BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

imperialism, but also with perceived discrepancies between the public's idealized view and the
harsh realities of imperial rule. Imperial angst did not turn to “Little Englandism” in the main, or
to any rational argument for the reform of either domestic or colonial economic, social and
political inequities. 21 Rather it meant coming to terms with “reality” through the acceptance of
both domestic social class inequalities and overseas imperialism, and it strengthened distinctions
based on social, racial and national stereotypes at the expense of more universal humanitarian
doctrines. 22 British imperialists often justified authoritarian rule abroad, ostensibly for strategic
purposes, by resorting to demeaning stereotypes, as in propaganda opposed to Home Rule in
1886 which caricatured the Irish as lazy, childish, dirty, mischievous, ignorant, emotional,
unstable, superstitious, lying and vengeful. 23
The power of stereotypes to shape and influence public opinion also derived from the fact
that beneath concerns over moral decline and derailment of the engines of progress—commercial
prosperity, social reform, and imperial preeminence—lay an inward obsession with social and
national identity. Whether this identity crisis affected individuals on a personal level, as in the
pressure to conform to romanticized social and sexual ideals, or disturbed their status-
21 Little England free traders such as Richard Cobden and John Bright objected mainly to
the protectionist tendencies and elitist character of an empire run by an aristocratic government.
Later critics of empire like J. A. Hobson and other opponents of the Boer War condemned
imperialism on moral as well as political and economic grounds. They remained a small
minority. See Richard Gott, “Little Englanders,” and E. Green and M. Taylor, “Further Thoughts
on Little Englanders,” in Raphael Samuel, Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British
National Identity, 3 vols., History Workshop Series (London: Routledge, 1989) 1:90-109.
22 Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness, 44, 173, argues that a “transvaluation of values” from
slavery abolition to empire building took place between 1833 and 1908.
23 Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 92.
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