Trade and Commerce with Empire - 1890 to 1914 Flashcards
By 1914, what percentage of Britain’s exports were in Empire?
40%
What was the value and percentage (amount) of imports India received from Britain by 1914?
20% of Britain’s total exports went to India, worth £150 million.
What resources did South Africa and Australia export to Britain?
Sugar and wool
What resources did New Zealand export to Britain?
Dairy produce and lamb
What resources did Canada export to Britain?
Beef and wheat, Canada supplied 10% of Britain’s beef and 15% of Britain’s wheat by 1914.
What did the Colonial Loans and Colonial Stocks Acts of 1999 facilitate?
Infrastructure projects including rail links into African interiors from Lagos to Mombasa.
When did Joseph Chamberlain propose the ‘Imperial Preference of Tariff Reform’ and what was it?
1903, argued that protective tariffs should be placed on foreign goods but not on those from colonies.
What was the impact of the imperial preference policy on the Conservative Party?
Conservative Party split, the Liberal Party won a landslide victory in 1906.
Britain’s trade was growing with the non-imperial world, how can this be evidenced in respect of wheat?
In 1894, Britain exported 64 hundredweight of wheat - 30 million from USA, 17 million from Russia, only 3.5 million from Canada (Empire).
By 1895, how much did the Empire provide in terms of foodstuffs?
Only 10%.
How much did trade with the Empire increase during the 1890s expansion in Africa?
Seemed to be no corresponding expansion in trade with Empire, Tropical Africa only imported 1.2% of British exports.
How did the percentage of British exports to India change from the 1860s to 1914? What did this indicate?
Reduced from 85% in the 1860s to 66% by 1914. This indicated that as a market Britain was increasingly less important, India was using countries other than Britain for imports.
What did anti-imperialists argue relating to the cost of the Empire? Is there evidence to back up their claim?
They argued it cost Britain more than it benefited, for the imperial defence taxes, expensive navy etc.
Most importantly, they argued that Britain was failing to make domestic investments and modernise their industry.
This can be evidenced as the French, Germans, and Russians all had their own synthetic rubber industry whilst Britain still relied on imports.
What was another anti-imperialist argument relating to foodstuffs?
They argued that large amounts of colonial food undermined domestic food production, (putting empire over Britain).
