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I arrived in Singapore in 1946 when Singapore was emerging from the hands of military government and Japanese prisoners of war were still sweeping the streets; I left 30 years later when Singapore was no longer a British colony, nor even an internally self-governing entity, but a sovereign independent state admired and respected throughout the world.
Today, two decades on, I look back on British colonial achievements there as the culmination of an inspired and infinitely precious process. Indeed, I long ago reached the conclusion that, apart from the example of a few modern democracies, British colonialism offered the most fair-minded and decent form of government the world has ever known. True, my experience was limited to Southeast Asia Ð Singapore, Malaysia and to some extent Hong Kong - and some may hold this to be too small a sample to constitute a platform for pontification, but given the homogeneity of British colonial policy and practice, the objection holds little water.
Fashionable attitudes today insist that the empire was an evil conspiracy based upon cruelty, exploitation and greed, little more than a large-scale smash-and-grab raid. Like the belief that the earth is flat, this opinion is so at variance with the facts that one wonders how it can possibly be held by intelligent people.
Of course, since the colonial empire has not existed in any meaningful sense for some 30 or 40 years, many of its critics are too young to have experienced it, and thus, in a literal sense, do not know what they are talking about. It may be objected that when historians speak, say, of the Roman Empire, they are, by the same argument, just as benighted - something that is clearly not the case. But even the most eminent historian might agree to listen to someone who'd actually marched with Caesar's legions. Not so the cool young bloods of modernity, who remain impervious to anything but the received opinion of their tendency; anyone who was there at the time is but a relic of unacceptable events.
Imperialism, they will say, was wrong - as if wrongness were an absolute condition surviving intact from one era to another. Our predecessors believed in bloody retribution for the smallest theft, looked upon slavery as an acceptable fact of life, were certain that heretics should be burned at the stake, and held unflinchingly to the doctrine that an eye (at least) should be forfeited for an eye. We no longer countenance such behaviour, but that is not to say that it was not deemed to be beneficial when it was de rigueur: in fact, in the context of the time, it was seen to be a positive good.
Human behaviour of past ages might not be to our taste, but it is infantile to judge it by the standards of today. Moral imperatives might be immutable; their application over time clearly is not.
Another facile assumption of our time sees imperialism as an exclusively British idea, and therefore a peculiar kind of British horror story; in fact, it was shared by virtually every country in Europe - all of whose rulers and peoples believed themselves to be engaged in honourable and necessary work - God's work, in fact - the God all Europe worshipped. Hadn't Jesus told them to go forth and spread the Gospel?
If Christian missionary zeal wasn't the driving force of Empire, it was certainly a vital component - never more so than in the Spanish conquests. Indeed, it can be argued that if the tree of European imperialism had not been so firmly planted in the fertile soil of Christianity, it might never have thrived so mightily. But neither trade nor church could prosper among the anarchic or economically backward heathen until the land they occupied was taken over and made safe. The trader and the missionary were therefore joined by a third partner - the soldier. And God looked down on the handiwork of his European triumvirate and saw that it was good.
Worldwide empire could not, however, be sustained without the support of naval forces: merchant and passenger ships, each with its quota of nuns, brothers, vicars and bishops, needed to be protected; piracy which reduced oceans to killing fields could not be tolerated; armies were useless unless they could be transported; and ships were the vehicles that showed the flag whenever it was necessary to impress the natives. Naval power ensured the security of the arteries which carried the two-way traffic of manufactures and primary produce and became the adhesive that glued empires together. And to this day, mariners acknowledge the crucifix - long removed - which once brooded over the quarter-deck of every man-of-war: God protected those in peril on the sea.
Like all other large-scale institutions, empires were never free of the tyranny of unintended consequences: colonial armies that marched to save the bacon of missionaries held hostage beyond the safety of the imperial perimeter often forgot to retreat; naval detachments that sailed into foreign harbours to rescue merchant adventurers tempted by a deal too far were inclined to plant the flag there while they were at it; imperial territory was often extended to render particular enclaves less vulnerable, a move which nearly always rendered other enclaves even more vulnerable, requiring yet another extension in a nearly endless progression; attack in the field by a rival power led, more often than not, to the appropriation of the disputed territory, if only to prevent a repetition. The history of European expansion abroad is replete with stories of massive areas of real estate being traded, snatched or occupied by one power in order to deny them to another.
In an age when it took half a year for news to travel from one side of the globe to the other, imperial agents were not above acquiring territory on behalf of the Centre before the Centre even knew it existed, and would not have wanted it if it had.
Finally, the shape of empires changed in sympathy with the changing face of Europe - and that changed all the time. Indeed, the single most important fact about the British Empire - for example - is that no-one actually willed it: it came into being like a jig-saw, piece by piece, haphazardly, sometimes with London's connivance, at other times in the teeth of its opposition: trade was welcome, proselytisation could not be faulted, but who the devil was going to pay for yet another garrison?
In fact, western imperialism was a largely spontaneous movement of talented, aggressive, God-fearing people from Europe into the empty and/or undeveloped areas of the world which their captains and adventurers had discovered. No matter how the expansion occurred, whether under the official-sounding auspices of the East India Company, or as a result of the private initiative of people like the white Rajahs of Sarawak, colonialists were an expression of the spirit of their times.
The empires of Europe which followed were the progenitors of the multi-national corporation, the global society, and the international paraphernalia of overseas development and disaster relief - and probably did a great deal more good. They were the most natural innovation in the world, and if they hadn't existed, someone would have had to invent them. They were the creatures of their times, as inevitable as the Black Death or the Model T Ford.
It is a commonplace of the pro-imperialist argument to point to the construction of roads and railways, docks and ports, bridges and ferries, schools and hospitals, clinics and sewers - the basic infrastructure of a modern state. And these massive facilities were indeed essential if economic progress was to be made in the colonies, but they would all have been of smaller moment without the services of the men who actually made the empire function - the British colonial administrator and those who worked with him in every branch of government and the public services - health, education, the police, the administration of justice, municipal utilities and so on.
If the British version of empire was more successful than most - and it was; if, at its end, we were not reviled - as others were; and if, when departure was imminent, we left a governmental structure in place and didn't fight a profitless colonial war - as others did; then these and countless other benefits were due in large measure to the men and women who went out to the colonies and provided the life-blood of decent, honest government. They derived no personal gain from commerce, had no hand in bribery and corruption, organised no private scams, built no palaces: they simply did their job wherever they were sent until they retired - possibly with an honour or two, a title perhaps if they had climbed to the heights of a governorship, and a pension if, in the early days of empire, they lived long enough to enjoy it.
Their purpose was to rule where little rule had existed before, not only for the benefit of Britain and British trade, but for the benefit of the people they ruled: the two objectives, we had the wit to realise, were indivisible. These, however, are the people whose work is denigrated with particular fervour by the fashionable bien pensantsof our time, in thrall to a philosophy that rejects, even ridicules, all that has been worthwhile in our history.
For the most part, empire-builders came from the middle classes, were educated in public schools, grammar schools and universities not yet reduced to the status of hobby-classes. They were trained to take pride in their country, its achievements, and its empire, and at all times to be loyal to the King or the Queen who stood at the apex of their society. If from time to time they backslid at school, they were given lines by prefects who themselves had once backslid, and if that did not work they were caned and caned again. As young people (if not always as adults) they went to church and prayed for God's grace and the Royal Family, and on Armistice Day stood stock-still for two minutes, and on Armistice Sunday sang 'Onward Christian Soldiers'. And if they weren't exactly steeped in history, they knew enough about the past of their people to recognise the great and to honour the dead.
Almost inevitably their characters were steeled in war - if, that is, they survived it. They knew their place in society - as almost everyone did in those days. They contributed to charity, honoured their mothers and fathers, and probably voted Conservative. When they married, they looked for someone of their own kind, and brought up their children to be loyal upholders of the traditions of their class and their people. They often played cricket. It is so easy now to mock! But these were the men who went forth into the world and brought forth wondrous transformations that are beyond the wit of today' s slavish followers of fashion to comprehend.
How, in the hysterical climate of today's political correctness, are they to be defended? It would be misleading merely to generalise about their achievements: they deserve better than that. On the other hand, to deal with them at all comprehensively would call not for an article but a book. Perhaps, then, it must suffice to look at some of the colonial conditions that I experienced in Singapore.
When Raffles arrived on the island of Singapura in 1819 it was a largely uninhabited swamp with an heroic history lost in the mists of time. A handful of fishermen lived by the sea; otherwise there was nothing but jungle and mangrove. Raffles' purpose was two-fold: to establish a free port where trade could flourish and to set up in opposition to the Dutch, who had established themselves, in his words, as 'the exclusive sovereigns of the Eastern Seas'. The Dutch were not given to free trade, and from the moment the British flag was raised on its murky foreshore, thus 'breaking the spell of Mynheer's plans,' (Raffles again), Singapore flourished and has continued to flourish ever since. People, notably the Chinese, flocked to it, more than happy to accept a colonial dispensation in exchange for the less than happy conditions they had left behind. No-one was dispossessed by Singapore's founding or its subsequent development; no-one was oppressed no-one was obliged to go against his own conscience. The new arrivals were freer than they had ever been. And they stayed, generation after generation, even unto the present day. Quite a few of them became Christians.
They did not have a vote, of course - no-one had a vote. Democracy did not exist, nor did anyone at the time think it should - only when the possibility of democracy was mooted did the vicious struggle for power begin. But if the populace was denied the chance to dabble in politics, it enjoyed from the beginning the opportunity to become rich. The British were glad when their subjects became rich, for what better advertisement could there be for the success of their enterprise? And the Chinese who became rich were especially glad, not only because they knew how to enjoy their wealth, but because no-one begrudged them their good fortune, not even their own people who had failed to become rich.
The Chinese have never regarded a millionaire as an object of hatred (at least, not until the Marxists got at them) but as a person to be admired and, if possible, emulated. Nor, as Singapore got into its stride, was anyone denied an education, nor were they forced into unacceptable modes of instruction. Chinese children went to Chinese schools where they were taught in Chinese; Indian children, similarly, were taught in their original mother-tongue in Indian schools, and Malay children attended Malay schools to be taught in Malay and given the rudiments of Islam.
For those, however, who sought to escape the limitations of the vernacular - and many did - the government, often in association with religious groups, provided English schools where Chinese, Indian and Malay and even some English children were taught in English and sat, eventually, the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate, one of the keys to a betterment of prospects: and some went on, by payment or by scholarship, to universities abroad.
Apart from the government English schools, Catholic, Church of England, and Methodist schools proliferated throughout Singapore and Malaya, all remarkable, not only for the quality of their instruction, but for the fortitude of their teachers - nuns, brothers, parsons, preachers and laymen - who resisted their every impulse towards religious engineering; it was enough that their charges should grow up with some learning and a proper moral sense. Small fees were attached to schooling - students paid for their own text books, for example - but these were never beyond the resources of the most humble parents, and who is to say that education in England would not be improved if there were some charge at the point of delivery?
Before he left for England in 1824, Raffles devoted much energy to the founding of his institution which was to become (and still is) Singapore's senior secondary school. He harassed local notables until they subscribed to its cost, and harangued them for good measure at a meeting to launch his scheme.
Grandiloquent bombast? I suppose it is - but it wasn't then. Nor is its import now. Nor was there ever a shortage of others to follow in the way he had pointed. And did he not, even then, entertain the vision that one day the empire might wither away, its work accomplished? Racial inequality - yes, it existed, but few people seemed to worry about it. The division - if such there was - between the British and local people was a not unnatural situation: the British were, after all, in charge. If, as the officer class, they received certain benefits, they were no more resented by the generality of people than soldiers, say, object to the better living standards in the officers' mess - or, for that matter, the sergeants' mess.
In any case, so many of the subject people were now far richer than the masters. Miscegenation was frowned upon, every bit as much by Asians as by Europeans, but so it was nearly everywhere at the time: it was not a purely colonial phenomenon. Religious freedom was total; the press was freer than it is today. The remedies of the law were available to all; judges were beyond contamination. Health and housing were vital concerns of government, and none of its new high-rise apartment blocks was vandalised.
When the British returned to Singapore after the war, they referred to their arrival as the 'liberation'; resident Asians who had endured the Japanese for more than four years persisted with the more accurate 're-occupation'; but by then Britain's stock was not what it had been and the empire was already in retreat. Yet I never met an Asian man or woman who, when the time came, was agitating for freedom from colonial rule, who saw me or any other Briton as an enemy - at least, not on political grounds. When the British arrived in Singapore they attracted a hard-working peasant people, when they left, many of their descendants had become middle class: doctors, engineers, lecturers, lawyers, architects - the whole professional gamut of the modern state - some educated in Singapore, others at universities in a dozen different countries. Today, per capita, Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world - and lest it be thought that this is because Singapore became independent, it is as well to remember that when still a colony, Hong Kong became even richer.
How did all this monumental national achievement come to be so denigrated in our own country, so shameful that it is scarcely mentioned in our schools - unless accompanied by ridicule and innuendo? How did the empire, something of which we should be proud, become a dirty word in the mouths of our children's teachers? How did the brains of the political correctness brigade become so addled that they see British expansion overseas as an evil no less gruesome than that of slavery?
I have no answer to this beyond that propounded by Nietzsche and quoted in Samuel Francis's fascinating 'Letter from America' in the autumn issue of The Review, "The values of the weak prevail because the strong have taken them over as devices of leadership."
Francis agrees that this is cryptic and goes on to elucidate, maintaining that all the ills we perceive in contemporary society, "the weakening of families, the erosion of communities, the inversion of sexual morality, and all the other chants in the litany of decline" are "also signs of the triumph of the dominant culture" (the media, the universities and national politics) "which regards them.....as indications of impending liberation from traditional restraints and the defeat of its adversary, traditional culture. The values of the weak, the weird, the excluded and the repressed prevail because those who inhabit the dominant culture have taken them over as devices by which their own leadership is entrenched."
To this litany of decline he could have added disgust with our past and the pleasures to be derived from rolling about in a morass of pseudo-guilt. Now, the question is, how did we get this way? And how is the movement towards the abyss to be halted?
Well, the men who constituted the backbone of empire would have had an answer to that.
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For comments on this page, please contact Briame Gerdan.
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