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The New Idea of Self-Governing Colonies of Settlement

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Colonial Self-Government

Part of the book series: Cambridge Commonwealth Series

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Abstract

‘A very different way of thinking’ about empire became prevalent as England was being industrialised, wrote Richard Pares in 1937.3 For a long time, historians were too interested in the rejection of mercantilism in the 1840s to appreciate correctly what Pares called the ‘positive theory of empire’, the beginnings of which were coeval with the coming of free trade. Belief in active colonisation by settlement was a vital part of the ‘positive theory of empire’ and involved a sense of imperial destiny through self-governing colonies, which would inherit British culture and enjoy British institutions. Over forty years ago W. P. Morrell suggested that a ‘new imperialism’ had begun ‘with the great migration of the second quarter of the nineteenth century’.4 In 1970 A. G. L. Shaw reached a similar, rather more extensive conclusion: ‘Very broadly, in place of the old conception of empire, based largely on the alleged advantages of controlling imperial trade, … a new one was arising, based on humanitarianism, migration and investment’.5

The new empire was founded largely on land and settlement, but, however economic was its emphasis, there was not the economic bondage of the old one.

J. C. Beaglehole1

It is a sort of instinctive feeling to us all, that the destiny of our name and nation is not here, in the narrow island which we occupy; that the spirit of England is volatile, not fixed.

H. Merivale2

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sydney, Australia

    John Manning Ward (Challis Professor of History)

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© 1976 John Manning Ward

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Ward, J.M. (1976). The New Idea of Self-Governing Colonies of Settlement. In: Colonial Self-Government. Cambridge Commonwealth Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02712-5_7

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