Rudyard Kipling Quotes
The more we work and the less we talk, the better it will be. If we lean this lesson of imperialism, we will keep our empire.
Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936, British Nobel Laureate in Literature, Criticism of the British Conduct of the Boer War, July 29, 1901
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
When the British first colonized South Africa, the area they used was not inhabited or very sparcely so. However, some Black tribes (including the Zulus) were moving from the north and themselves were colonizing or annexing the sparcely populated areas to their kingdom. The British were most interested in Trading so did not have large land asperations. The Dutch white Boer Africanners, in contrast, wanted to farm the lands and use the range for their cattle. They wanted the land. The English policy was that there would be friendly relations with the Black tribes surrounding their Cape Colony and no one should take their land. However the Boers started attacking the Black areas and seizing their farms and villages. At first, the English assumed that the Blacks would easily be able to ward off the invasion as the Afrikanners had no professional troops like the British. However, the neighboring native tribes were not very warlike or good fighters. They were being overrun by the Zulus coming from the North and the Boers from the South. The British Government had a real problem in that they would have to have British soldiers fight the white Afrikanners if they wanted to stop the illegal white invasions. This was the root of the Boer War where the British would be fully at war with the Africanners.
Burke argued for England giving America much more freedom and self determination.
The British saw the American colonies and the East Coast Canadian provinces all as their North American possessions. With the growing dissatisfaction of the New England and other Colonies, the British wanted to secure Quebec as a safe base where there were few rebels. Fox, of the opposition, criticized the heavy-handed control of Quebec wanting to give the rights of Englishmen under the English Constitution to all citizens of the North American colonies. Had Britain done so, there may never have been an American Revolution.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.
