Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T06:30:01.377Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Economic Significance of “Constructive Imperialism”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

S. B. Saul
S. B. Saul
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When he became Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Unionist government of 1895, Joseph Chamberlain was already the acknowledged leader of those who believed that Britain would most surely safeguard her military and economic future through closer links with the Empire and the extension of its boundaries. Yet a mere fifteen years before he had played an important part in the campaign against Disraeli's imperialist designs that had swept the Liberals back to power. The change in Chamberlain's political fortunes as a result of the Home Rule controversy needs no recapitulation here. More interesting is the process by which he was won over to those very ideas of imperial consolidation that Disraeli had propounded so frequently.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 1957 , pp. 173 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1957

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Halperin, V., Lord Milner and the Empire (London: Odhams Press, 1952), p. 33.Google Scholar

2 Wright, G. H., Chronicles of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce (Birmingham, 1913), p. 328Google Scholar.

3 For a full definition see Hewins, W. A. S., The Apologia of an Imperialist (London: Constable, 1929), I, 56Google Scholar.

4 Gulley, Elsie E., Joseph Chamberlain and English Social Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1926), p. 317Google Scholar.

5 For the sake of convenience British Guiana has been included with the island colonies.

6 For the history of the bounty system see Fuchs, C. J., The Trade Policy of Great Britain and her Colonies since 1860 (London: Macmillan, 1905), pp. 79 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Halévy, E., A History of the English People (London: Macmillan, 1951), V, 312Google Scholar.

8 One contemporary observer put the matter very forcefully: “Recent years had seen the supersession of an old and effete industry, weighted with bad traditions and paralysed by a false sense of security bred during a period of monopoly and privilege, by a young and vigorous rival, born in a restless age with all the resources of capital and science at its disposal.” Cozens Cooke, E., “The Sugar Convention and the West Indies,” Economic Journal, XVII (1907), 323Google Scholar. See also Curtin, P. D., “The British Sugar Duties and West Indian Prosperity,” Journal of Economic History, XIV (1954), 158Google Scholar.

9 Parl. Deb., 4th Ser., CXV, col. 356, November 24, 1902.

10 Geerlings, H. C., The World's Cane Sugar Industry (Manchester: Norman Rodger, 1912), p. 208Google Scholar.

11 Parl. Deb., 4th Ser., LXXII, col. 1206, June 15, 1899.

12 Earl of Ronaldshay, Life of Lord Curzon (London: Ernest Benn, 1928), II, 31Google Scholar.

13 Part. Pap., 1900, LVIII, cd. 381, p. 6. Exports of sugar from Mauritius to India had fallen earlier in the decade, but this was due most of all to a change in the direction of Mauritian trade towards the rapidly expanding market in South Africa. See Root, J. W., Trade Relations of the British Empire (Liverpool, 1903), p. 243Google Scholar.

14 Economist, May 24, 1902, p. 818.

15 See Knowles, Lilian, Economic Development of the Overseas Empire (London: George Routlcdge, 1924), I, 128Google Scholar; and Williamson, J. A., A Short History of British Expansion (London: Macmillan, 1943), II, 234Google Scholar.

16 Schlote, W., British Overseas Trade from 1700 to the 1930's (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952), p. 177Google Scholar.

17 Parl. Pap., 1904, LVI, cd. 1768–19, p. 43.

18 Pap., 1906, LXXVI, cd. 2878, p. 10.

19 Adams, F. U., The Conquest of the Tropics (New York, 1914), p. 39Google Scholar.

20 Kepner, C. D. and Soothill, J. H., The Banana Empire (New York: Vanguard Press, 1935), p. 18Google Scholar.

21 Oliver, Sir Sydney, “Recent Developments in Jamaica,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, December 1915, p. 83Google Scholar.

22 From 1905 to 1910 the United Fruit Co. also controlled the Atlantic Fruit Co., and between them they shipped three quarters of all bananas exported from Jamaica. See Kepner and Soothill, Banana Empire pp. 6; and 296. It is interesting to note that the Imperial Department of Agriculture in the West Indies tried to establish a trade in bananas from Barbados to the U.K., but the experiment had to be abandoned after three years because of poor shipping facilities. Sec Part. Pap., 1906, LXXIII, cd. 2684–43, p. 14.

23 parl Deb., 5th Ser., XXXIX, col. 689, June II, 1912.

24 Keith, A. B., Responsible Government in the Dominions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914), III, 1181Google Scholar.

25 The treaties appeared to prevent Canada or any other Dominion from making tariff concessions to Britain without also extending them to Germany and Belgium. See generally E. Halévy, History, V, 308.

26 Economist, August 7, 1897, p. 1134.

27 U. S. Tariff Commission, Colonial Tariff Policies (Washington, 1922), p. 290.

28 Donald, W. J. A., The Canadian Iron and Steel Industry (Toronto: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), p. 165Google Scholar. American exports of iron and steel goods to Canada averaged $6,100,000 in 1893–1897 and $80,400,000 in 1910–1914. British exports were $4,100,000 and $13,900,000 respectively.

29 Britain's share of imports into Canada of a group of the most important consumer goods fell from about 75 per cent in the early nineties to 62 per cent at the turn of the century. By 1907/08 it had recovered to 66 per cent but then fell away to only 58 per cent in 1913/14.

30 After 1872, for example, when depression fell severely on the United States, her share of Canadian imports of metal goods rose markedly and brought many complaints from Canadian manufacturers. See Innis, H. A. and Lower, A. R. M., Select Documents in Canadian Economic History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1933), p. 818Google Scholar.

31 Part. Deb., 4th Ser., LVII, col. 583, May 6, 1898.

32 parl. Deb., 4th Ser., LXXVI, col. 16, August 7, 1899.

33 Headlam, C., The Milner Papers (London: Cassell, 1933), II, 1169Google Scholar.

34 Economist, July 19, 1913, p. 115.

35 I am indebted to the Secretary of State for permission to consult Colonial Office papers not yet available at the Public Record Office and to the Librarian of the Colonial Office Library for his generous assistance.

36 A rebate was granted in 1904 for those exports to the U.K., where a guarantee could be provided that the ore would be smelted there. See Board of Trade journal, September 1, 1904, p. 400. This modification brought about no increase in the ore trade to Britain, which was always extremely small.

37 Roush, G. A., Strategic Mineral Supplies (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939), pp. 175 and 184Google Scholar. The U.K., Netherlands East Indies, and Germany produced most of the remaining metallic tin.

38 Ibid., p. 184.

39 Parl. Deb., 5th Ser., LXXXV, col. 585, August 3, 1916.

40 Gregory, T. E., Tariffs: A Study in Method (London: Charles Griffin, 1921), p. 288Google Scholar.

41 Colonial Office Papers (hereafter referred to as CO.), Straits Native States 1903, Vol. V, 294, paper 24019.

42 Mills, L. A., British Rule in Eastern Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942), p. 179Google Scholar.

43 C.O., Straits Native States 1903, Vol. V, 294, paper 28841. Letter from Sir Frank Swettenham to the Secretary of State.

44 C.O., Straits Native States 1903, Vol. V, 294, paper 24019. Report of Six Frank Swettenham to the Secretary of State.

45 The smelter cost about US $250,000 and the syndicate spent another $100,000 (Malayan currency) in the Federated States. See C.O., Straits Settlements 1904, Vol. IV, 304, paper 10850: protest from the United States Ambassador in London.

46 C.O., Straits Native States 1903, Vol. V, 294, paper 24019: enclosure iii attached to the report of Sir Frank Swettenham to the Secretary of State. The Standard Oil Company decided early in 1902 to build a refinery in Burma through the medium of the Colonial Oil Co. of New Jersey. Difficulties were experienced in arranging for the purchase of crude oil locally, and when the company decided to go into the producing business themselves, their application for a concession was refused. A further application through the Anglo-American Oil Co., a British company registered in 1888, was also refused. See , R. W. and Hidy, Muriel, Pioneering in Big Business, 1882–1911 (New York: Harper, 1955), p. 499Google Scholar, and the Times, November 28, 1902. It was later suggested by Lord Curzon that in view of the fierce competition for oil markets at that time, it was feared that the American company might be trying to buy rights over Burmese oil to keep it unused. See E. H. Davenport and Cooke, S. R., The Oil Trusts and Anglo-American Relations (London: Macmillan, 1923), p. 176Google Scholar.

47 C.O., Straits Settlements 1903, Vol. VIII, 297, paper 19407. The term “Morganisation” referred to die fact that the syndicate was thought to be controlled by the U. S. Steel Corporation, the American Tinplate Co., and Standard Oil, whose freighters would transport the ore.

48 C.O., Straits Native States 1903, Vol. V, 294, paper 24019. Report, June 29.

49 C.O., Straits Settlements 1904, Vol. VI, 304, paper 10850.

50 C.O, Straits Settlements 1904, Vol. IX, 307, paper 13171.

51 C.O., Straits Settlements 1903, Vol. VIII, 297, paper 19407. In the Dutch East Indies the main ore-mining companies were controlled by the government in this way. The American syndicate in fact never attempted to smelt in Malaya, nor could it operate the Bayonne smelter since the only other ore available—Bolivian—could not be treated economically unless mixed with purer ore from Malaya or Nigeria. See U. S. Tariff Commission, Latin America as a Source of Strategic and Other Essential Materials, Report 144, 2d series, p. 160.

52 This grant was used in Barbados, for example, to establish an agricultural bank from which planters could obtain advances for cultivation expenses.

53 These details are taken from the annual Colonial Office estimates.

54 From 1848 to 1900 only three loans were made available to the colonies by statute—to Ceylon, Cape Colony, and British Columbia. Guarantees were given to Jamaica, New Zealand, Canada, and Mauritius.

55 See Baster, A. J., “The Colonial Stocks Act and Dominion Borrowing,” Economic History, II (1933), 607Google Scholar, and the Economist, June 23, 1900, August 30, 1902, and May 26, 1906. Since the majority of trust deeds specified the investments that were permissible under them, the Act could in any case be of only limited significance.

56 Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, English Poor Law History: The Last Hundred Years (London: Longmans Green, 1929), IIGoogle Scholar, 6.

57 Garvin, J. L., Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1931), I, 323Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., II, 59.

59 Lewis, W. A., “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” Manchester School, May 1954CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 U. S. Department of Commerce, Investments in Latin America and the British West Indies (Washington, 1918)Google Scholar, Special Agents Series No. 169.

61 Saul, S. B., “Britain and World Trade, 1870–1914,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., Vol. VII (1954)Google Scholar, section v.

62 Amery, J., Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1951), IV, 254Google Scholar

63 See Meyer, F. V., Britain's Colonies and World Trade (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948)Google Scholar chap. vii. In desperate circumstances a preference could be valuable in helping a producer to retain part of an export trade that might otherwise be lost altogether—without, however, being able to insure full recovery thereof—as was the case with the Canadian sugar preference for the West Indies.

64 See Kierran, V. G., “Britain, Siam and Malaya: 1875–1885,” Journal of Modern History, XXVIII (1956), p. 1 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Pyrah, G. B., Imperial Policy and South Africa, 1902–10 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 55.Google Scholar