W.E.

Abbott, The White Man's Burden: Womans View and Mans Hemans and Kipling, in The
Pastoralists Review (15 April 1902): 113-14.
About fifty years ago Mrs. Hemans wrote a short poem, which to-day is as widely
known as anything in the English language, and for artistic completeness and fin
ish is the best that any woman has produced. That poem, which is called The Grav
es of a Household, is a picture from one point of view of the work which has been
done, is now doing, and must continue to be done by the race to which the write
r belonged. Mrs. Hemans in a few lines has painted the colonist, the sailor. and
the soldier as three brothers all willingly sacrificed all giving up their live
s freely in the work which was allotted to t em.
One midst the forests of the West
By 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 none
Oer his low bed may weep.
One sleeps where southern vines are dressed
Above the noble slain;
He wrapped his colours round his breast
On a blood-red field of Spain.
This poem is so well known that further quotation would be superfluous. Here we
have the colonist, the sailor, and the soldier; and the writer, with the keen in
sight of genius, has placed them in the order of the importance of their work. O
ur burden grows heavier year by year, but our power to bear it increases even mo
re rapidly. To fill up the wasty places of the earth with happy homes, and establi
sh ordered peace and plenty," with freedom and safety, where before there was ana
rchy, chaos, and misery, is the work which we have to do. It cannot be done by c
onquest alone. The soldiers work is not all. There must be patient self-sacrifi
ce and long suffering for others, or else
Our views will come to nought
Where every nerve is strained.
The work will be done whether we do it or not. If we are worthy to bear the burd
en it will be left to us; if not, then we will be set aside, and others will tak
e our place, for Gods work is always done.
After the lapse of half a century, Rudyard Kipling has written another short poe
m, not so artistically perfect as Mrs. Hemans, but more forceful, and showing a m
uch wider grasp of all that goes to make up Our Burden, and no doubt Kiplings verse
s will be as widely read as Mrs. Hemans as the years go by. Both have in them th
e same sad refrain of self-sacrifice, and both are surpassingly beautiful. A few
verses will give the substance of what Kipling has written for those who have n
ot yet read it :
Take up the White Mans burden-Send forth the best ye breed-Go bind your sons to exile
To 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 Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring 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 been
bringing the waste places of the earth into subjection for centuries past in ever
y quarter of the globe, and Mrs. Hemans writes from the point of view of the gen
tle, loving women, by whom these strong, masterful men are reared in quiet homes
in England, Ireland, Scotland, the United States, and in all the great colonies
which have been established throughout the world under Anglo-Saxon laws, and in
the enjoyment of Anglo-Saxon freedom. The womans view is as it should be all t
hat is womanly, gentle, tender, and loving; and the mans view is strong, masterfu
l, and far-reaching, and both in their way are perfect. The white womans burden i
s as heavy as the white mans, and in each there is the same necessity for patie
nce and self-sacrifice. Whether we be men or women, our best must be given, for
it is Gods work that requires to be done, and when God calls who that recognises
the call can hold back or shirk the duty that lies plainly before him or her? In
Australia we have had little to do of the sailors or the soldiers work, but the w
ork that has fallen to us is not less honourable, does not call for loss in the
way of energy, courage and self-sacrifice, and we have no reason to be ashamed o
f what we have done. We have pushed the frontiers of civilisation out over the m
ountains, 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, w
hich, like the mirage, continually recedes beyond the horizon of settlement. We
have sent forth the best we had to blaze the tracks, and make clear the roads of
civilisation.
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, from
New Zealand to Perth and from Tasmania to New Guinea, have been made ready for
the teeming millions that will find peaceful homes in Australasia in the count n
ow opening, when they who have borne the burden and the heat shall have passed a
way. Those who come after us will find their burdens even as we found ours. Ther
e 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 af
fect the ultimate results. So far, in modern times the work has been almost whol
ly in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons, but it may not be always so unless we can f
ind out and hold to the principals which make success sure. A paper recently rea
d by Sir Robert Giffen shows that the race to which we belong, not counting the
United States of America, has established an empire larger in area, and greater
in population, than any which has existed since history began, and it is well wo
rth 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-sacr
ifice which Mrs. Hemans and Rudyard Kipling have given expression to in the two
very beautiful poems, parts of which are quoted above? Since the date of the fi
rst American war, which led to the creation of the United States of America, the
British Empire has been extended as no empire was ever extended before, not who
lly for the selfish gain of the mother country, but mainly in the interests of t
he colonists and the conquered peoples.
To seek anothers profit
And Work anothers gain.
And the success that has followed seems to indicate a principle and point out a
policy to be followed in the future. The two greatest empires which have existe
d within historical times which most nearly approached the British Empire in are
a, population, and power were the Roman Empire of about 2000 years back, and the
Spanish Empire of the fifteenth century. Their policy was pure selfishness, an
d they have passed away. They were weighted in the balance and found wanting, and
the burden which had been entrusted to them was given to others, which will be
our fate also if we make selfishness and greed our guiding policy.