Attitudes towards Empire

• Supporters of Empire: Conservatives, Lord Salisbury, Lord Curzon and Joseph Chamberlain.
• National efficacy:

  • 40% of British recruits had been tested and found unfit for military service.
  • 8000 out of 11,000 recruits from Manchester were turned away due to poor diet and living conditions- weakening Britain's overall manpower.
• In 1902 it was common for journalists to speak of the need for "national efficiency" as the only way of preventing Britain's decline.
• The 1902 Education Act was aimed at improving national efficacy by raising school standards and led to the opening of 1000 secondary schools over the next decade.
• Critics:

  • John A Hobson- an economist wrote "Imperialism" in 1902. His views were catalysed by the Second Anglo-Boer War, he thought imperial expansion had been driven by a search of new markets for the rich capitalists.
  • Stated that the Second Anglo-Boer War had been fought to secure gold resources for so called "Jewish Imperialist" entrepreneurs.
• Critics:

  • Emily Hobhouse (welfare campaigner) produced a report on the conditions of concentration camps during the Second Anglo-Boer War but was this was not targeted at the concept of Empire.
• Press Act of 1910 in India, allowed Britain to imprison and execute anyone who wrote radical articles in newspapers (anti-imperial themes). This form of censorship was a precursor of the Rowlett Acts 1919.