Metropolitan policy objectives

Question 1

What were the three metropolitan policy objectives for empire? To which method of control do these objectives relate to?

Answer 1

• Strategic/Security (coercion)
• Economic (collaboration)
• Trusteeship (hegemony)

Question 2

Which four factors influenced how elites exercised control over the empire?

Answer 2

• Elite objectives
• Costs
• Domestic pressues
• Peripheral pressures

Question 3

What evidence is there that the metropole was able to implement the policy of strategic control?

Answer 3

• The suppression of rebellions is evidence of strategic control e.g. the Indian Rebellion 1857, the Morant Bay Rebellion 1865 and Arabi Pasha’s rebellion 1881
• Between 1840-1870, Britain concentrated armed forces at home. This shows that they had enough strategic control abroad. E.g. withdrawal of troops from Canada and New Zealand
• The annexation of territories is evidence of strategic control objectives being met e.g. Transvaal in 1877 and Zululand in 1879 and the rest of Myanmar 1885

Question 4

What evidence is there that the metropole was unable to implement its policy of strategic control?

Answer 4

• Britain underwent a programme of naval construction from the 1880s in competition with Germany. This showed how strategic control was under threat
• The First and Second World Wars meant that Britain was unable to have as strong a military presence in its colonies to protect them e.g. Australia against Japan WW2
• A Select Parliamentary Committee report from 1865 advocated no further expansion in West Africa
• The cost of military control made it an unpopular policy objective for voters and the violent handling of the Morant Bay Rebellion and Amritsar Massacre (1919) was met with disapproval by the public

Question 5

What evidence is there that the metropole was able to enact its policy of economic development?

Answer 5

There are numerous examples of economic development in the colonies:

• Between 1860 and 1880, railways in India increased from 838 miles to 15,842 miles. Telegraph lines and ports were also constructed and developed.
• The Suez Canal saw significant investment from the British Government (owned 44% of the shares in it). Egypt was also rescued economically by Britain and France following the Cave Report 1878
• North Borneo Chartered Company developed healthcare and education in Brunei
• Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain (1895-1903) pursued a program of developing colonial infrastructure

Question 6

What is evidence of the metropole not being able to implement its policy of economic development?

Answer 6

• In 1898, there were rebellions to the introduction of a Hut Tax in Sierra Leone
• Returns off foreign investment were less than that off domestic investment throughout the C19th
• McKinnon’s compnay failed in 1894 whilst Goldie’s did so in 1900
• 3/4 of the male population in India continued to work in the agricultural sector. Road infrastructure and sanitation remained poor

Question 7

What is evidence that the British Government was able to implement its policy of trusteeship?

Answer 7

• A form of parliamentary democracy was establoshed in both Canada and Australia
• In West Africa, European companies were refused permission to construct large scale plantations due to the harm it would cause the indigenous people
• Devonshire declaration in 1923 reinforced the priority of the interests of the Kenyan natives in the country
• British style education was developed in India e.g. Universities set up in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta in 1857
• Missionaires sent in Africa and India to spread Christianity e.g. John McKenzie in Africa

Question 8

What evidence is there that the British government was unable to implement its policy of trusteeship?

Answer 8

• Pasha’s uprising in Egypt in 1881 was borne from the belief that Britain’s economic control was not in the interests of Egypt and actually caused the people more harm
• The Arab and African slave trades were not directly targeted following the Berlin Conference
• In India, Indians were massacred in Amritsar over their protests about the prolongation of repressive wartime measures and the banning of public gatherings 1919
• Politicians tended to be more concerned with domestic political interests rather than colonial affairs. The only election influenced by the empire was the 1900 Khaki Election