Colonialisation Up To The First World War
Colonial expansion
The colonial expanion was part of a development that was transforming the economic structure of British capitalism.
In the earlier part of the Nineteenth Century, attention was mainly confined to India. Then came the drive into the hinterland of Canada and Australia and the settlement of New Zealand, and lastly the division of Africa and the Pacific Islands among European Powers.
In 1860 the colonial possession of Britain cocered about 2,500,000 square miles, 1880 the area was 7,700,000 square miles and in 1899 11,600,000. By this date the division of the world among the great colonising Powers was almost complete.
The age of Imperialism had begun, the British economy had acquired a new basis. Instead of the old and now vanishing industrial monopoly, there was a narrower but more complete colonial monopoly.
The key feature of Imperialism is monopoly, and in Britain monopoly developed strongly from the closing years of the Nineteenth Century. This was espesially the case int he iron and steel industries.
Almost as important was the export of capital, in the form both of loans and investments.
India
The abolition of the trading monopoly of the East India Company in 1813 marked a new stage in the economic exploitation of India. From this time can be dated the opening of the Indian market to English factory-made goods. In a little over a decade the value of exports to India about doubled.
Lancashire goods destroyed the hand-loom industry of India with astonishing rapidity.
The population of Dacca, the main centre of the Indian textile industry, decreased between 1815 and 1837 from 150,000 to 20,000.
Less spectacular but more important than the depopulation of Dacca was the gradual destruction of the selfsupporting communities which formed the ground pattern of Indian social life.
By the destruction of the village handicraft industry the...
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