When and why was Britain passed up?

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.
 
We may have been latecomers to the game, but we played. The Phillipines, Hawaii, and Cuba stand out as examples. Let us not forget the long and dark history of conquest that drove the US border from the Appalachians out to the Pacific coast.

True. But the Imperialism exercised in North America was a little different, as it was seen more as adding to what the Americans saw as rightfully American territory, not to mention its been consolidated to the point that California is basically the same as New York. Its not to say this wasn't a history of conquest, but it had a bit of a different income and drive to gain the land. The only thing that really comes close to Manifest Destiny is the Nazi concept of Lebensraum, and I understand that doesn't really help my point. But one of the main differences is that the Nazi's recognized that it was peoples land, the Americans at the time merely considered it theirs, as if they hadn't lived there yet, but that it was theirs anyway. Morally, very wrong and retrospectively its imperialism, but Americans at the time would've laughed at the concept. Where as many Americans considered the Spanish-American War as America engaging in Colonialism.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
True. But the Imperialism exercised in North America was a little different, as it was seen more as adding to what the Americans saw as rightfully American territory, not to mention its been consolidated to the point that California is basically the same as New York. Its not to say this wasn't a history of conquest, but it had a bit of a different income and drive to gain the land. The only thing that really comes close to Manifest Destiny is the Nazi concept of Lebensraum, and I understand that doesn't really help my point. But one of the main differences is that the Nazi's recognized that it was peoples land, the Americans at the time merely considered it theirs, as if they hadn't lived there yet, but that it was theirs anyway. Morally, very wrong and retrospectively its imperialism, but Americans at the time would've laughed at the concept. Where as many Americans considered the Spanish-American War as America engaging in Colonialism.

I would say Russia conquest of Siberia and Central Asia is the closest comparison. The main difference is the resistance of the Central Asians to disease. If 95% of the Central Asia population had died to disease in the 1700's, Central Asia would look a lot like the USA but speaking Russian.
 
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I would say Russia conquest of Siberia and Central Asia is the closest comparison. The main difference is the resistance of the Central Asians to disease. If 95% of the Central Asia population had died to disease in the 1970's, Central Asia would look a lot like the USA but speaking Russian.

The Russians didn't conquer Central Asia in the 70's. But Siberia does make sense. Good point.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The Russians didn't conquer Central Asia in the 70's. But Siberia does make sense. Good point.

Fixed typo.

There were two types of empires, those who conquered land touched the homeland (China, USA, Canada, Russia) and those with distant empires (UK, France, Germany). Generally speaking the ones with attached conquered people keep most of their gains, while the distant empire tended to fall apart. A lot of this is really luck of geography, it was much easier to persuade someone to move from Ohio to Iowa than from the British Isles to Uganda. And over time, the definition of "homeland" expands as the people migrate. Incremental integration of an informal nature was easier to accomplish than the more formal planning process need to make Canada a fully integrated part of England.

For example, if Algeria had been physically attached to France, it would likely be still be a part of France.
 
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