Imperialism

Documents:

Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Place in the Sun, given as a speech to the North German Regatta Association, 1901.

As head of the Empire I therefore rejoice over every citizen, whether from Hamburg, Bremen, or Lübeck, who goes forth with this large outlook and seeks new points where we can drive in the nail on which to hang our armor. Therefore, I believe that I express the feeling of all your hearts when I recognize gratefully that the director of this company who has placed at our disposal the wonderful ship which bears my daughter's name has gone forth as a courageous servant of the Hansa, in order to make for us friendly conquests whose fruits will be gathered by our descendants!

C. Gauss, The German Kaiser as Shown in His Public Utterances (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), pp. 181-183.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton
Retreived: June 17, 2009 @ URL: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1901kaiser.html

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Anthony Trollope, The Diamond Fields of South Africa, 1870.

In 1868 and 1869 various diamonds were found, and the search for them was no doubt instigated by (farmer) Van Niekerk's and (peddler) O'Reilly's success; but nothing great was done nor did the belief prevail that South Africa was a country richer in precious stones than any other region yet discovered. It was in 1870 that the question seems to have got itself so settled that some portion of the speculative energy of the world was enabled to fix itself on the new Diamond Fields. …The English came,-at the end of 1871,…and from that time to this Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein have been worked as regular diamond mines…. Carts are going hither and thither, each with a couple of horses, and Kafirs above and below, ---not very much above or very much below,---are working for 10s. a week and their diet without any feature of interest. At Du Toit's Pan there are 1441 mining claims which are possessed by 214 claimholders.

From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), Vol. III: Egypt, Africa, and Arabia, pp. 437-457.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg.
This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.
Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
© Paul Halsall, November 1998 halsall@fordham.edu

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John Stuart Mill, On Colonies and Colonization, 1848.

Much has been said of the good economy of importing commodities from the place where they can be bought cheapest; while the good economy of producing them where they can be produced cheapest, is comparatively little thought of. If to carry consumable goods from the places where they are superabundant to those where they are scarce, is a good pecuniary speculation, is it not an equally good speculation to do the same thing with regard to labor and instruments?

From: John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, ed. J. Laurence Laughlin, (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1891), pp. 540-560. Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg.
This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.
Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook. © Paul Halsall, January 1998 halsall@fordham.edu

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Jules Ferry, Speech Before the French Chamber of Deputies, On French Colonial Expansion, March 28, 1884.

The policy of colonial expansion is a political and economic system…that can be connected to three sets of ideas: economic ideas; the most far-reaching ideas of civilization; and ideas of a political and patriotic sort.

In the area of economics, I am placing before you, with the support of some statistics, the considerations that justify the policy of colonial expansion, as seen from the perspective of a need, felt more and more urgently by the industrialized population of Europe and especially the people of our rich and hardworking country of France: the need for (to obtain) outlets (for exports).

From Jules François Camille Ferry, "Speech Before the French Chamber of Deputies, March 28, 1884," Discours et Opinions de Jules Ferry, ed. Paul Robiquet (Paris: Armand Colin & Cie., 1897), -1. 5, pp. 199-201, 210-11, 215-18.
Translated by Ruth Kleinman in Brooklyn College Core Four Sourcebook
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text. This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.
Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook. © Paul Halsall, July 1998 halsall@murray.fordham.edu

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Captain F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, reporting on the attitude of natives in Zanzibar on trade with the British and its effects, 1893

The Zanzibar Gazette, which is in a good position to judge, since the imports and exports from German East Africa can be fairly assessed there, speaking of "the comparatively large sums from the national resources" invested in this country, says, "We think it is only a question of time for such investments, with a careful management of the territory, to show highly profitable returns." Such a view from those on the spot and possessing local knowledge, should be a strong testimony in favor of the far richer British sphere...

From: F. D. Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, (Edinburgh, 1893), I.585-587, II.69-75.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg. This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook. © Paul Halsall, November 1998 halsall@fordham.edu

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Petition of the Chiefs of Brass Regarding Trade on the Niger to the British Colonial Secretary, the Earl of Derby, 1877.

We the undersigned Kings and Chiefs of Brass, West Coast of Africa, beg and pray that you will take our case into consideration. We shipped ... about 4,500 to 5,000 tons of palm oil per annum. ..to do all this we had to open up place[s] on the Niger, trading Stations or markets as we call them up as far as a place called Onitsha on the Niger. Some years ago the White men began trading on the Niger with the intention of opening up this River; this did us no harm as they went up a long way farther than we could go in their Steamers and also bought a different kind of produce to what we were buying, but lately within the last six years they have begun putting trading Stations at our places and consequently they have stopped our trade completely as well as of those in the Lower part of the River Niger, . . . and formerly when we sent nearly 5,000 tons of [palm]oil away we do not [now]send 1,500 per annum.

From: C.W.Newbury, British Policy Towards West Africa, II, pp.94 - 5, 298-99
Retrieved: on June 18, 2009 at http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob113.html

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Letter Published by John G. Paton, New Hebrides Mission from British Missionary Letters: Urging the Annexation of The South Sea Islands, 1883.

For the following reasons we think the British government ought now to take possession of the New Hebrides group of the South Sea islands, of the Solomon group, and of all the intervening chain of islands from Fiji to New Guinea:…

1., 2., 3., 4., 5., ...

6. The islands on this group are generally very rich in soil and in tropical products so that if a possession of Great Britain, and if the labor traffic stopped so as to retain what remains of the native populations on them, they would soon, and for ages to come, become rich sources of tropical wealth to these colonies, as sugar cane is extensively cultivated on them by every native of the group, even in his heathen state. . .The islands also grow corn, cotton, coffee, arrowroot, and spices, etc., and all tropical products could be largely produced on them.

From: Accounts and Papers 1883, (London: HMSO, 1883), Vol. XLVII, pp. 29-30.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by Prof. Arkenberg. This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook. © Paul Halsall, November 1998 halsall@fordham.edu

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Hobson, J.A., Imperialism, A Study, compiled from the Dictionary of Political Economy, 1902.

From: John A. Hobson, Imperialism, A Study, PART I THE ECONOMICS OF IMPERIALISM Chapter IV
Economic Parasites of Imperialism First edition: 1902.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive Retrieved from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/hobson/1902/imperialism/pt1ch4.htm

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Kautsky, Karl, excerpts from article “Ultra Imperialism”, published in Die Neue Zeit, a German socialist theoretical journal, 1913.

As a rule, industrial zones overmaster and dominate agrarian zones. This was true earlier of the city vis-à-vis the countryside, and it is now true of the industrial State vis-à-vis an agrarian State. The development of outlets for foreign industrial products in the agrarian State itself creates a series of preconditions for this. Foreign capital itself flows into the agrarian country, first to open it by building railways, and then in order to develop its raw-materials production, which includes not only agriculture, but also extractive industries – mining.

From Die Neue Zeit, September 1914. Copied with thanks from the Website endpage.com.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.

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The Amazon and Madeira rivers; sketches and descriptions from the note-book of an explorer, by Franz Keller, engineer, 1875.

Though in a few years puffing locomotives will be speeding through them, the districts we explored have till now been so detached from communication with the rest of the world, and have, notwithstanding their natural wealth, partaken so little of the influence exercised by commerce over the course of universal history, that it is likely more than one of our readers has had to refer to the map, to call to mind the exact position of the different points in the great Amazon Basin, or the Madeira, or the Mamore Valley.

CREATED/PUBLISHED New ed., with sixty-eight illustrations on wood. Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott and co., 1875.
DIGITAL ID gcbr 001 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gcbr.001
Library of Congress Archive

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Lenin, Vladamir, Excerpt from pamphlet entitled, Imperialism: A Special Stage of Capitalism regarding establishment of colonies as a step in capitalism, 1917.

…The division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up.

Written: January-June, 1916 Published: First published in mid-1917 in pamphlet form, Petrograd.
Published according to the manuscript and verified with the text of the pamphlet.
Source: Lenin’s Selected Works, Progress Publishers, 1963, Moscow, Volume 1, pp. 667–766.
Transcription\Markup: Tim Delaney & Kevin Goins (2008)
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2005.
You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source

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Commissioner Lin's letter to Queen Victoria after being appointed as the Imperial Commissioner to limit trade in Canton, Jan. 15, 1840.

But after a long period of commercial intercourse, there appear among the crowd of barbarians [i.e., the private traders] both good persons and bad, unevenly. Consequently there are those who smuggle opium to seduce the Chinese people and so cause the spread of the poison to all provinces. His Majesty the Emperor, upon hearing of this, is in a towering rage. He has especially sent me . . . to settle this matter .

Of all that China exports to foreign countries, there is not a single thing which is not beneficial when eaten, or of benefit when used, or of benefit when resold: all are beneficial…Take tea and rhubarb, for example; the foreign countries cannot get along for a single day without them.

Retrieved: on June 18, 2009 at http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob29.html

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