ABSTRACT
In the nineteenth century all colonial powers, like Britain in Ireland, were presented with two alternative sets of goals. The traditional conception of empire envisaged colonies as territories to be exploited. A newer conception, not fully articulated until after the French Revolution, was that colonies provided additional land and people whose integration into the political unit would strengthen the nation. The former conception relied upon superior military power to keep the people quiescent; the latter, upon responsiveness to make them loyal.
