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

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those involved;
it was an “unsought, unplanned, unprecedented phenomenon.”46
But, the
technological dimension of the process brought an improvement in the
getting and working of raw materials and
the substitution of mechanical devices
for human skills and power.

The
resulting shift from agriculture to industry involved the financiers of
the City. The reason was that
industry and machinery speeded production.
Exchange of mass production i.e. buying and selling commodities as
a result,
required the insurance and financial activities of the City which deals with large
amounts of
money. Manufacturing industry on the one hand and financial
activities of the City on the other hand became
the main areas of economic interest
of the elite in Britain. The landed class however were involved in both
operations.
This situation has remained until the present.

As the
technological developments brought a speedy method of
production, which was beyond the capacity of the home
market to buy all the
produced goods or fully supply the need for raw materials to make the
goods,
Britain was forced to seek markets and raw materials overseas. To do this the elite
had to
implement a strategy which would ensure that markets would be developed
and the flow of raw materials would
be assured. Therefore, Britain had to resort
to the policy of direct control over those far-away lands which
were considered
as the potential markets and places which possessed the raw materials that
were
important to Britain’s manufacturing industry.

The
strategists were members of the elite which benefited from these
economic and subsequently political
developments. They were people who had
controlling interests in manufacturing industry and the financial
operations of the
City of London; they included the landed class, and together have come to be
known as
“the establishment”. This direct control of foreign lands which later led
them to become
acquisitions of Britain brought extra gains for the establishment.
New professional opportunities arose:
positions in those organisations which

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