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April 10, 2026
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"Those isles of the sea are calling to me, The smell of the camp fire a dear memory. Though far I may roam, some day I’ll come home To the islands, the Falklands, the isles of the sea."
"Never, perhaps, was any Object in itself, abstractedly considered, less valuable, nor less worthy of public Attention, than the Falkland Islands: yet, the Manner in which Spain acted on the Occasion, displayed so much Arrogance, as to compromise the Honor of the British Crown, and to demand a Reparation no less public than the Affront."
"On the 11th of September 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of Gaza. The Balfour Declaration promised European Zionists a national home for Jewish people. (At the time, the Empire on which the Sun Never Set was free to snatch and bequeath national homes like a school bully distributes marbles.)"
"It appears that the available certificates for immigration to Palestine will be exhausted in the near future. It is suggested that the granting of an additional one hundred thousand of such certificates would contribute greatly to a sound solution for the future of Jews still in Germany and Austria, and for other Jewish refugees who do not wish to remain where they are or who for understandable reasons do not desire to return to their countries of origin. On the basis of this and other information which has come to me I concur in the belief that no other single matter is so important for those who have known the horrors of concentration camps for over a decade as is the future of immigration possibilities into Palestine. The number of such persons who wish immigration to Palestine or who would qualify for admission there is, unfortunately, no longer as large as it was before the Nazis began their extermination program. As I said to you in Potsdam, the American people, as a whole, firmly believe that immigration into Palestine should not be closed and that a reasonable number of Europe's persecuted Jews should, in accordance with their wishes, be permitted to resettle there."
"Adjoining Syria is Palestine, for which the British Government holds a mandate from the League of Nations. This is an even smaller country, with a total population of less than a million, but it attracts a greal deal of attention because of its old history and associations. For it is a holy land for the Jews as well as Christians and, to some extent, even the Muslims. The people inhabiting it are predominantly Muslim Arabs, and they demand freedom and unity with their fellow-Arabs of Syria. But British policy has created a special minority problem here—that of the Jews—and the Jews side with the British and oppose the freedom of Palestine, as they fear that this would mean Arab rule. The two pull different ways, and conflicts necessarily occur. On the Arab side are numbers, on the other side great financial resources and the world-wide organization of Jewry. So England pits Jewish religious nationalism against Arab nationalism, and makes it appear that her presence is necessary to act as an arbitrator and to keep the peace between the two. It is the same old game which we have seen in other countries under imperialist domination; it is curious how often it is repeated."
"There were three possible responses to such discrimination. The first was to leave. Yet despite the importance of Zionism in Polish-Jewish politics, only a small proportion of Polish Jews drew the conclusion that they would be better off trying to find a Jewish state in the new 'home' their people had been granted in what was now the British 'mandate' in Palestine. Even in the 1930s just 82,000 Polish Jews emigrated there, though as we shall see this also reflected British nervousness about the effect of continued Jewish immigration on Palestine's internal stability. In fact, only a minority of Polish Zionists were committed to systematic colonization of the Holy Land; the majority were just as interested in what could be achieved in Poland itself. It was easier in more ways than one for a West Prussian to leave Poland for neighbouring Germany than for a Jew to leave Poland for the more distant Holy Land."
"I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds."
"During the [First] World War the British armies invaded Palestine and, as they were marching on Jerusalem, the British Government made a declaration in November 1917, called the Balfour Declaration. They declared that it was their intention to establish a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine. This declaration was made to win the good will of international Jewry, and this was important from the money point of view. It was welcomed by most Jews. But there was one little drawback, one not unimportant fact seems to have been overlooked. Palestine was not a wilderness, or an empty, uninhabited place. It was already somebody else's home. So that this generous gesture of the British Government was really at the expense of the people who already lived in Palestine, and these people, including Arabs, non-Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and, in fact, everybody who was not a Jew, protested vigorously at the declaration. These people felt that the Jews would compete with them in all activities and, with the great wealth behind them, would become the economic masters of the country ; they were afraid that the Jews would take the bread out of their mouths and the land from the peasantry."
"No influence, direct or indirect, over the Holy Places of Islam will ever be tolerated by Indian Mussulmans. It follows, therefore, that even Palestine must be under Mussulman control. So far as I am aware, there never has been any difficulty put in the way of Jews and Christians visiting Palestine and performing all their religious rites. No canon, however, of ethics or war can possibly justify the gift by the Allies of Palestine to Jews. It would be a breach of implied faith with Indian Mussulmans in particular and the whole of India in general."
"As the chairman of the Municipal Council of the British Concession in Tianjin, W. W. Dickinson, reported to the consul in Tianjin, these regulations were “based on those which obtain in Shanghai and in the British Concession, and the committee made modifications and additions as past experience and present exigency seem to justify."
"The foreign areas look for all the world like modern Western cities, with great modern Temples of Finance, massive business premises, and well-built residences."
"For three or four Chinese coppers, I could ride in a rickshaw from my home, in England, to Italy, Germany, Japan, or Belgium. I walked to France for violin lessons; I had to cross the river to get to Russia, and often did, because the Russians had a beautiful wooded park with a lake in it."
"Japanese actions during the Tianjin incident is part of its 'new order' policy meant to completely squeeze out British influence in China"
"I was detailed with the 15th Infantry to rescue missionaries that were being trapped there. It was like they were prisoners — they couldn't even come out of their billets without getting fired on or having rocks thrown at them."
"The British Municipal Council was empowered to install gas, water, and electric supply; tramways, or other means of facilitating transit of wayfarers or goods, or to grant concessions to others to do so”."
"The beginning of the first two concessions, the British and the French, were “foul and noxious swamps, around them, on the dryer grounds, were the numerous graves of many generations of people”."
"Although China attracted Belgian investors and missionaries from the 1860s, it is especially after 1900 that major investments began to take place in various industrial, financial and commercial sectors, such as banking, railways, metallurgy and real estate. The most famous companies were the Banque sino-belge, the Compagnie financière belgo-chinoise, the Société belge d’entreprise en Chine, the Compagnie générale des chemins de fer en Chine and the cfeo. The Beijing-Hankou (present Wuhan) railway line, the mines of Lincheng, the trams of Tientsin and the steel mills of Hanyang were among the most successful results of the Belgian “informal empire.”"
"It would never do, to renew the colonial experience gained in the sixteenth century, when Colonies were brought to ruin by those who pretended to fix in Europe, from a purely metropolitan point of view, their financial and administrative existence."
"The trade of all nations shall enjoy complete freedom in the Conventional basin of the Congo."
"Any claim about…the level of colonial violence, requires not just assumptions about the scale of violence that would have occurred absent colonial rule but also a careful measure of that violence relative to the population, security threat, and security resources in a given territory. One is hard-pressed, to take a prominent example, to find a single example of such care in measurement in the vast critical cholarship on the British counter-insurgency campaign against the Mau in Kenya from 1952 to 1960…At the very least, it is incumbent on scholars to show that the brutalities unleashed by the British in this campaign were not the likely result of a proportionate response given the context and scale of the threat. If this supposedly solid case is wobbly, what does it tell us about the lesser ‘violence’ often cited as invalidating colonialism?"
"No doubt whatever exists as to the strict and literal sense which should be assigned to the term in commercial matters. It refers exclusively to traffic, to the unlimited power of every one to sell and to buy, to import and to export products and manufactured articles. No privileged situation can be created under this head, the way remains open without any restrictions to free competition in the domain of commerce, but the obligations of local Governments do not go beyond that point."
"The present condition of Central Africa reminds one much of that of America when that continent was first opened up to the European world. How are we to avoid a repetition of the unfortunate events, to which I have just alluded, amongst the numerous African tribes? How are we to guard against exposing our merchants, our colonies and their goods to these dangers? How shall we defend the lives of our missionaries and religion itself against the outburst of savage customs and barbarous passions? Finding ourselves in the presence of those whom we are urging to undertake the work of civilization in Africa, it is our duty to save them from such regrettable experiences as marked the corresponding phase in America."
"All the powers exercising sovereign rights in the said territories will protect and promote, without distinction of nationality and religion, all religious, scientific and charitable institutions and enterprises."
"The nutritional status of cohorts born 20 years before and after colonization did not change significantly, during the colonial period expanding health infrastructure, slightly favoring the central region and urban areas, improved the nutritional and health status of most Kenyans. The net outcome of colonial times was a significant progress in nutrition and health. While anti-colonialism is fashionable it is not supported by evidence."
"It is experience, which will then inspire the interested Powers with the most favourable resolutions for the development of commercial progress in their possessions."
"The doctrine of state ownership of land established since 1890 is the exact opposite of free trade, the new doctrine is reprehensible, going against both the natural rights of the indigenous people who will be deprived, and the rights of the Imperial powers as determined in the act of Berlin."
"The labours which we are about to undertake to regulate and develop the commercial relations of our countrymen with that Continent, and to render a service alike to the cause of peace and humanity."
"Freedom of trade and navigation in the Congo Basin, exclusion from any differential treatment, assimilation of foreigners to nationals in civil and commercial terms, prohibition of entry rights for twenty years, condemnation of trafficking. There is only one downside: the African work does not have the international character that he would have liked."
"The Conference, should draw up a separate convention, applicable throughout the world, and destined to form a complement of the international law on this subject."
"To the king's great satisfaction, Brussels was chosen as the location, for eight months of intermittent meetings starting in November 1889, for an Anti-Slavery Conference of the major powers. The king happily entertained the delegates, in whose meeting room at the Belgian Foreign Ministry aforked slave-yoke was on display."
"What does the greatness of a monarch consist in? I fit is the extent of his territory, then the Emperor of Russia is the greatest of all. I fit is the splendour and power of military organization, then William II [of Germany] takes first place. But if royal greatness consists in the wisdom and goodness of a sovereign leading his people with the solicitude of a shepherd watching over his flock, then the greatest sovereign is your own."
"No monopoly or favour of any kind in matters of trade."
"As to the question whether this modification is opportune, the fact must not be lost sight of that the Berlin Conference never intended to fix unalterably the economic system of the Free State, which, as was already then foreseen, would undergo radical modifications under the influence of progress, nor of establishing for an indefinite period regulations which may hinder, check, and even arrest its development. Provision was wisely made for the probability of future changes, which would require a certain latitude in economic matters in order to secure their easy realization... The moment has now come when the marvellous progress made by the infant State is creating fresh needs, when it would be only in accordance with wisdom and foresight to revise an economic system primarily adapted to a creative and transitional period. Can we blame the infant State for a progress which, in its rapidity, has surpassed the most optimistic forecasts? Can we hinder and arrest this progress in refusing her the means necessary for her development? Can we condemn the Sovereign who has already made such great sacrifices to support for an indefinite period a burden which daily becomes heavier, and at the same time impose upon him new and heavy expenses necessitated by the suppression of the slave-trade? We are convinced that there will be but one answer to these questions."
"Feelings of humanity and commiseration erupt on their own when we deliberate with our feet in the blood."
"The Imperial Government will be glad to have such an opportunity of showing its sentiments of sympathy for the Congo Free State, which, under the wise direction of its August Sovereign, has given such striking proofs of vitality. The German Government will willingly lend its help to placing the Congo Free State in a position to dispose of the means which may seem necessary to assist its development and to enable it to continue its valuable services to the cause of civilization and humanity."
"The change which has occurred in the political condition of the African Coast, to-day calls for common action on the part of the Powers responsible for the control of that Coast. That action should tend to close all foreign slave-markets and should also result in putting down slave hunting in the interior. The great work undertaken by the King of the Belgians, in the constitution of the Congo State, and the lively interest taken by His Majesty in all questions affecting the welfare of the African races, lead Her Majesty's Government to hope that Belgium will be disposed to take the initiative in inviting the Powers to meet in Conference at Brussels, in order to consider the best means of attaining the gradual suppression of the slave-trade on the Continent of Africa and the immediate closing of all the outside markets which the slave-trade daily continues to supply."
"The King will find in the homage now rendered him the highest reward of his toil and sacrifices, which will at once be a great encouragement and a source of legitimate pride."
"The Arabs, who may be regarded as the man-hunting gang, are already weakened by the measures adopted. Recent events in the German possessions on the east coast, will both destroy the Arab prestige and increase our influence in ihe interior... The abolition of the abominable trade in human flesh will be accomplished, provided the necessary means are forthcoming."
"The well merited homage it had rendered to the work of the King of Belgians from its very commencement."
"Wares of whatever origin, imported into these regions, under whatsoever flag, by sea or river, or overland, shall be subject to no other taxes than such as may be levied as fair compensation for expenditure in the interest of trade, and which for this reason must be equally borne by the subjects themselves and by foreigners of all nationalities. All differen- tial dues on vessels, as well as on merchandise, are forbidden."
"The rate of the taxes of compensation is not fixed in any definite manner. The support of foreign capital ought to be placed, with commercial freedom, amongst the most useful aids to the spirit of enterprise, whether it has reference to the exe- cution of works of public interest or whether it has in view the development of the cultivation of the natural products of the African soil. But capital only goes, in general, to places where the risks are sufficiently covered by the chances of profit. The Commission has therefore thought that there would result more disadvantages than advantages from binding too strictly, by restrictions arranged in advance, the liberty of action of public powers or of concessions. If abuses should arise, if the taxes threatened to attain an excessive rate, the cure would be found in the interest of the authorities or of the contractors, seeing that commerce, as experience has more than once proved, would turn away from establishments the access to, or use of, which had been rendered too burdensome."
"Everything seems to indicate that a decisive hour has sounded in the history of the world, the hour when an almost virgin continent and ignored races will cooperate in the work of humanity."
"Congo is the oldest independent country in Africa, after Ethiopia (800 BC) and Liberia (1847). The only country that was not colonized in Berlin!"
"Modern international law follows closely a line which leads to the recognition of the right of native tribes to dispose freely of themselves and of their hereditary territory. In conformity with this principle, my Government would gladly adhere to a more extended rule, to be based on a principle which should aim at the voluntary consent of the natives whose country is taken possession of, in all cases where they had not provoked the aggression."
"The slave trade has another character; it is the very denial of every law, of all social order. Man-hunting constitutes a crime of high treason against humanity. It ought to be repressed wherever it can be reached, on land as well as by sea."
"As governor, I experienced the vitality of life in a booming and free Asian city, saw routinely the best and worst aspects of human nature, and was made to revisit some of the principles in which I have always believed but to which I had rarely given much thought previously. In the darker hours of occasionally fretful nights I found myself face to face with the moral dimensions of political action to a greater extent than ever before."
"[M]ake everything from nothing. ... [T]he British colonial government turned Hong Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing."
"Nevertheless, it is true that on 1 July 1997 Hong Kong became the only example of decolonization deliberately accompanied by less democracy and a weaker protection of civil liberties. This was a cause for profound regret, especially for the departing colonial power. But it was China's doing and China's decision. I am pleased that Britain narrowly avoided complicity in the dishonourable act of denying the citizens of free Hong Kong what they had been promised in 1984."
"This relative lack of external pressure, together with the rise of laissez-faire liberalism at home, caused many a commentator to argue that colonial acquisitions were unnecessary, being merely a set of “millstones” around the neck of the overburdened British taxpayer. Yet whatever the rhetoric of anti-imperialism within Britain, the fact was that the empire continued to grow, expanding (according to one calculation) at an average annual pace of about 100,000 square miles between 1815 and 1865.28 Some were strategical/commercial acquisitions, like Singapore, Aden, the Falkland Islands, Hong Kong, Lagos; others were the consequence of land-hungry white settlers, moving across the South African veldt, the Canadian prairies, and the Australian outback—whose expansion usually provoked a native resistance that often had to be suppressed by troops from Britain or British India. And even when formal annexations were resisted by a home government perturbed at this growing list of new responsibilities, the “informal influence” of an expanding British society was felt from Uruguay to the Levant and from the Congo to the Yangtze. Compared with the sporadic colonizing efforts of the French and the more localized internal colonization by the Americans and the Russians, the British as imperialists were in a class of their own for most of the nineteenth century."