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

67

years
later an all-African cabinet was governing and in 1957 independence was
granted.

This was
followed by the birth of fourteen new nations between 1960 and
1968 in the rest of Africa. In places such as
the three high-commission territories
(Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Swaziland), Zanzibar and Somaliland, where
British
authority had operated only lightly, there was no political preparation for the
native
inhabitants.

In the
1940s the political development of the West Indies, which had been
so diversified in the nineteenth century,
was resumed. “The elective principle was
gradually returned to those colonies which had lost it in
earlier years and it was
widened in places such as Jamaica and Barbados where some degree of
election
had been allowed earlier.”7 In 1944 a lower house where
all members were
elected by universal suffrage and which exercised a measure of internal
self-
government was given to Jamaica. This was extended in the late 1950s. Jamaica
and Trinidad and
Tobago became independent in 1962. Soon after British Guiana
and Barbados received their independence. This
was in 1966. Then came the
Bahamas in 1973 and Grenada in 1974. There were some very small islands
which
were not anxious to live on their own. Therefore, while during the 1950s
and 1960s they progressed through
various stages of operating democratic
elections and internal self-government, they still chose to rely upon
Britain for
defence and external affairs. “In 1967 these arrangements were clarified
whereby
Antigua, Dominica, St. Christopher, Nevis, Anguilla, St. Lucia and St. Vincent
assumed the
status of association with Britain.”8

In the
Pacific, with the exception of Western Samoa, political
developments tended to pass by most of the
territories in the twentieth century.
“New Zealand had acquired this as a League of Nations mandate in
1920 and
soon after there arose a growing nationalist movement among the Samoans. In
1947 the New
Zealand government began to respond, creating an elected

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