ABSTRACT
A whole chapter is given over to an analysis of Charles Pearson’s National Life and Character (1893), because of its significance in this context. Whereas Meredith Townsend thought that Indian culture would cause the civilising mission to fail, Pearson was sure that it would succeed but with devastating consequences for the European imperialist movement which he supported and admired. His time in Australia had convinced him that democracy, and the socialism it gave rise to, would undermine character: but he was also sure that it would be weakened drastically by the civilising mission. That would emancipate Africa and Asia, especially China, economically, leading to the industrialisation of Asia and the destruction of industry in the West. In its turn, that de-industrialisation would turn back the tide of empire and destroy the economic dynamism that had lain behind the development of the British character. Pearson’s book set off a widespread debate in Britain in the 1890s on the moral foundations of empire and the empire’s future that gives a comprehensive picture of elite views at that time. Pearson’s conclusions were endorsed by a few critics but the majority of them still showed faith in the survival of empire and the future of the civilising mission, though a few radical readers of the book rejoiced in the prospect of the fall of both.
