3.Trade and commerce Flashcards
What were Britain’s policies regarding trade
Mercantilism - colonies would sell their produce to Britain and buy manufactured goods
Free Trade - Abandoned protectionism due to Adam Smith’s influence
Opium Wars - Britain used its Navy to re-enforce British terms (China)
What were Britain’s policies regarding trade
Mercantilism - colonies would sell their produce to Britain and buy manufactured goods
Free Trade - Abandoned protectionism due to Adam Smith’s influence
Opium Wars - Britain used its Navy to re-enforce British terms (China)
What % of British Trade came from its colonies?
20% imports
1/3 exports
1857-1890
How were profits maximised?
The development of infrastructure was based around Britain’s trade
Ships
-1860s brought about the clippers, suited to low volume high profit goods (tea)
-20 year life span
-Compound Steam Engine 1850s
-Trade to West Africa just 3 weeks
-Suez Canal 1869
-Triple expansion steam engine 1870s
-Sir William McKinnons British Steam Company
Canals and Rivers
1867 Canals deepened around St Lawrence
Agriculture
Products were sold by the colonies at whatever price they could achieve- very cheap, much cheaper than in Europe
-Plantations - Indian ‘coolies’ sent to West Indies for 5 year periods - Indian Tea
-Raw imports from India
-Tea £24,000 in 1854 - £2,430,000 in 1876
-Raw Cotton £1,642,000 in 1854 - £5,875,000 in 1876
Mining
-Gold deposits found on the Witwatersrand in 1886
-30,000 skilled labourers from Britain traveled to Transvaal
-Diamonds later found established the Kimberly Diamond Syndicate in 1980
-Gold in Australia was producing £124 million, 1/3 world population
Industry
Little industry as they could not compete with the British. Colonies propelled to modernise due to buying British products. Large local demand in India but could not afford to open.
Height of British commercial Power
1870 - GNP was higher than that of Russia and China combined
(Merchant fleet carried half the world’s sea borne trade)
Finding Markets
-Between 1870-1914 40% of British Investments abroad went to imperial territories
-1879 - Germany introduces tariffs (tax)
-1881 - France introduce tariffs
-Britain need to use colonies to support its industries
What are chartered companies
A trading company would gain status and legal rights on behalf of a royal charter and would gain ‘monopoly’ to allow it to indirectly rule its territory
Why did the attitudes towards chartered companies change in the 1870s
The goverment allowed for trading to proceed at its own pace with competition between rival companies until the long depression where the idea of a chartered company was revived to extend control for the British at a minimal cost
