W.E. Abbott, The White Man's Burden: Womans View and Mans Hemans and Kipling, in ThePastoralists Review (15 April 1902): 113-14.About fifty years ago Mrs. Hemans wrote a short poem, which to-day is as widelyknown as anything in the English language, and for artistic completeness and finish is the best that any woman has produced. That poem, which is called The Graves of a Household, is a picture from one point of view of the work which has beendone, is now doing, and must continue to be done by the race to which the writer belonged. Mrs. Hemans in a few lines has painted the colonist, the sailor. andthe soldier as three brothers all willingly sacrificed all giving up their lives freely in the work which was allotted to t em.One midst the forests of the WestBy a dark stream is laid;The Indian knows his place of rest.Far in the cedars shade.And one, the blue lone sea hath one.He lies where pearls lie deep;He was the loved of all, yet noneOer his low bed may weep.One sleeps where southern vines are dressedAbove the noble slain;He wrapped his colours round his breastOn a blood-red field of Spain.This poem is so well known that further quotation would be superfluous. Here wehave the colonist, the sailor, and the soldier; and the writer, with the keen insight of genius, has placed them in the order of the importance of their work. Our burden grows heavier year by year, but our power to bear it increases even more rapidly. To fill up the wasty places of the earth with happy homes, and establish ordered peace and plenty," with freedom and safety, where before there was anarchy, chaos, and misery, is the work which we have to do. It cannot be done by conquest alone. The soldiers work is not all. There must be patient self-sacrifice and long suffering for others, or elseOur views will come to noughtWhere every nerve is strained.The work will be done whether we do it or not. If we are worthy to bear the burden it will be left to us; if not, then we will be set aside, and others will take our place, for Gods work is always done.After the lapse of half a century, Rudyard Kipling has written another short poem, not so artistically perfect as Mrs. Hemans, but more forceful, and showing a much wider grasp of all that goes to make up Our Burden, and no doubt Kiplings verses will be as widely read as Mrs. Hemans as the years go by. Both have in them the same sad refrain of self-sacrifice, and both are surpassingly beautiful. A fewverses will give the substance of what Kipling has written for those who have not yet read it :Take up the White Mans burden-Send forth the best ye breed-Go bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives need;To wait in heavy harness,On fluttered folk and wild-Your new-caught, sullen peoples,Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Mans burden-The savage wars of peace-Fill full the mouth of FamineAnd bid the sickness cease;And when your goal is nearestThe end for others sought,Watch sloth and heathen FollyBring all your hopes to nought.Take up the White Mans burden-No iron rule of kings,But toil of serf and sweeper-The tale of common things.The ports ye shall not enter,The roads ye shall not tread,Go mark them with your living,And mark them with your dead.Kipling writes from the point of view of the strong, masterful men who have beenbringing the waste places of the earth into subjection for centuries past in every quarter of the globe, and Mrs. Hemans writes from the point of view of the gentle, loving women, by whom these strong, masterful men are reared in quiet homesin England, Ireland, Scotland, the United States, and in all the great colonieswhich have been established throughout the world under Anglo-Saxon laws, and inthe enjoyment of Anglo-Saxon freedom. The womans view is as it should be all that is womanly, gentle, tender, and loving; and the mans view is strong, masterful, and far-reaching, and both in their way are perfect. The white womans burden is as heavy as the white mans, and in each there is the same necessity for patience and self-sacrifice. Whether we be men or women, our best must be given, forit is Gods work that requires to be done, and when God calls who that recognisesthe call can hold back or shirk the duty that lies plainly before him or her? InAustralia we have had little to do of the sailors or the soldiers work, but the work that has fallen to us is not less honourable, does not call for loss in theway of energy, courage and self-sacrifice, and we have no reason to be ashamed of what we have done. We have pushed the frontiers of civilisation out over the mountains, away across the great salt-bush plains, through the waterless Mallec,and over the sandy wastes far, far away into the mystical Never Never country, which, like the mirage, continually recedes beyond the horizon of settlement. Wehave sent forth the best we had to blaze the tracks, and make clear the roads ofcivilisation.To make them with our living,And mark them with our dead.And now, at the end of our first century, we can look back on what we have done,and not be ashamed. A whole continent, and all the great islands adjacent, fromNew Zealand to Perth and from Tasmania to New Guinea, have been made ready forthe teeming millions that will find peaceful homes in Australasia in the count now opening, when they who have borne the burden and the heat shall have passed away. Those who come after us will find their burdens even as we found ours. There will be the same necessity then as now for courage, energy, and self-sacrifice, and in the end Gods work will get itself done by our hands or by others.Time is of no account, and failures, though multiplied a thousandfold, do not affect the ultimate results. So far, in modern times the work has been almost wholly in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons, but it may not be always so unless we can find out and hold to the principals which make success sure. A paper recently read by Sir Robert Giffen shows that the race to which we belong, not counting theUnited States of America, has established an empire larger in area, and greaterin population, than any which has existed since history began, and it is well worth our while to_inquire how has it been done, and what is the underlying princi

ple which in the past has led to success. Is it not that, principle of self-sacrifice which Mrs. Hemans and Rudyard Kipling have given expression to in the twovery beautiful poems, parts of which are quoted above? Since the date of the first American war, which led to the creation of the United States of America, theBritish Empire has been extended as no empire was ever extended before, not wholly for the selfish gain of the mother country, but mainly in the interests of the colonists and the conquered peoples.To seek anothers profitAnd Work anothers gain.And the success that has followed seems to indicate a principle and point out apolicy to be followed in the future. The two greatest empires which have existed within historical times which most nearly approached the British Empire in area, population, and power were the Roman Empire of about 2000 years back, and theSpanish Empire of the fifteenth century. Their policy was pure selfishness, and they have passed away. They were weighted in the balance and found wanting, andthe burden which had been entrusted to them was given to others, which will beour fate also if we make selfishness and greed our guiding policy.