Shift in attitudes in 1870s -> reasons

Question 1

Explain why there was indifference to Empire in the mid C18th (1850s)

Answer 1

• slow communications, lack of institutions to deal with Empire and from a general lack of commitment to intervention itself.
• The Empire was still bound up with a sense of nationalist prestige and identity but it was the freedom to trade and access markets that concerned Britain most.
• Successive governments had resisted calls to secure new territories by, for example, withholding charters from commercial colonising companies that they didn’t think were viable.
• Both Disraeli and Gladstone were against Empire at this point believing it unnecessary and financially counter-productive.
  -> Disraeli believed that colonies were a drain on British resources and Gladstone believed that the priority should be with those in Britain.

Question 2

Explain why attitudes changed during the 1870s

Answer 2

• concern about the ambitions of other European powers.
• Other nations grew stronger industrially and Britain now found greater economic competition. Britain’s
  economy was relatively unsophisticated as it was based on earlier industrialisation than its rivals.
• European and American protective tariffs made it harder to flood the western hemisphere with British
  manufactured goods.
• There was an increase in interest among the working-class and within popular forms of entertainment and literature.