BlondieBC
Banned
Also, the colonies {yes yes, not including the Dominions and India, maybe Malaysia IIRC} were serious net drains, and there was no way in hell the Empire was going to industrialize the African colonies. They were there for resource extraction first and foremost. IF they did that then maybe things would be different in terms of the British economy, but that's a massive if.
When fully cost loaded (the naval budget is allocated), all the colonies lost money by the 1900-1914 time period for the British Government. The net trade surplus or even gross trade figures are not large enough to cover the cost of such a large Navy, or even a Navy half the size. Now the colonies made well connected individuals huge amounts of money, but not the government and not the public. Colonies are best viewed as a welfare program for nobility and industrialists where the general public is taxed to subsidized the nobility, and the transfer mechanism is the Naval, and to a lesser extent the Army.
The gold mines of South Africa were hugely profitable, and South Africa might have been a profitable colony, but if and only if, all mining in South Africa was a Crown mine. The oil fields of the Persia were they only case I know of where a colony actually directly subsidized the British naval budget to a large degree.