Importance of economic and political forces vs. cultural forces? In the maritime empires:

• Roberts emphasizes British cultural influence
• Marks emphasizes economic, military, and political strength
• Howe gives attention to both cultural forces as well as economic, military, and political ones.

Why was Western colonialism via sea-borne empires in the late 18th and 19th centuries so transformative in comparison to empires in other regions and previous time?

What degree of control did European colonizing states have over their colonial populations? How was such control realized? Military force? Collaboration?

In comparison to pre-colonial times, what was different under European colonial rule?

• Diversity
• Cultural exchange
  • syncretism
  • hybridity
  • A vs. B = C [dialectical change]
  • Resistance and selective adaptation
  • Individual and collective identities
• Uneven economic exchange
• Global transformation through the spread of European ideas, institutions, language, and technology

In what ways did Anglicized Indians and Indian elites resist, collaborate with, and adapt to the British imperial project?

• Roberts: the British "Raj was a huge complicity between rulers and the ruled."

Two interpretations of the economic effects of Empire (see Howe, chapter 3 pp. 76 ff.)

The Development of Underdevelopment

• Empires spread European technology, institutions, legal codes, and cultural practices that facilitated the economic development and political and cultural modernization of colonies
• These changes were mutually beneficial for the Empires and their colonies
• Imperial rule and administration often provided better governance than did pre-colonial states
• In Britain, after the Indian Mutiny of 1857-8, financial interests centered in London successfully pressed Parliament to pursue policies that spurred the stability and growth of the Indian economy; Parliament itself was persuaded that Indian economic growth would facilitate political control by keeping Indian taxes low enough to avoid provoking discontent and rebellion and by strengthening alliances with Anglicized Indian princes, landowners, and entrepreneurs by permitting them to benefit from political stability and economic growth. Argument by P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism and Expansion, 1688-1914 (London, 1993)

• Precolonial economies were substantial and on one or another path toward growth and further development. Conditions for industrial dynamism were in place
• But imperial rule blocks development and modifies the colonial economy to best suit the metropole
• Profits from the colonies repatriated to the metropole (the imperial core) instead of investing profits in schools, roads and bridges, economic development in the colonies (the imperial periphery)
• The major exception: colonial revenues used to maintain mechanisms of control via the military and police.

Some Economic and Financial Evidence, 1870 to 1914

• British begin building railways in India in the 1850s
• Suez Canal opened in 1867, shortening the distance between India and Britain
• Value of Indian exports increased fivefold between 1870 and 1914
• exports of jut, raw cotton, indigo, tea to Europe [Tea and Imperialism] 
• exports of rice and opium to China
• exports of manufactured goods, textiles (evidence needed)
• Imports of British manufactured goods expanded
  • imports in 1870s represented 8% of all British manufactured goods
  • imports in 1880s represented 13% of all British manufactured goods
• British share of all Indian imports: 85% in 1890s (2/3 in finished cotton goods); 60% in 1914
• Although numerically small, the civil service in India was monopolized by members of the British upper middle classes; civil service contolled the levers of power: the Indian army and the tax collecting machinery
  • In 1913-14, total Indian revenues of the Raj stood at 82 million BPS (British pounds sterling); 53 million went to pay for the army and civil service (65% of the total).

   

  Below are more complete tables of statitistics indicating some aspects of the economic condition of the India. These tables appeared in a report on the Indian census of 1891, carried out by the British civil service as authorized by the British House of Commons. The main question addressed by the author of the report was the extent to which the growth of the Indian economy was sufficient to support the growth of the Indian population. He concluded that economic growth was sufficient.
• For three of the tables only follow this link: abbreviated statistical evidence from the 1891 Indian Census.

Jervoise Athelstane Baines , ( 1893 ), General report on the Census of India, 1891 , London , Her Majesty's Stationery Office , p. 84

TABLE P.

VARIATION PER CENT. from the RETURNS for 1880-81 of MAIN ITEMS of REVENUE, COMMERCE, &c.*

Part-a. State Revenue.

Part-b. Post and Telegraphic Transactions (Non-official Correspondence only)

Part-c. Railways.

Part-d. Private Trade (Value).

Part-e. Imports (Quantities).

Part-f. Exports (Quantities), Indian Produce or Manufacture.

_______________

* This table was too complicated to process in the original layout, this is a redesigned presentation of the data.- P.G.F.]