Role of individuals 1890-1914

Question 1

The role and influence of Joseph Chamberlain

Answer 1

• Joseph Chamberlain was the most committed Colonial Secretary of the Victorian era
• He turned down the office of both chancellor of the exchequer and home secretary in 1895 in order to become secretary of state for the colonies
• He believed that the effective use of the Empire could sustain British prosperity and prestige
• Chamberlain was a powerful influence on attitudes to empire and believed that the imperial bonds needed reinforcing if the empire was to be persevered, or if, indeed Britain would maintain its status as a world power
• Following the failure of the first colonial council in 1887 to get agreement for an imperial council to serve the empire, Chamberlain summoned and chaired 2 further colonial conferences, in 1897 and 1902, where he proposed an imperial defence and customs union
• These conferences involved only the self-governing settler colonies and they rejected Chamberlain’s ideas
• Despite these setbacks, as a strong advocate of colonial development, Chamberlain promoted government investment in the less profitable areas of the empire
• Not only did he want to promote tropical trade, but he also believed in a sense of imperial duty, reflect by the spirit of “high imperialism”: “I believed that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen”
• When the second Anglo-Boer war broke out in 1899, Chamberlain was popular in Britain because of his aggressive attitude towards South Africa
• However, the war dragged on, and Chamberlain lost some of his glory shown by him not being elected as prime minister in 1902 and resigning as colonial secretary in 1903
• He fought back by conducting a campaign on tariff reform in an attempt to convince the British public of the need for duties on all foreign goods in order to give the colonies imperial preference and access to a duty-free British market
• The Tariff Reform League was formed which organised the distribution of large numbers of leaflets and played Chamberlain’s recorded messages to crowded meetings of the public
• Chamberlain was convinced that favourable trade between Britain and the colonies would benefit Britain and reduce unemployment
• However, although he campaigned with great energy, he failed to carry the conservatives with him, split the party and brought about Balfour’s (prime minister) resignation
• In 1906, Chamberlain also failed to convince the public, who feared rises in the costs of living, and so the electorate gave the Liberals their greatest majority since the 1830s
• Shortly after the election, Chamberlain suffered a stroke, and his political career was over

Question 2

The role and influence of Cecil Rhodes

Answer 2

• Cecil Rhodes was driven by the strong conviction that British civilisation and control were key to the betterment of the world
• Using his vast fortune, political power and control of Cape newspapers, Rhodes impressed upon audiences both in Britain and abroad that it was the right and duty of the Anglo-Saxons to dominate Africa and beyond
• As a result of his social-Darwinist view that “the English are the first race in the world, and the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race”, he hoped to establish British rule from the north to the south of Africa, linking the cape to the British-dominated Sudan and Egypt
• Therefore, he sent settlers and British south Africa company troops to establish fort Salisbury in Ndebele territory (Matabeleland) in 1890, violently expanding into territories which, from 1899, were to be known as the Rhodesia in Rhodes’ honour
• One of Rhodes’ projects to outflank the Boer Republic of the Transvaal and the Germans in the rush to central Africa was the railway line north from the cape through Bechuanaland
• Rhodes intended the railway to continue along the spine of the mountain system, hoping that it would eventually reach the Nile and therefore ensure British domination of all of East-Central Africa
• However, this dream was blocked by the German occupation of East Africa from 1891 and was therefore never completed
• Rhodes resigned from his post as Prime Minister in 1896 after the Jameson Raid and died only 6 years later
• He had, however, made a great fortune out of empire
• These funds helped to promote the British empire after his death, for example in the publicity work of the Round Table, an imperial pressure group established in 1910 by a like-minded ally of Rhodes, Alfred Milner

Question 3

Viceroy George Curzon

Answer 3

• At the height of conservative imperialism, in 1899, Lord Salisbury (prime minister) appointed George Curzon as the Viceroy of India
• Curzon was a great traveller and had travelled the world, writing several books, most notably on Russia and Persia
• It was concern about Russian expansion that led Curzon to create the North-West Frontier Province in 1901 and to dispatch a military expedition into Tibet
• Curzon believed in a religious and moral imperial duty, and was unwaveringly certain of “the hand of Divine Providence behind the creation and expansion of an empire which is a supreme force for good in the world”
• He established commissions and legislation to improve India’s administration and agriculture, but also reintroduced means tests for famine relief, preventing a million people in the Bombay region alone from claiming aid during the famine of 1899-1902
• Curzon oversaw the rearming of Indian regiments, the expansion of provincial police, the promotion of scientific and medical education and the construction of a further 6000 miles of railway track
• These were all policies which were intended principally to consolidate British control of India
• He also founded the Imperial Cadet Corps to give Indian nobles a military role and the prospect of officer commissions, believing that keeping Indian elites loyal was crucial to the success of the Raj
• He luxuriated (enjoyed) in the role of Viceroy, giving splendid feasts and banquets and enjoying his imperial status, while most of the country he ruled over remained in poverty
• Curzon’s racial views, like those of most other colonial administrators, meant he was reluctant to give Indian’s any responsibility
• Curzon had a low opinion of the abilities of Indians, even those who had been educated at the universities set up under his rule, stating to an audience of Indian students in 1902 that “you cannot do without us”
• Curzon argued that even in his own province, an Indian lacked an “Englishman’s authority and self-confidence” and he refused to appoint more to senior posts for fear that they were unequal to emergencies and “rather inclined to abdicate or run-away”
• Curzon took it upon himself to uphold the Raj and believed that by dividing the troublesome province of Bengal in 1905 he would weaken the Raj’s internal enemies
• Instead, this partition backfired and led to widespread Indian resistance, causing Curzon to resign in the same year.

Question 4

Evelyn Baring

Answer 4

• Evelyn Baring was Consul-General in Egypt between 1833 and 1907
• He sae himself as a moral reformer just as much as an administrator and was certain that “the code Christian morality is the only sure foundation on which the whole of out vast imperial fabric can be built if it is to be durable”
• Baring believed that a long occupation of Egypt was essential
• He established a new guiding principle, the Granville Doctrine (named after the Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville), which allowed Baring to dismiss Egyptian ministers who refused to accept British directives
• Baring placed British officials in key ministries and created the “Veiled protectorate” in which British officials held the actual power over Egyptian affairs
• Therefore, Baring effectively controlled Egypt until 1907, and this arrangement worked well for the British for the first 10 years of colonial control because Tewfiq, the Khedive, saw the advantages in abdicating government responsibility in the face of overwhelming British military strength
• Baring considered the Egyptian army to be untrustworthy, due to its previous uprisings against the Khedive, so it was disbanded, and a new army organised which was similar to that created by the British in India
• Baring also dealt with the budgets personally, and had total control over the economy of Egypt
• He understood that British control would have to end at some point in the future, but continually refused Egyptian requests for more say in how their country was governed
• When Tewfiq died in 1892, he was succeeded by Abbas Hilmi II who was a young and ambitious Khedive that wanted to throw off British rule and therefore encouraged a nationalist movement, however, he was bullied into submission by Baring
• Baring held Orientalist views and was particularly concerned with Islamic society’s perceived acceptance of slavery and what he regarded as an “antiquated” justice system and undue “subjugation” of women
• His moral mission led him to take action to discourage slavery, stop the import of hashish and close gambling houses, but he was forced to resign his post after the controversy following the flogging and hanging of locals at Denshawai in 1906, which revealed the inequality and discrimination inherent in the supposedly superior British colonial justice system, which he oversaw
• Parliament awarded Baring £50,000 in recognition of his “eminent services” in Egypt
• He published a set of books on Modern Egypt in 1908, in which he painted a firmly orientalist picture, where even the highly educated Egyptians are prone to refer the common occurrences of life to the intervention of some supernatural agency, for the public in Britain

Question 5

Alfred Milner

Answer 5

• Milner was an administrator who had served in Egypt (1889-92) and as chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue (1892-97)
• He was an ardent imperialist and was picked by Chamberlain to become Britain’s High Commissioner for Southern Africa in 1897
• Milner, like Chamberlain, was convinced of British superiority over both Africans and Boers and of the need for British regional supremacy
• While Milner founded “Milner schools” in Pretoria and Johannesburg, he is mostly remembered for taking Britain into the Second Anglo-Boer war
• Milner demanded full citizenship rights for the Uitlanders after 5 years’ residence and by the time of the Bloemfontein Conference (May-June 1899), he had already decided to use force to get his way, although it was actually Kruger who declared war in October 1899
• When Britain annexed the former Boer territories of the Orange-Free state and the Transvaal in 1901, Milner left his post as governor of the cape and took over administration of these areas
• As High Commissioner, he negotiated the Peace of Vereeniging (31st May 1902) alongside Lord Kitchener and he was made baron in 1901 and a viscount in 1902 for his services
• After the war, Milner and a group of young administrators and lawyers, known as “Milner’s kindergarten ”, working to resettle the Boer and promote economic growth, particularly in the gold mining industry
• Milner had hoped to attract British settlers and introduced a vigorous English language education programme to try to anglicise the area
• However, more British residents left than arrived during the years of depression that followed the Second Anglo-Boer war and Milner and the British government decided to use Chinese labourers (coolies) on 3-year contracts to make up the shortfall in workers in the gold mining industry
• The “coolies” were often flogged and racially abused by white mine managers, leading to an investigation by the British press and questions being asked in parliament about whether the poor conditions were imposed with the knowledge and approval of Milner
• The issue of the Chinese workers probably contributed to the Conservative election defeat in January 1906 and the new liberal government rejected Milner’s plans for the future of the Transvaal
• Milner resigned his Southern Africa posts and returned to England