Decolonisation
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Author | A. P. Thornton |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900102 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Decolonisation
A.
P.
Thornton*
TTG.
Wells once
said
that
if
enough
intelligent men wanted
1
the
British
Empire
to
continue,
then
it
would
do
so.
If
*they
did
not,
then
it
would
not.
Wells,
like
other
intellec-
tuals,
expected
rather
too
much
of
intelligence,
but
he
made
an
important
point.
The
British
people
themselves,
the
British
democracy,
had
always
been
indifferent
to
the
future
of
the
British
Empire,
mainly
because
they
knew
so
little
about
its
past
and
had
so
little
to
do
with
its
present.
To
quote
Wells
again,
they
knew
as
much
of
it
as
they
knew
of
the
Argentine
Republic
or
of
the
Italian
Renaissance-in
other
words,
nothing
at
all.
The
British
Empire
was
built
by
men
who
wanted
to
stay
in
charge
of
their
handiwork.
They
had
ideals
they
believed
in;
and,
they thought, the
time
to
mature
them.
It
was
not
designed
as
a
democratic
organisation:
empire
and democracy
are
not
natural
partners.
It
was
operated, maintained,
and
respected
by
the
middle
and
aristocratic
classes of
England.
The
Victorian
Radical
John Bright
once
called
the
diplomatic
service
a
vast
system
of
outdoor
relief
for
the
upper
classes,
and
this
term
has
been
transferred
to
the
field
of
imperial
administration
without
much
straining
it.
India,
for
example,
was
run
by
middle-class
civilians
and
Service
officers,
the
only
aristocrat
present
being
the
Viceroy:
a
state
of
affairs
blessed
by
John
Stuart
Mill
in
his
Representative
Government
(1861),
who
pointed
out
that
if
too
many
aristocrats
were
allowed
to
pasture
in
these
lush
fields
they
would
certainly
revert
to
their
eight-
eenth-century habits
of
nepotism and
luxury.
The
colonial
ser-
vice
was
staffed
primarily from
the
major
and
minor
public
schools
of
England, as
were
the
specialist
corps in
the
prestigious
Department
of
History,
University
of
Toronto.
This,
a
companion-
piece
to
"Colonialism"
(International
Journal,
Autumn
1962),
is
a
revised
version
of
a lecture
delivered in
the
University
of
Washington,
6
August
1963.
8
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
Federated
Malay
States
and
in
the
Sudan.
The
benevolent
pater-
nalism
that
controlled
the
affairs
of
such
states
as Nigeria and
Uganda reflected
the
attitude
of
a
remote
sixth-form
"Oppidan"
at
Eton
towards rowdy,
but
basically
sound,
"Collegers".'
When
the
Empire
was
spoken
of
in
such circles,
it
was
the
dependent
colonial
Empire, in
Africa,
in
the
Pacific,
in
the
West Indies,
that
was in mind.
The
self-governing
Dominions
were
reckoned
as
adjuncts
of
British
power,
but little
concrete
knowledge
of
their
internal
affairs
was
ever
widespread among
either
British
officialdom
or
the
class
from
which
that
officialdom
was
recruited.
At
any
one
time
there
were
always
very
few
Englishmen who
could
have
named
with
accuracy
either
the
Prime
Ministers
or
the
capital-cities
of
the
Dominions.
In
constitutional
terms,
it
can
be
said
that
this
officialdom
was
a
devotee of
representative,
but not
of
responsible,
govern-
ment.
As
many
as
possible
were
to
be
consulted
on
the
adminis-
tration
of
the area
they
lived
in:
but these
many
must,
of
course,
be
educated
and
responsible persons
of
integrity.
Since
there
were
never many
of
these
about,
the
thought
of
handing
over
power
to
such
was
always
a
remote
one
in
the
1920's
and
1930's.
India
was
the
test-case; and
it
was
not
a
simple
but
a
complex
form
of
diehardism
that
objected
to
handing
over
the
masses
to
the
mercies
of
the
classes,
or
untouchables
to
Brahmins,
in
that
country.
"Nationalism"
was
anyway
felt
to
make
more
noise
than
sense.
It
was
a
narrow
concept, subversive
of
a
broader
unity, setting
one
community
against
another
on
the
fatuous
ground
that
every
little
language
ought
to
have
a
nation
of
its
own.
Cui
bono?
British
strategists
did
not
have
to
be
reminded
of
the
relationship
of
foreign
policy
to
imperial
defence.
If
given
their
head,
the
rabid nationalists
(who
in
fact
lived
on
an
estate
greater
than
they
knew)
would
cheerfully
bring
down
to
ruin
a
larger
structure
than
any
they
could
conceive.
And
this
could
very
easily
be
done.
To
break
up
the
Empire,
one
had
only
to
make
a
first
breach--one
had
only
to
hand
over
responsibility
in
a
vital
area,
and
thereafter
imperial
power
would
shred
out as
from
a
skein
of
wool.
Imperialists
could
see
neither
point
to
nor virtue
in
such
an
action.
So-it
was
right
that
people's
views
should
be
heard,
that
people
should
freely
1
Further
analogies
may
be
traced
in
Graham
Greene's
The
Old
School
(1931),
and
in
Cyril
Connolly's
Enemies
of
Promise
(1938).
H.
G.
Wells'
views can
be
found
in
his
An
Englishman
Looks
at
the
World
(1914),
and
Mr.
Britling
Sees
It
Through
(1916).
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