How the Civilised Nations are Bearing "The White Man’s Burden."

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XX, 19 May 1900, Page 938

How the Civilised Nations are Bearing "The White Man’s Burden."

John Bull’s island liomv being rigidly limited, his expansive nature was forced to expand over sea, in far oft lands, wherever his hold adventurers could gain a foothold. And so. bit by hit. his huge Indian and Colonial Empire was built up. until it now covers nearly a fourth of the earth’s surface, and includes, probably, a fourth of its entire |>opiilation. The actual figures are: Area, 12,000,000 square miles; population, 400.000,000. These figures arc absolutely without parallel in the history of the world. John Bull's commands, then, are, more or less, willingly obeyed by a vast host of no fewer than 350,000.000 subject |M*ople, and this host includes nations and tribes of almost every known race on the globe. lad us take India as the most conspicuous and, numerically, the most important example. A small but fit British army of 75,000 men, aided by a native force under British officers of about twice that number, keeps in admirable order a teeming population of 300.000.000, a population equal to that of all Europe. exclusive of our own 40.000.000. India is. in fact, a continent in itself. It contains many distinct nationsand races. The census returns divide the ]>eople on the basis of language* into no less than lIS groups, and even then there were some hundreds of people speaking an “unrecognisable” language. Out of the 3:10.000,000 English is* the customary language of barely 250,000, and the British-born population of India is 1 *ss than half that niimlH*r. There aie abaut 95,000,-

000 speaking Hindi; 50,000.000, Bengali; 25.000,000 T( lug’ll; 20.000. 00; Mahrathi; i 5.000.000, Punjabi; and H>.000.000. Tamil. On the basis of religion <*(>iisid<>rably over 200,000.000 are Hindoos; G 0.000.000. M ohammeda *t w ; 7.000.000 0r5.000.000 Budd hints, andonly 2.500.000 or 3.000.000 Christians, and ns such more favourably disposed toward their Christian rulers than the rest. In the Straits Settlements a few Britons keep their eye on 250.000 Malays, tin* same iiiiiiilmt of Chinese, and some 55,000 East Indians. In Hong Kong

ami Kowlun over 250,(MM) Chinese are British subjects. The “spicy breezes" of Ceylon are inhaled in settled peace ami comfort by Mr Thomas Atkins—the 2.000.000 Cinga ese, 1.000,000 Tamils. 250.000 Moors, and some 10,000 Malays never disturb his serenity. In Borneo lhe Dyaks and other warlike Malays have l>een and may Im* troublesome. but the unrivalled tact and calm courage of British Colonial administration may be trusted to smooth down any and every disturbance of the peace.

The famous bay of the south side of lhe Gulf of Pechili, responsible for the feeblest and most w dely spread diplomacy of modern times—Vvei-hai-wei—-is to be garrisoned by a British officered Chinese regiment, who can, at any rate, be trusted to keep their fellow pigtails in order.

The African command of John Bull is a particularly heavy burden, and has cost him millions in money and thousands in men. Besides 1,500,000 blacks in Cape Colony and its dependencies, there are nearly 750,000 Zulu Kaffirs in Natal, 250,000 Basutos, about 500.000 Matabeles ard Masonas,

with p<*rha|hs 200.000 Bechuanas. in Southern Rhodesia; 650 o'lo Barntses ami other Bantus in Northern Rhodesia. lie sides the 550.000 m gives of the Nyassaland or British Central Africa Protectorate. Between the Zambesi and Tanganyika less than 300 Brit sh, about the same number of Sikh soldiers ami a small native force under British officers “administer" the homeland of 1.500.000 blacks. South of the ZamlM*>si, and including the Boers of the Transvaal 1 and Free Stale, the entire white ]>opulation is very small in

comparison with the number of blacks. Further north, on the east coast, in British East Africa and Uganda, John has to keep the peace among 2,500,000 truculent tribes; and on the other side of the continent his Niger Coast Protectorate and Territories on either side of the great river put upon his broad shoulders the immensely heavier burden of controlling some 30.000,000 degrees. mostly warlike Monammedans, trained lighters, with a military organisation of high efficiency. British governors —not long lived in those “white men’s glaves”—have also the care of 1,500.000 negroes on the Gold Coast, 3,000,000 in Lagos, some 50.000 on the Gambia, and 75,000 in

Sierra Leone. What a task the destruction of the daring dervishes of the Soudan was! With less skill or valour Omdurman might have been aroth r Adowa. In Egylpt itself Elnglishm; n have done wonders, and. above all. have made

men of timorous serfs. Besides the Soudanese, our officers have also to keep well ill hand the Somali coast and the Aden district Arabs, as well as the Bahrein islanders in the Persian Gulf.

According to a recent official report there are over one hundred thousand Indians in Canada, but they have been ami are so well treated by the Dominion government that they are particularly friendly, and cause little or no trouble, even in the wilds of the Northwest. In Jamaica a third of the population are negroes, as also are the bulk

of the inhabitants in the Leeward and Windward Islands and Trinidad. The Bahama people are nearly all whites, but in British Guiana th re are 100,000 negroes, 105,000 East Indian coolies, and 4,000 Chinese. In British Honduras 500 white people live among 35.000 blacks.

In Fiji there are 3,500 whites to 100,000 Fijians, and in our other Polynesian islands the white population is very small indeed. In British New Guinea a handful (250) of Europeans form the “law and the Bobby” to over 350.000 frowsy headed Papuans. Th. native inhabitants of Tasmania are as extinct as the dodo, but New South Wales contains some 5.000 full blacks, Queensland probably 12,000, South Australia 3,000, West Australia 2,000, and Victoria only about. 500. In the Northern Territory of South Australia are 5,000 Chinese coolies, and Queensland has imported some 10.000 Polyii|?sinn lalKiurers. New Zeaia.no has

now only about 40,000 STaoris, little more than a twentieth of the population of that prosperous colony. Frenchmen are proverbially a stay at home people, and only about 500,000 French folk live out of France. But France has, nevertheless, a splendid colonial empire of some 3,250,000 square miles, with a population, almost entirely coloured, of over 53,000.OOO; 22,000,000 of these are in Asia, 30,000,000 in Africa and some 80,000 in Oceanica.

In Farther India the French are regarded as masters by 6,000,000 Annamese, 1.500,000 Cambodians, 2,000.000 Cochin Chinese and 12,0000,000 Tonkinese, ami it would not be at all an easy matter to control these obstinate ami defiant peoples but that the French officials govern them mainly through their own native rulers ami officers.

In addition to 6,000,000 Arabs and Kabyles in Algeria and Tunis, the French have to keep an ever watchful eye on some 2,500,000 marauders in the Saharan wilds, while their west coast authorities, must exercise a strong control over the 7.000.000 Fulahs and other negroes in the Senegal colony and the Western Soudan, 2,000,000 on the Ivory Coast and in Dahomey. 9.000.000 in the Gabun and French Congo, and a few thousand on the other side of' the continent, besides 3.500,000 Malagasys. Germany's burden in the way of de pendent coloured races is a light one compared to John Bull’s, her entire colonial population being considerably under 11,000,000. On the West African eoast German martinets mainlain a severe authority over 2,500,000 negroes in Togoland, and 3,500,000 in the Cameroons. German East Africa has a native population of some 4,000.000, Swahili Arabs along the coast and negroes in the interior. The Damaras and Namaquas of German Southwest Africa do not exceed 250,000 in number.

In China, from her foothold of Kiaochau, the Kaiser’s “mailed fist” may menace whom he wills. In the Pacific German New Guinea includes some 110,000 unkempt Papuans, the Bismarck Archipelago con tains 188,000, and the Solomon Islands 90,000 specimens of the same trea h erous and intractable race; 13,010 Polynesians in the .Marshall Islands complete the subject race bin den of (lerma ny. Holland is a very small country, but still it is the “heart” of a big dominion over sea. The Dutch colonial empire in the Indies, East and West, has an area of 783,000 square miles, and a total population of 35,000,000, of whom

25,000,000 are in Java, 3,000,000 in Sumatra, 2,000,000 in Celebes, and 1,000,000 in Bali and Lombok. Dutch New Guinea, though the largest section of the island, does not contain more than 200,000 people. In her Dutch East Indian possessions, Holland finds 460,000 Chinese, 24,000 Arabs and 27,000 other Orientals; the rest, 32,000.000 in number, are natives of the Malay race. The Dutch West India Islands only contain 50,000 people, and Duteh Guinea 65,000.

In spite of the Monroe mid other doctrines to the contrary, the United States now finds itself burdened with 0i,.-sen responsibilities in the shape of peace and good government in Cuba, with a population of 1,500,000 — blacks, 35 per eent., Porto ll.co, with 300,000 blacks and 500,000 whites, an I the Philippines with at least 5,500,000. most of them still to be “ pacified.” Among the multitude ot other burdens, voluntarily or necessarily borne

by the white man, none, perhaps, is more enthusiastically borne than the burden of missionary enterprise. Simply and solely to extend their own particular beliefs or creeds, Cauca siati peoples freely spend millions every year, and send forth an ever increasing army of educated and well trained men and women, who for the most part show a persistent energy and determination, in the face ofte i of apparently insuperable obstacles, that form, at any rate, an admirable object lesson to the savage or barbarous peoples among whom they spend the greater part of their effee live lifetime. i his missionary enthusiasm is not confined to the Anglo-Saxon race only, but the Latin ami Slav races are as incessant in their efforts to impart their own religious beliefs to their subject races. France, Spain; Italy, and particularly Germany and Scandinavia. maintain important mission

stations in all parts of the heathen. Mohammedan and Buddhist world.

the heavy burden of excessive armaments is not placed on the white man's shoulder so much by the “black terror” or the “yellow danger ” as by the mutual distrust of otherwise civilized nations, and an ineradicable suspicion of each other, which are as strong y marked now as they were a hundred years ago. Huge armies and powerful navies are maintained at a 1 rightful cost, ready at a moment’s notice to fly at each other to destroy, to kill, to harry, to waste. The cost of actual war. ;.s in tinpresent desperate conflict for supremacy in South Africa, though enormous, is. however, often enough less burdensome than the losses caused by rumours of war. The cost of war —a really great war such as is now raging in South Africa —is enormous, but unless some ter rifle political convulsion throws the

great Powers of Europe and America into collision, none of the wars of the early twentieth century is likely to cost anything like the colossal struggle in which England and her allies on the Continent were involved a hundred years ago. The twenty-seven years’ war against the arrogant French Republic, and then against Napoleon, cost England, in actual hard cash, nearly nine hundred millions sterling. Add to this the destruction of property, the waste of life, the loss of labour, stagnation of trade, and tin* burden which we still to an enormous extent bear laid upon the century by that war alone, is almost in calculable. the present war is estimated to cost nearly a million a day. The cost of a. war crisis, a mt*re rumour, is often very heavy. For instance, on the mere threat of war with Russia in 1885 consols shrank in value some twenty-five millions sterling.—J. F. Williams in ‘Pearson's.*