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Further Reading

British Empire

For a time the formation of the British Empire was almost exclusively the expansion of England, but after the organic union with Scotland it became British expansion, and the accomplishments of the Empire are rightly those of Great Britain. There is no good word or phrase to describe the group of self-governing units, Crown Colonies, Chartered Companies, Mandates, and spheres of influence, which came to form Greater Britain. "Empire" is inaccurate, for the great self-governing Dominions are not under absolute control in the political sense; "Dominion" has much the same fault, whereas "British Commonwealth" errs in the other direction. In the use of the current appellations for Greater Britain, it should be understood that the British Empire is, politically and socially, something "new under the sun."

By the early 20th Century British Empire could be divided into five distinct groups so far as its government is concerned - the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions, the Crown Colonies, the territories under the jurisdiction of chartered companies, and British India. As an outer fringe over which there is a lesser degree of political jurisdiction, there are the various protectorates and spheres of influence. The governments in the Empire are by no means static. Progress in the constitutional development has been continuous, and in recent years, especially since 1914, very rapid.

The United Kingdom consisted of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, united under the control of one Parliament sitting in London. The House of Commons is elected from the United Kingdom on a franchise now practically universal. The party that can control a majority in the Commons rules through a Cabinet dependent upon its good will and support and, therefore, on the majority opinion of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom as expressed at the polls. The Cabinet - an organization unrecognized by law, but wielding the greatest power in the government of the Empire - serves as the executive, the King acting on the advice of the Cabinet. The British Isles include, in addition to the United Kingdom, two interesting groups of islanders, those on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea and those living on the Channel Islands off the coast of France.

Dominions were those self-governing parts of the British Empire across the seas where the British stock is predominant and where, in consequence, the privilege of ruling themselves on terms similar to those in the United Kingdom has found expression. They were five in number, the Colony of Newfoundland and the Dominion of Canada in the western hemisphere and the Union of South Africa, the Dominion of New Zealand, and the Commonwealth of Australia south of the equator. Newfoundland had always been a unit, but in every other case the present political organization was the result of a federation or union. The Dominions were bound to Great Britain in a variety of ways. The racial bond and the common cultural heritage were very significant. The self-governing Dominions were the only important imperial possessions outside the British Isles in which the white race lives in any large numbers. Of the 60,000,000 white people in the Empire on the eve of the Great War, three fourths were in Great Britain and most of the remainder in the five Dominions. The Parliament of London had the right to pass laws for the Empire as a whole, but such a power had become less and less operative by the early 20th Century. By that time, the right of the Imperial Government to withhold assent to Dominion legislation was practically obsolete.

British India did not come under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office, largely because of its size and of the great and complicated problems peculiar to India which were connected with its administration. It was for long under the East India Company, but, as time went on, the British Government more and more carefully supervised the administration of the Company. In 1858 the Indian possessions were transferred to the Crown. The Indian Empire's connection with the home Government was made, not through the Colonial Office, but by means of a Secretary of State for India, who was assisted by a Council and numerous subordinates in the India Office. The Secretary of State for India was a member of the Cabinet advising the Government on Indian matters and responsible to Parliament for the conduct of affairs in this part of the Empire. It was through him that the Viceroy in India communicated to the home Government and vice versa. India received increasing rights of participation in the government of the peninsula from time to time, but by the early 20th Century relatively few of its people share as yet in the government of their land.

Crown Colonies were a large number of colonies that varied in the nature of their governments, but were alike in the fact that they did not have responsible government as do the Dominions; they were more or less directly under the control of the Colonial Office. This department, headed since 1854 by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, had charge of matters concerned not only with the Crown Colonies, but also with the Dominions. The business of the Office, however, was largely made up of Crown Colony matters. The Crown Colonies had been taken from other empires, or were inhabited by populations not considered capable of governing themselves according to British standards. At the head of each colony was the appointee of the Crown, who was assisted but not controlled by councils varying in character and number with the different colonies. It is usual to have an Executive Council whose members are appointed by the Crown, and which often included non-official as well as official members. Although it had only advisory powers, the fact that its membership may include members of the colony with a great knowledge of local conditions makes it often influential in shaping the policy of the Government.

Protectorates were next below the Crown Colonies. By far the greatest number of protected states were the native states of India. The Federated Malay States had a similar connection with the Straits Settlements. This class of imperial possessions was well represented in the various parts of Africa. Bechuanaland in the south, Somaliland, Uganda and Nyasaland in the east were protectorates. In addition, Gambia, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria in west Africa, and Kenya on the eastern coast are Crown Colonies with which native protected states were connected. Previous to the opening of the Great War, Egypt was a part of the Turkish Empire with an hereditary line of rulers who were "advised" to such an extent as to make the rule essentially British; the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was under the joint administration of Great Britain and Egypt. When the war broke out in 1914 the informal Egyptian protectorate became formal, to the great dissatisfaction of many Egyptians. In 1922 Egypt obtained the status of an independent, sovereign state.

Chartered Companies administered a small group of British holdings. The commercial interests of the 1880s were responsible for a sort of development recalling to mind the trading companies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The British North Borneo Company was granted a charter in 1881 for the purpose of acquiring and governing territories in North Borneo. The exploitation of Africa in the eighties offered considerable opportunity for the activity of trading syndicates. In 1886 the National African Company obtained a charter under the name of the Royal Niger Company which enabled it to develop and administer the valuable lands along the Niger River. This Company was very active for the remainder of the century; it surrendered its charter in 1899, when growing international complications as well as the increasing burden of the administration led to the formation of British protectorates in this important commercial region. Similarly in East Africa a British chartered company held sway for a time. The Imperial British East African Company received a royal charter in 1888 to administer some territories obtained from the Sultan of Zanzibar the year before. The task was so great and the Germans were so active in East Africa that the Company surrendered its rights to the British Government in 1895. The best known of the modern chartered companies was the British South Africa Company.

Spheres of influence were a shadowy relationship borne to certain states, not under British jurisdiction, but whose position gave the British Empire an inherent interest in their development. Under this caption Egypt, Oman, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet might be included. Very definite spheres of influence were marked out in Persia and China in the opening years of the twentieth century.