One is the British economist J.A. (John Atkinson) Hodges, who the publication labels “the liberal.” Hodges covered the Boer War in South Africa and published critical books on the then-current state of war politics, including War in South Africa (1900); Psychology of Jingoism (1901), and Imperialism: A Study (1902), the latter being by far his most famous work.
The sketch of Hobson also notes that he held some anti-Jewish stereotypes. “Clearly anti-imperialism has never been a protection against antisemitism,” the sketch of him notes. Hobson argued that the capitalist economic system created strong pressures for military expansionism, citing the notorious British colonialist and Cecil Rhodes, whose name Britain’s African colony Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia) carried and who was a co-founder of the De Beers diamond company, as an example of a financier who looked to colonial expansion as a major source of profit. Hobson was scarcely a “Third-Worldist” romantic. He considered “colonial primitive peoples” as inferior. But he also strongly criticized the war-producing dynamics of capitalist developments circa 1900.
One chapter in Hobson’s book was titled, “Imperialism and the Lower Races.” Though in the text the phrase “lower races” is put in quotation marks. And while he wasn’t using the language of our “postcolonial” times, Hobson did challenge the cynicism of the imperialists’ rhetoric of civilizing the natives:
In considering the ethics and politics of this interference, we must not be bluffed or blinded by critics who fasten on the palpable dishonesty of many practices of the gospel of “the dignity of labour ” and “the mission of civilization.” The real issue is whether, and under what circumstances, it is justifiable for Western nations to use compulsory government for the control and education in the arts of industrial and political civilization of the inhabitants of tropical countries and other so-called lower races, Because Rhodesian mine-owners or Cuban sugar-growers stimulate the British or American Government to Imperialism by parading motives and results which do not really concern them, it does not follow that these motives under proper guidance are unsound, or that the results are undesirable.
The Imperialismus issue features an 1882 cartoon showing Rhodes standing astride the continent of Africa.
Critics of imperialism in this era saw that tensions between European powers were rising and that those carried a risk of great-power war, which of course began in 1914 after Austrian Archduke Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand made his ill-fated trip to Sarajevo.
One of the symptoms of the tensions that eventually led to the Great War of 1914-18 was the Morocco Crisis of 1904-06, follow by another in 1911. These were “two international crises centring on France’s attempts to control Morocco and on Germany’s concurrent attempts to stem French power.” (1)
Hobson clearly argued that the economic developments were driving a very cynical and brutal process of colonialization at the time. And that the competition between great powers for imperial control over other nations was creating a major danger of great-power conflict.
The nature of the competition was partially regulated by international agreements. Hobson wrote:
he series of treaties and conventions between the chief European Powers, beginning with the Berlin African Conference of 1885, which fixed a standard for the “amicable division” of West African territory, and the similar treaty in 1890, fixing boundaries for English, German and Italian encroachments in East Africa, doubtless mark a genuine advance in the relations of the European Powers, but the objects and methods they embody throw a strange light upon the trust theory. If to the care of Africa we add that of China, where the European Powers took common action in “he interests of civilization,” the future becomes still more menacing. While the protection of Europeans was the object in the foreground, and imposed a brief genuine community of policy upon the diverse nations, no sooner was the immediate object won than the deeper and divergent motives of the nations became manifest.
And he proceeds directly to elaborate on how “[t]he entire history of European relations with China in modern times is little else than one long cynical commentary upon the theory that we are engaged in the civilization of the Far East.” It is often remarked today how much China’s present strategic outlook is still marked by the history of the Century of Humiliation of 1839-1949:
China was subjected to defeat, intervention, and exploitation by foreign powers in what is known as the Century of National Humiliation (百年国耻). The guiding ambitions of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] today - chiefly strengthening the nation against foreign influence and rectifying the wrongs inflicted upon China - are deeply rooted in this national narrative propagated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). (2)
Notes:
(1) Moroccan crises. Britannica 03/24/2025. <https://www.britannica.com/event/Moroccan-crises> (Accessed: 2025-23-07).
(2) Lac, Jordan (2024): The Century of Humiliation and the Century After. Brown Poilitical Review 01/26/2024. <https://brownpoliticalreview.org/the-century-of-humiliation-and-the-century-after/> (Accessed: 2025-23-07).
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