ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of the South African war, social degeneration became an issue uppermost in the minds of British politicians and political commentators. The war, which had begun for the British with a series of embarrassing military reversals, dealt a severe blow to confidence in the traditional imperial values, political mechanisms, and social structures of the nation. To explain the poor showing of the troops in South Africa, social reformers pointed to the cities, and the physical deterioration, mental inactivity, and indifference to the empire associated with urban life. Such an acknowledgement of the impact of social conditions upon Britain's imperial standing united a range of political parties in the quest for national efficiency and the establishment of an 'imperial race' that would safeguard the future of the empire. As I shall illustrate, in the hands of the reformers the relation of England - the 'mother country' - to the colonies was typically defined in functional and economic terms, with progress, productivity, and wealth explicitly determining the course of political developments.
