for
the
majority
in
the House of
Commons
then
came
to
depend
on
the
support
of
the
urban
middle
class;
and
one
of the
first
steps
taken
by
the
government
after the
election at
the
end of 1832
was
to
appoint
a
royal
commission
to
explore
the
problem.
In
America
there is
nothing
quite
like this
favorite and
most
useful
British
device
for
approaching
a
difficult
and
complicated
problem
of
government.
A
royal
commission is an
independent
body
of men
picked
for their
spe-
cial
competence
to
undertake
the
required
investigation
and to
advise
on
what
should be
done.
It
usually
includes
members
of both
houses
and all
parties,
and
also men from
outside
parliament.
Its
recom-
mendations,
which
are
made
public,
do
not bind the
government
in
any way;
but
as a
general
rule
the
government
follows them
because
they
are the
best
advice
available.
After an
exhaustive
inquiry
that
continued
until
1835,
a
report
was
submitted
that
served
as
the
basis of
the
Municipal
Corporations
Act
of the
same
year.
With the
exception
of
London,
whose
citizens
had
preserved
their
democratic
freedom
from
mediaeval
times,
the act
established
a
uniform
system
of
self-government
for
all
towns
and
cities: a
council
elected
by
all
the
ratepayers,
and
a
mayor
and
alder-