Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 31st July 1909 — No.6
Facts and Opinions
It is an ancient and perpetually recurring choice which is now being offered to the British people, the choice between liberty and empire. The two are incompatible except by the substitution of a free federation for a dominion. Rome was offered the choice. She won an empire and lost her liberty. External expansion has always been accompanied by a concentration of internal power in King or oligarchy. Athens, the only people who attempted to be imperial and despotic abroad and democratic at home, broke down in the attempt. In English history also we find that the great expansion in the eighteenth century led to the reactionary rule of the third George and it was not till England after the severe lesson in America adopted her present colonial system that expansion and democracy went hand in hand. That system was not an imperial system but a loose collection of free states only nominally united by the British Crown. The Indian problem is the test of British Liberalism. The colonial system as it stands cannot obtain between two States which are not mother and daughter. The one would not tolerate it, the other would not be content with it. But if England can bring herself to extend in a different form the principle of a collection of free States to India, she may keep her position in the world and her liberty together. Despotic Empire and liberty she cannot keep; she must either yield up absolutism abroad or renounce liberty at home.
Later edition of this work: The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo: Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 8.- Karmayogin: Political writings and speeches. 1909-1910.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997.- 471 p.