Ronald Hyam

Empire and sexuality : the British experience

Problems and approaches sexual imperatives the British home-base empire and sexual opportunity sexual life of the Raj prostitution and purity chastity and the colonial service missionary confrontations conclusion - race, sex and empire.

The Geopolitical Origins of the Central African Federation: Britain, Rhodesia and South Africa, 1948-1953

The Central African Federation (1953–63) was the most controversial large-scale imperial exercise in constructive state-building ever undertaken by the British government. It appears now as a quite extraordinary mistake, an aberration of history (‘like the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem’), a deviation from the inevitable historical trend of decolonization. Paradoxically, one of its principal architects, Andrew Cohen (head of the African department of the colonial office) is also credited with having set the course for planned African decolonization as a whole. There have already been several attempts to explain how an error so interesting and surprising, so large and portentous, came to be made. No one, however, has yet presented an analysis based on British government archives, and the authoritative evidence that they alone can provide.

V. African Interests and the South Africa Act, 1908–1910

It has often been argued that British ministers in the years leading up to the Union of South Africa in 1910 were so obsessed with the principle of white self-government that they forgot their obligations to the African majority. 1 The result, it is alleged, was that African interests in general were sacrificed on the altar of Anglo-Afrikaner reconciliation, and in particular betrayed in the South Africa Act of 1909. If there is a partial exception allowed—the withholding of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland from the Union—then, it is assumed, the credit for this could not possibly be given to the imperial government. The recent article in the Journal of African History by Alan R. Booth argues that, in the apparent absence of any actual imperial policy or concern, local African tribal and missionary pressures on the high commissioner were decisive in bringing this about.

The Foundations of Power, 1815–1870

When you come to think of it, there was no such thing as Greater Britain, still less a British empire — India perhaps apart. There was only a ragbag of territorial bits and pieces, some remaindered remnants, some pre-empted luxury items, some cheap samples. All that red on the map represented in truth at best only a dominion of opinion and a grand anomaly, and at worst a temptation to illusions of grandeur and a gross abuse. There was always a fundamental hiatus in the imperial bureaucratic process: the impossibility, in the last resort, of translating the democratic political decisions of one society into the totally different political realities of another, the problem of producing any kind of real relation between policy determined in London and the practice of government on the spot. Before the coming of the telegraph, even the imperfect translation of will into act could in many places be a matter of years, or perhaps decades. There was also the problem of getting public support at home for the effective maintenance of the empire, for it was the public, not the policy-makers, who behaved with a ‘fit of absence of mind’ about the empire for much of the century.

The Dynamics of Empire and Expansion

There used to be a theory that territories came under the British flag as a result of the export of surplus capital. It would be much truer to say that the driving force behind empire-building was rather the export of surplus energy: that the expansion of Britain was the overspill of a restless people. The explorer Sir Samuel Baker wrote in 1855:1 Englishmen … are naturally endowed with a spirit of adventure. There is in the hearts of all a germ of freedom which longs to break through the barriers that confine us to our own shores; and as the newborn wildfowl takes to water from its deserted egg-shell, so we wander over the world when launched on our own resources. This innate spirit of action is the mainspring of the power of England. Go where you will, from north to south and from east to west, you meet an Englishman.

The Decline of British Pre-eminence, 1855–1900

The mutiny of the Indian army which broke out at Meerut on 10 May 1857 touched off the most traumatic experience of Britain’s imperial century. The events of 1857 were more than a purely military uprising without political significance, but much less than a national rebellion. They had two main elements: an army mutiny and a rural peasant revolt. Mutiny was the essential trigger, with peasants in the Bengal army the vital link between the mutiny and the rural uprising. In many ways it was a nebulous bundle of episodes, with no coordinating charismatic leaders (except locally, such as the Rani of Jhansi), and no overriding ideology (except where Muslims fought, though even then there was no jihad). Coherent strategies and clear objectives are equally difficult to identify. There was almost no millenarian strain (which is particularly surprising), and even the Muslim response was fragmented. The impetus behind the civil rebellion came largely from ‘a revolt of the hinterland’, the areas with ecological afflictions, and a late and limited exposure to modernity, well outside the main lines of communication and trade (for example, the Grand Trunk Road).

The Motives and Methods of Expansion, 1815–1865

During the eighteenth century, European racial attitudes were made up of four main elements: belief in the homogeneity of mankind, disbelief that skin colour had any special significance, romantic idealisation of the ‘noble savage’, and respect for non-European civilisations, especially the Chinese and Indian. Eighteenth-century urbanity gave way to nineteenth-century arrogance and censoriousness as a result of several influences: accumulating experience of closer contact with non-European peoples, industrialisation, the evangelical revival and the rise of utilitarian doctrines. Industrialisation enormously increased the disparity in power between Britain and the rest of the world, and induced contempt for those regions which did not experience it. This led in particular to a decline in the prestige of China. Thus Tennyson could write, ‘Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay’.

Towards the Definition of a Native Policy for British Africa

‘It is a curious coincidence’, Elgin wrote to Churchill on 25 September 1907, ‘that this question of the treatment of Natives is coming to the front everywhere in Africa.’ He had before him at that moment the crisis in Zululand, the despatches from the Transvaal on native administration, a letter from Girouard about education and nationalism in Northern Nigeria. A little earlier, he had been confronted with a racial incident in Nairobi, and the problem of forest concession in West Africa. He therefore directed that there should be ‘a comprehensive and exhaustive consideration of the whole subject’, and commended it to Churchill as a subject ‘well worthy of study on the spot’ during his tour of East Africa. The subject was only at an elementary stage of investigation, he added, and he rightly predicted that it was ‘destined to cover reams of paper’.I Perhaps this was the most significant directive Elgin ever gave on his own initiative as colonial secretary. It deserves to be quoted in full: I do not know any question which raises more important issues for South Africa — or indeed for Africa generally: and I think that it is highly important that we, in the Colonial Office should discuss it: not on a single despatch, but reviewing the position as a whole.

Ceylon: Aftermath of the decline of the Imperial Factor

With the possible exception of the West Indies under Chamberlain, from the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 until the fall of the Unionist government in 1905, South Africa nearly monopolised government attentions. The decline, or nonassertion, of the imperial factor may be widely observed in many parts of the world. Among the Liberals, Churchill represented a school of thought which regarded colonial governments, both Crown Colonies and responsible governments, as having been allowed too much discretion, and given too little supervision, as a result of a slackening of metropolitan control. Perhaps the best illustration of the Liberal attempt, or rather the attempt of a section of Liberalism, to tighten control, is provided by Ceylon, where the imperial factor was challenged by the indigenous inhabitants for abnegating responsibility for the pearl fisheries, and frequently complained of for failing to secure strict justice for its employees.

The Formation of the Liberal Ministry, December 1905

The resignation of Mr Balfour’s Unionist ministry was announced on 4 December 1905. Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, leader of the Liberal party since 1898, became prime minister on the next day. Lord Selborne, recently appointed high commissioner in South Africa, had begged Balfour to carry on until February or March of the following year, but to no purpose.1 Balfour had resigned, rather than seek a dissolution of parliament. This meant that another ministry could be formed before a general election could be held. In this way he avoided the embarrassment of a Conservative and Unionist ministry being defeated at the polls, and he hoped to give the electors the policy of a Liberal government to attack. The procedure conceivably led to the formation of a more right-wing Liberal government than might have been the case if an election had preceded the formation of a ministry:2 once free trade had been secured by an overwhelming electoral decision in its favour, Grey would almost certainly not have taken office.