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

44

remnants
from the slave trade or the products of commercial and humanitarian
enterprise. In central Africa there was
Nyasaland and Rhodesia. Nyasaland served
no fundamental British interest. As far as Rhodesia was concerned,
it was ruled
by Cecil Rhodes’ creation, the British South Africa Company, which was hardly
a boon to
investors, though more satisfying for white colonists. Malaya and
Borneo in the Far East were becoming more
valuable for their production of tin
and rubber than for their strategic positions. Acquisition of
South-Eastern New
Guinea and the Cook Islands had been in response to Australia and New
Zealand’s
anxieties, but other colonies in the Pacific were by no means vital to British
security.
Finally, Singapore and Hong Kong rested on commerce.

“In
the early 1900’s these territories were hardly more divergent than the
methods by which they were
governed.”19 North Borneo and Rhodesia were
administered by
chartered companies. Crown colony government predominated
in the West Indies. Ceylon, too, was a Crown
colony. Protectorates abounded:
East Africa, Somaliland, Northern and Southern Nigeria,
Nyasaland,
Bechuanaland, Aden. The others were the protected states, such as Brunei,
Zanzibar, Tonga and
the Malay States, where local rulers remained, but were
subject to the advice of the British residents. The
one most vital state to British
imperial strategy being also effectively under British control was Egypt.
The
Sudan and the New Hebrides on the other hand were ruled by Britain jointly with
Egypt and France
respectively. The Sudan could be viewed however as
effectively a British dependency.

Although
British influence prevailed in all these territories the methods of
governing them from London presented
little consistency and the imposition of a
greater degree of uniformity throughout the colonial Empire was an
urgent task.
The administration of the chartered territories was only loosely supervised by the
British
government, though a charter could be revoked.

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