The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 14. ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 389, 14 May 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 14. ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM.

Just now, when the thoughts of all ars centred on the Uritish '-Monarchy and what it stands for, considerable interest attaches to Lord Cromer's study of "Ancient and Mouer.n Imperialism."! Pew men are better qualified than his Lordship is to write upon the subject. He is not only a scholar and a political! philosopher, but also a statesman with! practical experience of the (problems lie! discusses. He has made an analytical comparison of the Empires of Koine and of Britain, and his views are most interesting when he deals with the forces that drive a nation into the difficult and dangerous paths of Imperial expansion. He leaves the self-governing colonies out of the discussion altogether, and in that respect he certainly has made a mistake. The proolem of the colonies' relations with the Mother Country has not been: solved in the complete and 'final fasiiion he would seem to suggest, and no survey of historical events can be properly comprehensive (as the Lyttelton Times, in a review 01 the work, pertinently points out) when it disregards the factors that have brought the younger States into existence. The subject peoples are never likely to influence the development of the British Empire in the way that the oversea dominions are doing to-day and will do in the future, because national importance depends less on numbers than on vitality and the possession of . the dominant spirit. Lord Cromer's experience, o,f course, has been in India and Egypt, a.nd tne comparisons which he wislieu to maKe did not lend themselves •readily to t'he introduction of factors that did not come forcefully into play in the case of the Romans and the Greeks. The Eomians did not found any seif-governing colonies. The Greeks made the attempt, but they did not populate new lands and they had no -word even to express the idea of Imperialism. Even Alexander the Great was a conqueror, not a true empirebuilder, and his Empire fell to pieces as soon as this ruling hand was removed by death. Between Rome and Great Britain, however, there are certain striking resemblances, and some practical lessons are to be learned while tracing out the histories of the two Empires and examining into the consequences ot their ,policies. The Little Engenders attack not only , the faults of Imperialists, but Imperialism as well. They regard it as a manmade product, resulting from the insatiable craving of a few autocratic! Britons for dominion and power. Some ancient critics of Roman, policy assumed exactly the same attitude. Mithridates reproached th'e Romans for their "insatiable desire for empire and wealth,"| and in Rome there was always one class of honest patriots of limited intelligence, 1 like the elder Cato, who regarded expan- j sion as a form of corruption. The historian Florus expressed doubt whether it would not have been better for Rome to have been content with Sicily and' Africa, or even to have done without these, than to have been "ruined- by i its own greatness." An analogy is found! again in the belief of the anti-Imperial-ists of the two Empires that the rulers of the State and the leaders of armies are always thirsting 'for conquest. A little study of history reveals the fact that very often the leaders of men havel been nervous about assuming unknown] responsibilities and have been inclined to' hold back \\fheni the most natural course would have been to go forward. The artificin. process has been the holding buck, not the moving forward. The Roman rulers prayed, not to hare the Empire extended, but to have it preserved. After conquering Antiochus the' Great in Asia Minor they took nothing for tnemselves. The Emperor Augustus refused to annex Armenia. Rome made efforts to leave Greece independent, and rather than rule over Numidia it set up a new king there. Of course, the Roman people, as Lord Cromer remarks, were not unanimous in their reluctance to undertake new Imperial responsibilities. A natural pride in their own greatness conflicted with misgivings born of a doubt whether expansion meant anything more than added burdens. The Romans had something narrow in their nature which torresponds to .British insularity. The very quality which prevented them revelling in dreams of unlimited power was the quality which made it possible for them to hold their wide territories so long. Their conquests were in very many instances the results of mere accidents, such as border troubles or the trade enterprise of individual citizens. The process that made Rome great has been repeated in the case of the British Empire. The hostile critics of British Imperialism include nearly all foreigners and also a number of conscientious, British patriots whose outlook is narrow. To these people the Empire appears as the artificial creation of unscrupulous men, who are trying deliberately to suppress the liberties of other free nations. The real fact is that successive Governments have attempted to abstain from new ventures in the field of conquest, a.nd that nearly all British statesmen and soldiers have planned excursions beyond the existing borders only in order to • secure what may be called an area of safety. Clive was one of the most ambitious of all the Empirebuilders, and he thought that it would be folly to diream of carrying British power beyond the Punjaub. Men like Cecil Rhodes are rare, and do not represent the type which has been responsible very largely for painting in red great areas of the map, The process of ex-i pansion has not been 011 the whole in-| tentional or even conscious. Over and) over aga'in territorr has been acquired! because its people were dangerous to the British and. had constituted themselves a source of perpetual national irritation. The advance through India 1 was caused very largely by tribal wars -which made interrerence necessary, for the protect-on of British interests. Lord Cromer suggests that behind what

would appear to have ibeen a series of accidents lies a great national process. It made little difference that some great Romans and some great Britons were ambitious of rule and conquest and that others were cautious, conscientious and even too scrupulous. The most amoiuous could not advance until the time was ripe. The most scrupulous, like Gladstone, brought disaster when they disregarded the time and the urgent need for advance, or else they were forced against their own wishes into action. The advance of the race had little to do with tlhe theories and ideals of statesmen and soldiers. Unassailable frontiers are what national instinct has always sought, and when Britons blame Russia for it.s inevitable advance towards the sou front they make the mistake on which much misunderstanding of British policy lias been based. Criticism of the spirit ot Imperialism is useless, because it is a natural product when a nation of strong individuality comes into contact with smaller territories occupied by stiti'-ibacked people. Criticism of the methods and morals of Imperialism might be very useful, but on this side of the question Lord Cromer does not dwell.