week 10 - colonial policy 1890 - 1914 Flashcards
baring:
consul general of egypt
first act as was to approve of the dufferin report, which called for a puppet parliament with no real power - asserted the need for british supervision of reforms deemed necessary for the country. the interests of the suez canal zone should always be maintained.
baring believed that because of egyptian administrative incompetence, a long occupation was essential to any sort of reform.
established a new guiding principle for egypt known as the granville doctrine which enabled baring and other british officials to fill the government with those egyptian politicians that would be cooperative with the british and the power to dismiss egyptian ministers who refused to accept british directives
egyptian army, which baring considered untrustworthy due to its previous mutinies , was disbanded and a new army organised along british lines
with egyptian finances stabilised by 1887, baring also compelled the government in cairo to abandon any pretension of reconquering the sudan, which egypt had lost control of following the mahdist rebellion
1879–80 - became british controller of finances in the egyptian government.
wanted to abolish the capitulations and mixed tribunals and set up a european legislative council alongside the existing egyptian one
refused tariff protection to fledgling egyptian-based textile factories. His educational policies famously failed to accommodate the demands of the growing urban middle class. his indian experience had led him to fear that underemployed graduates of western-style schools were likely to turn to nationalist protest. he starved the several higher professional schools and the primary and secondary system that fed them, left the traditional religiously-centred education concentrated on al-azhar alone, and offered the masses only a few years of terminal elementary schooling.
baring:
success in eygpt and sudan
productivity of egypt’s cotton and sugar industries rose by 200%
construction of the aswan dam (which provided water for irrigation in the agricultural industry)
government debt - london convention 1885 agreed £9 million loan to egypt (£8 million spent on stabilising debt situation), and 1/2 tax revenue repaid debts
fellahin - 8% revenue to improving fellahin under public works department
cautious - reluctant to engage in ubiquitous changes; kept trustworthy british administrators in power and set the target in sudan at dongola, halfway between egypt and khartoum, as to not destabilise egypt and stretch resources
reformer - prepared to make long term changes to infrastructure, agriculture and government institutions; lord salisbury and gladstone agreed to stay for 15 years, reversing non-interventionist liberal position, beginning ‘veiled protectorate’
moral reformer - foundation of empire was ‘the code of christian morality’ so stopped slave supply, abolished force labour, regulated alcohol and shut many gambling houses
baring:
little success in egypt and sudan
racism - regarded egypt a battleground between civilised christianity and backwards arabs; keen to assert superiority of anglo-saxon over the ‘oriental mind’
native - convinced all nationalist feeling emanated from khedive abbas and underestimated existence among fellahin as he felt his reforms were emancipatory, and was prepared to cut off sudan with gladstone to maintain control of egypt
agriculture - irrigation exhausted the soil, outcompeted smaller fellahin farms and spread disease such as malaria
fellahin - regressive tax to keep landowners on side (£1 6s 4d per fedden on kharaj peasants but 10s 7d on ushr landowners) and spending outside of agriculture, debt and military low
education - believed secondary education not government responsibility and increased tuition fees in primary school to prevent enrolment, limiting mobility of fellahin
dufferin report 1883 - established egyptian puppet parliament, failing to give actual representation
curzon:
india
inaugurated a new province called the north west frontier province - in 1897
pursued a policy of forceful control mingled with conciliation. In response to what he called “a number of murderous attacks upon englishmen and europeans”, curzon advocated at the quetta durbar extremely draconian punishments which he believed would stop what he viewed as such especially abominable crimes
argued for an exclusive british presence in the persian gulf
had direct responsibility for famine relief projects and agricultural projects involving irrigation.
oversaw the construction of 10,000km of railway lines - however, this transport infrastructure probably helped to secure british control and advantage.
encouraged scientific and medical education
greater representation of affiliated colleges in the senates, and
stricter monitoring of affiliated institutions by the universities.
he aimed to curtail learning and regulate the education to be subservient to the state
opened up famine relief works that fed between 3 and 5 million
curzon:
partition of bengal
weaken bengal, the nerve centre of indian nationalism
bengal, bihar, and orissa had formed a single province of british india since 1765.
by 1900 the province had grown too large to handle under a single administration. east bengal, because of isolation and poor communications, had been neglected in favour of west bengal and bihar.
curzon chose to unite assam, with 15 districts of east bengal and thus form a new province with a population of 31 million
