'Native policy' beneficial or not Flashcards
India - political positives
1892 Indian Council’s Act allowed 39 Indians to be elected to both the imperial legislative council and the provincial legislative councils.
1909 Indian Council Act (Morley-Minto reforms) increased the total elected membership of all the councils to 135.
India - political counter
The imperial and provincial legislative councils, even after the 1909 act, remained merely advisory and the governor was in no way responsible to these elected representatives.
Morley-Minto reforms:
1. constituencies were very small because the right to vote was limited to the rich and privileged.
2. Council seats reserved for Muslims even though they were in the minority (angered Hindus).
3. Appointed officials outnumbered elected Indian representatives on the Imperial Legislative Council
4. Representatives were elected indirectly through various organisations and social groups, such as Muslim groups or landowners.
China - social positives
By 1894, Christian missionaries maintained some 500 stations in China – each with a church, usually a small school and possibly a hospital or dispensary
China - social counter
Natives resented the 1300 missionaries (mostly British) due to the threat of cultural imperialism. Resentment demonstrated by the Boxer Rebellion of 1898 where Chinese imperial troops and 30,000 boxers led an attack on Peking.
Egypt - political positives
Saad Zaghluls Pasha, a nationalist, appointed as Minister of Education in 1906, and Minister of Justice in 1910, and Vice President of the Legislative Assembly in 1913.
By 1905, there were over 1000 Egyptian government ministers.
Egypt - political counter
Legislative Assembly only gave representation to rich landowners rather than ordinary people.
The ‘Granville Doctrine’ gave all Egyptian government ministers the ‘support’ of a British advisor who could dismiss them if they weren’t listened to.
Sudan - social and economic positives
Kitchener’s conquest of the Egyptian Sudan in 1898 was reported in the Daily Mail as having ‘secured the downfall of the worst tyranny in the world’ (the Mahdist regime) which had seen a population decline of 50% due to famine, disease, persecution and war.
1899-1902: Kitchener set up ‘Gordon College’ to train young Sudanese for government
Telegraph and railway lines were extended to link key areas in Northern Sudan as well as Port Sudan being opened in 1906
Sudan - military counter
Social and economic developments don’t matter because of the repressive governing and expansion of the British, using brutal military force.
- 1898 Battle of Omdurman: British long-rang rifle, machine-guns and artillery killed 11,000 and wounded 16,000 – essentially a massacre.
- There were many Sudanese feuds and uprisings because they refused to pay taxation or renounce customs: British responded by excessive use of the death penalty and a total of 33 punitive expeditions repressing rebels.
- Four Madhist uprisings 1900-1908 in which rebels were publicly hanged to set an example.
West Africa - economic positives
1908: West African gin trade worth £1.2 million with 90% going to Nigeria
West Africa - counter - military repercussions of economic policy
Economic progress only obtained through unfair tax which prompted lots of resistance
1898: new severe tax on dwellings (‘hut tax’) was met with resistance, causing the British to use ‘scorched earth’ tactics in which they set fire to villages, farms and crops.
Hundreds killed and 97 chief’s warriors hanged.
East Africa - economic progress
Uganda railway or the ‘Lunatic Line’ (built 1896 – 1901) laid down 660 miles of track to connect the coast with the fertile highlands bordering Lake Victoria.
The British invested £5 million and built 1200 bridges.
Enable access to new markets, facilitated the export of tea and coffee, and helped end the Arab- run East African slave trade, many of whose victims were used as porters, carrying commodities from the interior to coastal ports.
East Africa - exploitation of natives for economic progress
British exploited natives for labour in order to generate this economic progress (which was mostly for Britain’s benefit anyway).
- 2500 workers died in the construction of the Uganda Railway (Masai warrior attacks, man-eating lions, poor living conditions generally)
- Tsavo incident: between 35 and 100 rail workers were attacked and eaten by two lions
- The Lunatic Line took away 60,000 acres of fertile farmland from the natives Kikyuu people, causing them to become impoverished.
South Africa - benefits after Second Boer War
The Treaty of Vereeniging in May 1902 gave the Boers £3 million in order to revitalise their economy after the war.
The treaty also promised future self-government. Boers essentially had complete political control just under the British name.
E.g Louis Botha, one of the leading guerrilla leaders who had defied the British during the Boer war became the united South Africa’s first prime minister in 1907.
South Africa - human cost and economic damage during Boer war
Political/economic benefits under British government don’t make up for the military horrors of the Second Anglo Boer war, which made irreversible social and economic damage.
- 9,000 Boer fighters died
- 107,000 Boers were placed in concentration camps, where 1 in 4 died (24,000 children under 16)
- 14,000 ‘Bantu’ people died
- ‘scorched earth’ tactics used to burn crops, houses and villages – drove non-fighting natives into poverty
