Editing John Stuart Mill (section)

===Colonialism===
Mill was a member of [[Edward Gibbon Wakefield]]'s Colonization Society.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Varouxakis |first1=Georgios |title=Liberty Abroad: J. S. Mill on International Relations |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=126}}</ref> In his ''[[Principles of Political Economy]]'' (1848) he praised Wakefield for his "important writings on colonization".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mill |first1=J.S. |title=Principles of Political Economy (Vol. 2) |date=1896 |publisher=D. Appleton and Company |page=310}}</ref>

Mill, an employee of the [[East India Company]] from 1823 to 1858,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/mill/career.html|title=J. S. Mill's Career at the East India Company|website=victorianweb.org}}</ref> argued in support of what he called a "benevolent despotism" with regard to the administration of overseas colonies.<ref name="David Theo Goldberg 2000">{{cite journal |last1=Goldberg |first1=David Theo |year=2000 |title=Liberalism's Limits: Carlyle and Mill on 'The Negro Question' |journal=Nineteenth-Century Contexts |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=203–216 |doi=10.1080/08905490008583508 |s2cid=194002917}}</ref> Mill argued:<ref>John Stuart Mill,'' Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical and Historical'' (New York 1874) Vol. 3, pp. 252–253.</ref><blockquote>To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error. ... To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject.</blockquote>

For Mill India was "[[The White Man's Burden|a burden]]" for England and British colonialism "a blessing of unspeakable magnitude to the population" of India.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pitts |first1=Jennifer |title=Legislator of the World? A Rereading of Bentham on Colonies |journal=Political Theory |date=April 2003 |volume=31 |issue=2 |page=220|doi=10.1177/0090591702251009 }}</ref> He also stated his support for [[settler colonialism]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Poole |first1=Thomas M. |title=Reason of State: Law, Prerogative and Empire |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=184}}</ref>

Mill expressed general support for [[Company rule in India]], but expressed reservations on specific Company policies in India which he disagreed with.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Williams |first1=David |title=John Stuart Mill and the practice of colonial rule in India |journal=Journal of International Political Theory |date=October 2021 |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=412–428 |doi=10.1177/1755088220903349 |s2cid=214445850 |url=https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/62722 }}</ref>

He also supported colonialism in other places, such as Australia. Mill was among the founding members of the [[British colonisation of South Australia#South Australian Association (1833)|South Australian Association]] in 1833, which was set up to lobby the government to establish colonies in Australia.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Levin |first1=Michael |title=J.S. Mill on Civilization and Barbarism |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |page=37}}</ref>

It is important to state however, that Mills support of colonialism is not without caution; cautions for which he expressly set out in his work, Consideration on Representative Government. For Mill, the work the East India Company was doing was valuable  to Indian society, but the "human cattle" style despotism in the Americas, and the exploitation by the allied Indian Princes, he was fiercely against.