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" "You can not have omelettes without breaking eggs; you can not destroy the practises of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for centuries have desolated the interior of Africa, without the use of force; but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price which we are bound to pay for it, I think you may well rejoice in the result of such expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success in Nyassaland, Ashanti, Benin, and Nupé—expeditions which may have, and indeed have, cost valuable lives, but as to which we may rest assured that for one life lost a hundred will be gained, and the cause of civilization and the prosperity of the people will in the long run be eminently advanced.
Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the Conservatives. He split both major British parties in the course of his career. He was the father, by different marriages, of Nobel Peace Prize winner Austen Chamberlain and of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
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I want you not to accept as final or as perfect, arrangements under which hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, of your fellow-countrymen are subjected to untold privations and misery, with the evidence all around them of accumulated wealth and unbounded luxury. The extremes of wealth and of poverty are alike the sources of great temptation. I believe that the great evil with which we have to deal is the excessive inequality in the distribution of riches. Ignorance, intemperance, immorality, and disease—these things are all interdependent and closely connected; and although they are often the cause of poverty, they are still more frequently the consequence of destitution, and if we can do anything to raise the condition of the poor in this country, to elevate the masses of the people, and give them the means of enjoyment and recreation, to afford to them opportunities of improvement, we should do more for the prosperity, ay, for the morality of this country than anything we can do by laws, however stringent, for the prevention of excess, or the prevention of crime.
You must bear in mind that we are above parochial and provincial patriotism, for patriotism in itself is worthy of a wider and nobler conception of Imperial life, which it behoves us all to cultivate. These times are critical and creative times. On what is done now the future of South Africa depends. Every one may contribute, according to his means and opportunity, to secure the greatness of the union. A new nation is now springing up and growing under our eyes to be a great free nation under the British flag. (Cheers.) Do not forget the Empire. Do not forget the motherland that bore you and in your time of stress and difficulty came to your aid. She may yet need your support. You must be prepared at all costs to give it. (Loud cheers.) What an Empire it is for which we are all responsible! It is the greatest in extent that the world has ever known, with a population of four hundred million inhabitants, which includes hundreds of different races, which embraces every climate, and which produces every necessary and luxury of life. (Cheers.) What a heritage! You are co-heirs with us in its privileges and its glories. Are you going to be content to be sleeping partners? (Cries of "No.") You must claim your share in all that the Empire represents; you must claim as an honour and a privilege your share in its burdens and obligations; you must join with us to do everything to maintain the union and confirm the strength, power, and influence which I believe in the future you will find to be the greatest force in civilisation and in the peace of the world.
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What are our objects? They are two. In the first place, we all desire the maintenance and increase of the national strength and the prosperity of the United Kingdom...in the second place, our object is, or should be, the realization of the greatest ideal which has ever come to statesmen in any country or in any age—the creation of an Empire such as the world has never seen. (Cheers.) We have to cement the union of the States beyond the Seas. We have to consolidate the British race. We have to meet the clash of competition, commercial now. Sometimes in the past it has been otherwise; it may be again in the future. Whatever it be, whatever danger threatens, we have to meet it no longer as an isolated country. We have to meet it as fortified and strengthened and buttressed by all those of our kinsmen, all those powerful and continually rising States which speak our common tongue and pay allegiance to our common flag.