The taking up of the White Man's burden

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"All this Empire building, why, the whole thing is tarnished with the spirit of the hunt for gold." (Sir John Morley). The history of an empire is the history to obtain or to keep wealth (the words in some languages, German for instance, are practically the same: Reich and Reichtum) and the quest for glory is closely allied to the quest for riches. Britain's only Jewish Prime Minister to date, Benjamin d'Israeli, was a much more committed imperialist than his Liberal rival Gladstone.

Queen Victoria, whom he persuaded to accept the title Empress of India and tried unsuccessfully to persuade to move the royal seat of residence from Windsor to Dehli, saw the British Empire as a Christian duty,. The job function email list task of the British Empire was to "protect the poor natives and advance civilization" and the British set to it with a will. "All to be cut up by those vile Afghans. Wouldn't think there would be much competition, would you?" remarked Kipling's Dawson in Stalky and Co.. Competition there was. It is certainly remarkable to what extent the children of Albion and others were prepared to go to defend the honour of the flag, fight to keep a small stretch of land, struggle on to do their duty in forlorn outposts of the tropics, struggle to establish their idea of justice among peoples who were arguably not worth the sacrifice. But an Empire is not only duty it is also adventure.

To serve an empire means to escape the humdrum, to escape the restrictions, and in many cases the moral or religious codes of the motherland. Imperial service offers limitless possibilities of exploration and adventure. It is a safety valve for excess populations and for the ambitious. It is also an escape hatch for those whose lives are regarded at home as soiled by turpitude. As the paederast Michael Davidson observes, there was an "amused tolerance" among the British colonials in Malaya for his delight in the company of little boys which in Britain itself would have seen the very same people crying for his hide.