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Y320: From Colonialism to Independence: The British Empire 1857–1965

The governance and administration of the Empire: Empire in 1857 and economic explanations

  • 3 things to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on the Empire in 1857, explanations for the growth of the British Empire, Berlin Conference and economic explanations, imperial rivalry, metropolitan influence.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Describe the empire Britain possessed in 1857.

Key term

Distinguish between formal and informal empire.

Key term

State the main decisions of the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Describe the empire Britain possessed in 1857.

    Model answer

    It was a mixed structure rather than a single system: settler colonies such as Canada and the Australian colonies had just been granted responsible government over their internal affairs, tropical territories were ruled as Crown colonies from London, India was still governed by the East India Company under the supervision of the Board of Control, and a chain of naval bases from Gibraltar to Singapore protected a commerce that Britain, after repealing the Corn Laws, conducted on free trade principles.

  2. 2

    Distinguish between formal and informal empire.

    Model answer

    Formal empire meant territory over which Britain claimed sovereignty and appointed its own administration; informal empire meant countries that remained nominally independent, such as Argentina, Persia or China after the treaty ports, but whose trade, finance, railways and sometimes tariffs were dominated by British capital and gunboats without the expense of governing them.

  3. 3

    What did Gallagher and Robinson argue in their essay on the imperialism of free trade?

    Model answer

    Writing in 1953, they denied that the mid-Victorian decades were anti-imperial and the late Victorian decades newly imperial, arguing instead that policy was consistently expansionist and simply chose the cheapest instrument available, taking trade with informal control where possible and formal rule only where necessary.

  4. 4

    Define the term New Imperialism.

    Model answer

    It describes the rapid, competitive and often territorial expansion of the European powers between about 1875 and 1914, in which the scramble for Africa, the partitioning of the Pacific and the carving of spheres of influence in China replaced the earlier preference for trade without annexation, and it was accompanied at home by explicitly imperialist politics and propaganda.

  5. 5

    State the main decisions of the Berlin Conference of 1884 to 1885.

    Model answer

    Convened by Bismarck, it recognised Leopold II's Congo Free State, guaranteed free navigation on the Congo and the Niger, and laid down that a power claiming coastal territory must notify the others and establish effective occupation, which turned paper claims into a race to plant flags and administrators; no African ruler was present or consulted.

  6. 6

    Summarise the economic explanation of imperialism advanced by Hobson and Lenin.

    Model answer

    Hobson argued in 1902 that underconsumption at home left a surplus of capital which financiers pushed abroad, capturing foreign policy so that the nation paid in taxes and blood for the profits of a small investing class; Lenin adapted this in 1916 into the claim that monopoly capitalism in its final stage must export capital and therefore must divide the world.

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