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Articles
Winston Churchill, Algernon West and “Superfluous Millions,” 1898
- By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
- | August 11, 2022
- Category: Churchill and Asia Churchill's Youth Truths and Heresies
Many of Churchill’s words, or alleged words, have been hurled against him by those who hold him an unapologetic imperialist. One such remark was voiced in the 2022 panel on Churchill and Colonialism at Bucknell University. It occurs also in three books.1 Unlike so many of his supposed remarks, it is neither hearsay nor invention. He actually said it—in 1898, to Sir Algernon West, a family friend. A plague in India, he wrote,
has killed 70,000 persons in Bombay and Southern India, and is now just beginning to get a good hold. If I may continue to ramble, Nature applies her own checks to populations, and a philosopher may watch unmoved the destruction of some of those superfluous millions, whose life must of necessity be destitute of pleasure.
Read today, that sounds heartless. Read in 1898, it was Darwinian-chic in suggesting “survival of the fittest.” The historian Arthur Herman wrote that WSC’s words reflected those of a secular philosopher: “pure Winwood Reade.”2 Young Winston had been devouring Reade’s books, notably The Martyrdom of Man (1872). Reade was a follower of Charles Darwin, whom he had supplied with information for The Descent of Man.
Churchill suggested to West that “a philosopher,” not himself, might be unmoved by the loss of “superfluous millions.” That doesn’t altogether divorce him from the thought. And, of course, he was very young. Few of us would welcome hearing some of our words at age 24 represented as our lifetime philosophy today. And Churchill is one of the most quoted historical figures. Nevertheless it was a stark observation.
A genuine quotation
None of the sources offered solid attribution. Two books footnote the Private Diaries of the Rt. Hon. Sir Algernon West (London: Hutchinson, 1922), but do not supply the correct page number. Nor does the West correspondence appear in The Churchill Documents. But the West Diaries are archived online, and the accompanying search engine quickly located Churchill’s 1898 letter. It is transcribed in full below. Incidentally, it offers a fine picture of the 24-year-old Churchill at the time, from his favored sport of polo to his keen interest in politics.
West died in March 1921, and the publisher Horace Hutchinson determined to publish his diaries. To do so, he was obliged to secure permissions from West’s correspondents, including Churchill. Evidently Churchill saw no reason to omit the now-so-offending paragraph. His private secretary wrote Hutchinson: “Mr. Churchill has now received the enclosed letters from Mr. Murray and he asks me to say that he has no objection to their being published with the omissions he has marked.”3
If in 1921 Churchill did not delete his “superfluous millions” paragraph, it would be fascinating to know what portions of his letters he did omit. Unfortunately, we may never know. The “marked omissions” referred to by Marsh are not in the Archives, and so lost to history.4
Winston S. Churchill to Sir Algernon West
4th Hussars, India, February 18, 1898.5
My dear Sir Algernon, For a very long time I have been intending to write to you. But to send a letter a long way takes as much initial effort as to throw a stone a great distance. Since I saw you in London I have had many vivid experiences of some of which you have perhaps heard from my mother. Nor does the future display the prospect of monotony.
I am trying to array what little influence I possess to procure some employment in the impending campaign in the Soudan. Alas, it is a matter of great difficulty, but perhaps I shall succeed. To-night I am off to Meerut, to play in the Polo Tournament there, and thence on to Peshawar on the lookout for a job. Thus I roam about this country with great rapidity. But though five days in the train is an unpleasant ordeal, books help to improve as well as pass the time.
I do hope you will have read my book on the Frontier and the War [Story of the Malakand Field Force] You will see that my condemnation of the Forward Policy is complete.6 But I have had to express myself with some moderation, lest I should be mistaken for one of you Radicals.7 I should like to have your opinion on the style, etc., because I feel sure it will be a kind one, and thank heaven I have cultivated a comfortable vanity.
I have but a little time or energy to read the valuable collection of books and papers which Peel kindly sent us—on the subject of the liquor question. But I hope to do so shortly. I admit that the numbers of books bearing on the Licensing Law do not appeal to me. I am interested in finding out what the law should be, not what it is. Still, I suppose, from the point of view of machinery, they cannot be studied. I have somewhat lengthened and elaborated the article on Rhetoric.8 But I like it less the longer I look at it. Perhaps one day I shall have the courage to send it home for printing.
I wish you all good fortune and health, my dear Sir Algernon. I daresay that you observe with pleasure that the tide of public opinion is running strongly against the Government.9 Who is to take their place I do not see, and I hate Faddists worse than the plague, which, by the way, has killed 70,000 persons in Bombay and Southern India, and is now just beginning to get a good hold. If I may continue to ramble, Nature applies her own checks to populations, and a philosopher may watch unmoved the destruction of some of those superfluous millions, whose life must of necessity be destitute of pleasure. Yours very sincerely, Winston Churchill.
Endnotes
1 Madhursee Mukerjee, quoted in a review of “Winston Churchill’s Legacy: Hero or Colonialist?,” Bucknell University, February 2020. Ted Morgan, Churchill: The Rise to Failure 1874-1915 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983), 119. Clive Ponting, Churchill (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), 24; Arthur Herman, Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age (New York: Bantam Books, 2008), 107.
2 Herman, Gandhi & Churchill, 107.
3 Eddie Marsh to Horace G. Hutchinson, 13 December 1921, Chartwell Papers (CHAR 2/118), Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.
4 Katharine Thompson, Churchill Archives Centre, to the author, 26 April 2022.
5 Horace G. Hutchinson, ed., Private Diaries of the Rt Hon Sir Algernon West GCB (New York: Dutton, 1922), 343-44, Internet Archive, https://bit.ly/3ONWzu6, accessed 28 April 2022, some paragraphing added. There is no accompanying comment by West.
6 Churchill opposed the policy of securing control of neighboring territories in India by invasion and annexation or by creating compliant buffer states.
7 West had served as Principal Private Secretary to Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone. “Radicals” was the way Conservatives, like young Winston at the time, referred to members of the Liberal Party, although this is evidently a jocular remark.
8 The essay was never formally published, but the draft is in The Churchill Project, “Exploring the Official Biography: Churchill’s ‘The Scaffolding of Rhetoric,’” 2016.
9 In the event, the 1900 General Election saw the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists increase their majority over the Liberals.