The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

173

the sense
of Empire through the concept and reality of the Commonwealth.
Having always believed that the Empire would
bring prosperity to the Colonies
too, Bevin in 1950 in Colombo, converted his conviction into practice with
the
successful establishment of the Colombo Plan. Improving the economic and
social conditions through
Britain’s aid programme in the former Colonies of the
Empire was what made the maintaining of imperial
ties by the ex-colonies
through the Modern Commonwealth of mutual material benefit. This plan
was
attractive and seductive for the ex-colonies, due to the fact that its effect was to
sanction what
was expedient now, while at the same time seeming to endorse
most of what had been done in the past.

Twenty
years on, British aid to the ex-colonies amounted to nearly £500
million, with the largest sun going to
communications, education, and agricultural
development (£78 million, £72 million and £60 million
respectively). A wide
range of tasks was assisted, such as road building in Nigeria, land settlement
in
Kenya, airport construction in the West Indies, the building of a new capital in
British Honduras.
This represented an investment in political and economic
goodwill – but of course was applied in a context
where more significant ties still
operated (than by mere economic calculation) due to the way in which
the
political elite had managed the ending of Empire in the decolonisation process.
There is, amongst
all the Commonwealth members one strong, continuing
cultural bond centring on Britain – the use of the
English language. In the 1960s
about three hundred million people spoke English as their primary language
while
about six hundred million could use and understand it to some degree. English
has become a
universal language, in commerce, diplomacy, science, aviation,
sport and scholarship. Also because of the
United State’ s rise as a major power
too, there has been an even greater spread of the English language
through the
press, media and the cinema.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213