Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:02:51.881Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Was it Worth Having? the British Empire 1850–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2010

Peter Cain
Peter Cain
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The question of whether the possession of an empire under a regime of free trade was beneficial or not to Britain has become a serious matter of dispute in recent years amongst British and American economic historians. Nonetheless, as some of them recognise, the question they are asking is hardly a novel one: they are often consciously reviving, in a more sophisticated form, a controversy which was already dividing contemporaries in Britain at the time the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts were repealed in the late 1840s and which only lost its relevance when decolonisation began in earnest in the late 1950s. O'Brien and Davis and Huttenback are on the side of those who traditionally disparaged the economic value of empire and saw it as the preserve of special interests: Edelstein and Offer, though careful not to justify empire, are more willing to accept that the nation as a whole might have benefited materially from its possession even if the benefits were very unevenly spread. The discussion, though ingenious and highly informative has, however, been somewhat narrowly focused. So, in the latter part of the paper, it is suggested that a full assessment of the value of the empire to Britain depends upon taking account of a wider set of circumstances than has usually been evident in the current debate. In this respect, present day historians may have something to learn from the contemporary controversy where the question of the material costs and benefits of empire was always considered in the context of the social and political trajectory of the British nation.

Type
Articles-Artículos: Part 3. The Second Epoch: Liberal Imperialism and Decolonization, 1846–1974
Information
Revista de Historia Economica - Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History , Volume 16 , Issue 1: The costs and benefits of european imperialism from the conquest of Ceuta, 1415, to the treaty of Lusaka, 1974. Twelfth International Economic History Congress. Madrid 1998 , March 1998 , pp. 351 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Instituto Figuerola de Historia y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

SOURCES

Alford, B. (1988): Review of L. Davis and R. E. Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 1860–1912, in Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol. XLI/2, pp. 321–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balogh, T. (1947): Studies in Financial Organisation, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Barnes, L. (1939): Empire or Democracy? A Study of the Colonial Question, London.Google Scholar
Bennett, G. (1962): The Concept of Empire, 1774–1947: Burke to Attlee, London.Google Scholar
Boyd, C. W. (1914): Mr. Chamberlain's Speeches, 2 vols., London.Google Scholar
Cain, P. J. (1978): «Hobson, Cobdenism and the Radical Theory of Economic Imperialism, 1898–1914», in Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol. XXXI/4, pp. 565–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, P. J. (1979): «Capitalism, War and Internationalism in the Thought of Richard Cobden», in Review of International Studies, 5, pp. 229–47.Google Scholar
Cain, P. J. (1996): «The Economic Philosophy of Constructive Imperialism», in Navari, C. (ed.): The Spirit of the Age: British Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century, Keele, pp. 41–65.Google Scholar
Cain, P. J. (forthcoming): «Economics and Empire: the Metropolitan Context, 1790–1914», in Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 3, Oxford.Google Scholar
Cain, P. J., and Hopkins, A. G. (1993a): British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688–1914, London.Google Scholar
Cain, P. J., and Hopkins, A. G. (1993b): British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction, 1914–1990, London.Google Scholar
Capie, F., and Collins, M. (1996): «Industrial Lending by English Commercial Banks, 1860–1914: Why did Banks Refuse Loans?», in Business History, 38, pp. 26–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corley, T. A. B. (1994): «Britain's Overseas Investments in 1914 Revisited», in Business History, 36, pp. 71–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, L. (1966): «The Capital Market and Industrial Concentration: the USA and the UK, a Comparative Study», in Economic History Review, 2nd. series, vol. XIX/2, pp. 255–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, L., and Huttenback, R. A. (1986): Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: the Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Dicey, E. (1877): «Mr. Gladstone and Our Empire», in Nineteenth Century, 2, pp. 292–308.Google Scholar
Edelstein, M. (1976): «Realised Rates of Return on U. K Home and Overseas Portfolio Investment in the Age of High Imperialism», in Explorations in Economic History, 13, pp. 283–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelstein, M. (1982): Overseas Investment in the Age of High Imperialism: the United Kingdom, 1850–1914, London.Google Scholar
Edelstein, M. (1994a): «Imperialism: Costs and Benefits», in Floud, R. and McCloskey, D. N. (eds.): The Economic History of Modern Britain, vol. 2: 1860–1939, Cambridge, pp. 197–216.Google Scholar
Edelstein, M. (1994b) «Foreign Investment and Accumulation, 1860–1914», in Floud, R. R. and McCloskey, D. N. (eds.): The Economic History of Modern Britain, vol. 2: 1860–1939, Cambridge, pp. 173–96.Google Scholar
Eldridge, C. C. (1973): England's Mission: The Imperial Idea in the Age of Gladstone and Disraeli, 1868–1880, Basingstoke.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinstein, C. H. (1972a): Statistical Tables of National Income, Expenditure and Output of the U.K., 1855–1965, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H. (1972b): National Income, Output and Expenditure of the United Kingdom, 1855–1970, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H. (1990): «British Overseas Investments in 1913», in Economic History Review, 2nd. series, vol. XLLIII/2, pp. 288–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallagher, J., and Robinson, R. E. (1953): «The Imperialism of Free Trade, 1815–1914», in Economic History Review, 2nd. series, vol. VI, pp. 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gladstone, W. E. (1878a): «England's Mission», in Nineteenth Century, 4, pp. 560–84.Google Scholar
Gladstone, W. E. (1878b): Gleanings from Past Years, 1843–78, vol. I, London.Google Scholar
Green, E. E. H. (1995): The Crisis of Conservatism: the Politics, Economics and Ideology of the British Conservative Party, 1880–1914, London.Google Scholar
Hardach, G. (1977): The First World War, 1914–1918, London.Google Scholar
Hobson, J. A. (1898): «Free Trade and Foreign Policy», Contemporary Review, 74, pp. 167–80.Google Scholar
Hobson, J. A. (1988): Imperialism: a Study (1st. ed., 1902), London.Google Scholar
Hobson, J. A. (1911): An Economic Interpretation of Investment, London.Google Scholar
Hobson, J. M. (1993): «The Military-Extraction Gap and the Wary Titan: The Fiscal-Sociology of British Defence Policy, 1870–1913», in Journal of European Economic History, 22, pp. 461–506.Google Scholar
Hoffman, R. J. S. (1964): Great Britain and the German Trade Rivalry, 1875–1914, New York.Google Scholar
Hopkins, A. G. (1988): «Accounting for the British Empire», in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 16, pp. 235–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jessop, D. (1976): «The Colonial Stocks Act of 1900: a Symptom of the New Imperialism?», in Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 4, pp. 154–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, P. M. (1983): Strategy and Diplomacy: Eight Studies, London.Google Scholar
Kennedy, P. M. (1989): «The Costs and Benefits of British Imperialism, 1846–1914», in Past and Present, 125, pp. 186–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, P. M. (1987): Industrial Structure, Capital Markets and the Origins of British Economic Decline, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Krosewski, G. (1993): «Sterling, the “Minor” Territories and the End of Formal Empire, 1939–58», in Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol. XLVI/2, pp. 239–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kynaston, D. (1995): The City of London: Golden Years, 1890–1914, London.Google Scholar
Lee, C. H. (1986): The British Economy since 1700: a Macro-economic Survey, Cambridge.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (1970): «Did Victorian Britain Fail?», in Economic History Review, 2nd series, XXIII/3, pp. 446–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marrison, A. (1996): British Business and Protection, 1903–1932, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michie, R. C. (1988): «The Finance of Innovation in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain: Possibilities and Constraints», in Journal of European Economic History, 17, pp. 491–530.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. (1988): British Historical Statistics, Cambridge.Google Scholar
O'brien, P. K. (1988): «The Costs and Benefits of British Imperialism, 1846–1914», in Past and Present, 120, pp. 163–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'brien, P. K. (1989): «Debate: The Costs and Benefits of British Imperialism, 1846–1914», Past and Present, 125, pp. 192–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Offer, A. (1989): The First World War: an Agrarian Interpretation, Oxford.Google Scholar
Offer, A. (1993): «The British Empire, 1870–1914: a Waste of Money?», in Economic History Review, XLVI/2, pp. 215–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Offer, A. (forthcoming): «Costs and Benefits, Peace and War, 1870 to 1919», in Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 3, Oxford.Google Scholar
Platt, D. C. M. (1986): Britain's Investment Overseas on the Eve of the First World War, Basingstoke.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, S. (1989): Britain's Prime and Britain's Decline: the British Economy, 1870–1914, London.Google Scholar
Porter, A. (1988): «The Balance Sheet of Imperialism», in Historical Journal, 31, pp. 685–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuel, H. (1902): Liberalism: An Attempt to State the Principles and Proposals of Contemporary Liberalism in England, London.Google Scholar
Sayers, R. S. (1956): Financial Policy, 1939–45, London.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. A. (1991): «The Sociology of Imperialisms» (1st ed., 1919), in Swedberg, R. (ed.): Joseph A. Schumpeter: The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Spencer, H. (1902): Principles of Sociology, vol. II, London.Google Scholar
Veblen, T. (1994a): Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (1st ed. 1915), Bristol.Google Scholar
Veblen, T. (1994b): An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation (1st ed., 1919), Bristol.Google Scholar
Wilkins, M. (1988): «The Free Standing Company, 1870–1914: an Important Type of British Foreign Investment», in Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol. XLI, pp. 259–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, J. M. (1995): British Business History, 1720–1994, Manchester.Google Scholar
Wilson, K. M. (1985): The Policy of the Ententes; Essays on the Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914, Cambridge.Google Scholar