Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Imperial Seas: Cultural Exchange and Commerce in the British Empire, 1780–1900
- 2 From Slaves to Palm Oil: Afro-European Commercial Relations in the Bight of Biafra, 1741–1841
- 3 ‘Pirate Water’: Sailing to Belize in the Mahogany Trade
- 4 Cape to Siberia: The Indian Ocean and China Sea Trade in Equids
- 5 Aden, British India and the Development of Steam Power in the Red Sea, 1825–1839
- 6 The Heroic Age of the Tin Can: Technology and Ideology in British Arctic Exploration, 1818–1835
- 7 The Proliferation and Diffusion of Steamship Technology and the Beginnings of ‘New Imperialism’
- 8 Lakes, Rivers and Oceans: Technology, Ethnicity and the Shipping of Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century
- 9 Making Imperial Space: Settlement, Surveying and Trade in Northern Australia in the Nineteenth Century
- 10 Hydrography, Technology, Coercion: Mapping the Sea in Southeast Asian Imperialism, 1850–1900
- 11 Pains, Perils and Pastimes: Emigrant Voyages in the Nineteenth Century
- 12 Ordering Shanghai: Policing a Treaty Port, 1854–1900
- 13 Toward a People’s History of the Sea
- Select Bibliography
- Index
8 - Lakes, Rivers and Oceans: Technology, Ethnicity and the Shipping of Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Imperial Seas: Cultural Exchange and Commerce in the British Empire, 1780–1900
- 2 From Slaves to Palm Oil: Afro-European Commercial Relations in the Bight of Biafra, 1741–1841
- 3 ‘Pirate Water’: Sailing to Belize in the Mahogany Trade
- 4 Cape to Siberia: The Indian Ocean and China Sea Trade in Equids
- 5 Aden, British India and the Development of Steam Power in the Red Sea, 1825–1839
- 6 The Heroic Age of the Tin Can: Technology and Ideology in British Arctic Exploration, 1818–1835
- 7 The Proliferation and Diffusion of Steamship Technology and the Beginnings of ‘New Imperialism’
- 8 Lakes, Rivers and Oceans: Technology, Ethnicity and the Shipping of Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century
- 9 Making Imperial Space: Settlement, Surveying and Trade in Northern Australia in the Nineteenth Century
- 10 Hydrography, Technology, Coercion: Mapping the Sea in Southeast Asian Imperialism, 1850–1900
- 11 Pains, Perils and Pastimes: Emigrant Voyages in the Nineteenth Century
- 12 Ordering Shanghai: Policing a Treaty Port, 1854–1900
- 13 Toward a People’s History of the Sea
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Big Steamers
'Oh, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers,
With England's own coal, up and down the salt seas?'
'We are going to fetch you your bread and your butter,
Your beef, pork and mutton, eggs, apples and cheese.'
'And where will you fetch it from, all you Big Steamers,
And where shall I write you when you are away?'
'We fetch it from Melbourne, Quebec and Vancouver,
Address us at Hobart, Hong Kong, and Bombay.' . . .
'Then what can I do for you, all you Big Steamers,
Oh, what can I do for your comfort and good?'
Send out your big warships to watch your big waters,
That no one may stop us from bringing you food.
For the bread that you eat and the biscuits you nibble,
The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve,
They are brought to you daily by all us Big Steamers
And if anyone hinders our coming you'll starve!
This is not perhaps one of Kipling's best poems. It was written especially for a school text book published in 1911 and was therefore intended for a juvenile audience. As part of the propaganda of a maritime empire, it is perhaps fascinating to deconstruct it. The steamers, it may be observed, are big. Indeed, in the original the repeated titular refrain of Big Steamers is always capitalised. They run on and they carry British coal. But the stress is entirely on food, not industrial raw materials. The fundamental message is that the British are fed by imports, and that starvation faces those who do not provide an adequate, protective Big Navy to deal with big waters, not piffling channels. Inevitably, all the places mentioned are in the formal British Empire. It is, in short, a combined paean of praise to the merchant marine, supposed imperial economic integration, and the activities of the Navy League. Although the poem never appeared in Kipling anthologies until comparatively recently, the text continued in print and was repeatedly recommended for use in schools down to at least the 1940s and 1950s.
In 1946, the popular Clydeside maritime historian George Blake lamented that the British did not know enough about the ships and the sea on which they depended.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Maritime EmpiresBritish Imperial Maritime Trade in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 111 - 127Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004
- 2
- Cited by