"The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the British Victorian poet and novelist Rudyard Kipling. Conquest in the poem is not portrayed as a way for the white race to gain individual or national wealth or power. Instead, the speaker defines white imperialism and colonialism in moral terms, as a “burden” that the white race must take up to help the non-white races develop civilisation.

Goodness, I remember that in the 1950s, in the schools, there were maps displaying the extent of the British Empire, which were marked in red. And yes, it could be said: "The sun never set on the British Empire," and then it was all gone.