Home » History » Modern British History » The Fabians and the British Empire, Part XII

The Fabians and the British Empire, Part XII

© Joseph Sramek

Round and Round Again: Fabian Thought on Imperialism, 1901-1914, Part 4

In 1912, after a bruising two-year campaign for Poor Law reform, [1] Beatrice and Sidney Webb embarked on a one-year, around-the-world voyage that took them to Canada, Japan, China, India and Egypt. [2] This trip, although superfluous in many ways to the issues raised by this series, apparently did had somewhat of an effect on their views on the Empire. In particular their experiences in India challenged their preconceived notions of the "civilizing mission" and how imperialism worked in actual practice.

Expecting "to be presented with clean-cult evidence that the civilizing role of the British Empire was a vital element in the education of the Indian people," the Webbs were upset to see firsthand the disparity between "squalor and picturesque beauty." [3] At the same time, the Webbs, particularly Beatrice, began becoming utterly fascinated with Hinduism and Indian culture. Writing in her diary just as she was about to return to England, she wrote:

The Hindu [is] a delightful and refined intellectual companion - whom one instinctively feels to be one's superior. What strikes us as serious in the present state of feeling between the British Ruler and the Indian Ruled, is the complete and almost fatuous ignorance of the bulk of British officials of their essential inferiority in culture, charm, and depth of intellectual and spiritual experience, to the Indian aristocracy of intellect... [4]

Nevertheless, she still maintained hope and confidence in the British in India to do right. Later in the same diary entry, she wrote that if

...the English would realize this new governing class - and would gradually take them into his confidence, with a view to making them part of the Government of India, then the British race might pride themselves on having been the finest race of school-masters, as well as the most perfect builders of an Empire. [5]

Although she became more critical of the Empire while on her trip than before, this last passage indicates that she still generally supported its existence. The British had to pave the way for their subjects to gain eventual self-rule, but as they were not yet "ready" for this, the British still, according to Webb, had a useful and necessary function.

A year later, the Webbs expounded on their idea of the empire "training" its subject peoples for eventual self-rule. In an article published in New Statesman and Nation entitled "The Guardianship of the Non-Adult Races," the Webbs argued for further training to continue, and then went on to argue that colonies could be grouped into several categories - those that are capable now of exercising self-rule, those that would be in the not too distant future, and lastly those which may never be able. Analogizing these colonies to "children in a universe of grown men," the Webbs argued that the grown men, or the imperial powers, had certain duties and responsibilities to them. [6]

The copyright of the article The Fabians and the British Empire, Part XII in Modern British History is owned by Joseph Sramek. Permission to republish The Fabians and the British Empire, Part XII in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.