Ironically, of course "Commonwealth" means republic!
BTW how many Indian viceroys were elected by the Indian public?
This is what I don't get. Critics of the British empire - I mean the sort of brain-dead critics who seem to have taken over the debate - have the most bizarrely twisted view of history.
It starts with Enlightenment values - values which were created in Europe, and especially in France and in British-empire building Scotland , but also in England - and generalises those European, Enlightenment values to be universal. This is historically a very odd thing to do - no other society in the entire history of the world had these values before they became mainstream in Europe. But let's go with it, and judge the colonial period by the human-rights standards we would expect today.
Was the British Empire bad by those standards, compared with alternatives of the time? As you rightly say, no Viceroy of India was elected by Indians. So what? Who was? Was there some kind of Swedish-style social democracy, governed by the rule of law, and free of human rights abuses, and offering opportunities to all castes, amongst the Mughals and Maharajahs, and which was cruelly displayed by the British Empire?
Without the British Empire existing as it did at the time it's likely we'd have far less democracy and freedom in the world today, which would likely be a highly autocratic one - at best.
That's not to apologise for its many crimes but, in assessing its legacy in the round, it must also be part of the scorecard.
There's a reason that Marx spent a lot of time in the British Library in London while writing Das Kapital. The British Empire was the best of a bad bunch.
But, unavoidably, as an Empire, it's ultimate purpose was to extract wealth from the Imperial possessions to enrich Britain, by whatever level of force was necessary.
When they say no lyrics I wonder how they expect to stop the audience singing it?
Is there going to be an audience?
I don't think so, which goes back to the main point. The normal Last Night jollities are off the agenda this year, and Rule Britannia, if it works at all, needs a big raucous crowd. Same as the British Sea Songs number; without an audience mucking around, it's not a great piece.
(Rule Britannia is fairly lazy patriotism at that. "I vow to thee my country" is much better, given it's implication that, you know, we might have to contribute something rather than just saying we're going to be brilliant.)
But yes. The bright sparks at No 10 have realised that this is a great wedge issue. Get their core vote wound up about the singing of a song that virtually nobody knows the words to, which is likely to sound rubbish if it is sung in this context. (Though my "sing it in the style of the John Lewis Christmas Ad" proposal is still on the table, for my usual fee.)
Very smart politics, very stupid government, excellent illustration of the aphorism about patriotism and scoundrels.
I don't see how its stupid government or being a scoundrel to be playing some smart politics during Silly Season.
There isn't really any other news happening that's being ignored. Parliament is in recess, not much is going on even for an action packed year. The Prime Minister spoke about kids going back to school which is far more important but nobody wants to talk about that. Its the media and Twitter as much as the PM driving this issue being discussed.
And, as a hack, BoJo blooming well knows that. He chose to inflate the story, because he could. But since you ask, there are various non-scoundrel ways of dealing with this.
One is for Johnson to actually be liberal. "You know, it's important that the BBC serves the public without fear or favour, and as Prime Minister I mustn't be the one telling them what to do."
Another is to be supportive and avuncular. "We will all miss the singing, as we have missed so many things this year. But the important thing is to defeat the virus, and look forward to gathering again in the future."
He did neither of those things, because he saw a political opportunity to get one over on the libs. Act of a scoundrel.
Tbf, it's politics. The BBC handed him an opportunity, he took it. The stupidity lies with the BBC for pushing the woke agenda for a show that appeals to an older crowd that have no love for wokeism. It feels like the BBC has got Tory sleeper agents running it. The PM is in trouble over schools, virus and has got a popular chancellor breathing down his neck and the BBC chooses this exact moment to inflate a nothing row over some music that is ultimately meaningless.
Indeed. The BBC could have neutralised this easily and said its nothing to do with wokeness - they could have said that the music will be played but due to COVID its going to be different this year without an audience or a singer, but they look forward to it being back to normal next year. They didn't do that, they played into the culture war issue and then are surprised when others jump into it to. The BBC started this not the PM.
It's like Ben and Jerry's, they got into in an argument they had no need to get involved with. The BBC has walked into this and now they will pay the price as are Unilever wrt Ben and Jerry's. As a famous basketballer once said "republicans buy trainers too". Corporates and the BBC should just stay out of these rows and definitely not start them. Nothing is ever enough for the mob and even an inch is too much for majority and in almost all of these cases the majority is not woke.
I've seen claims Ben and Jerry's are suffering but no evidence yet - have you?
I bought their ice cream years ago (I didn't know they were Woke then) and thought it was crap: the "cream" was relatively little and melted quickly leaving you with large chunky and annoying bits you had to chew instead. Yum.
Haagen Dazs is far better. Of course, there's no guarantee they won't beat a path down the same road too.
The best chocolate ice cream I have ever bought from a supermarket was Green & Blacks, which I made a particular effort to find when I was making an ice cream cake. I forget whether this was before, or after, they were bought up by Cadburys and became part of an evil corporate behemoth.
Naturally, despite the quality, I haven't seen it in a supermarket for years.
The greatest danger to supermarket ice cream isn't Ben and Jerry's novelty flavours, it's all the overengineered crap with unfeasibly low numbers of calories that isn't made with enough of the basic ingredients of cream, egg yolks and sugar.
Most of them are bad but some of the Oppo ones are both low calorie and taste good, salted caramel in particular.
Salted caramel is yet another piece of American shite that has crept its way into British culture.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Well, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 killed perhaps 10 million, and was largely precipitated and certainly made worse by the East India Company. Its in the same league.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Agreed. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't remember the East India Company cutting off the hands of labourers if they failed to meet their quotas.
Ironically, of course "Commonwealth" means republic!
BTW how many Indian viceroys were elected by the Indian public?
This is what I don't get. Critics of the British empire - I mean the sort of brain-dead critics who seem to have taken over the debate - have the most bizarrely twisted view of history.
It starts with Enlightenment values - values which were created in Europe, and especially in France and in British-empire building Scotland , but also in England - and generalises those European, Enlightenment values to be universal. This is historically a very odd thing to do - no other society in the entire history of the world had these values before they became mainstream in Europe. But let's go with it, and judge the colonial period by the human-rights standards we would expect today.
Was the British Empire bad by those standards, compared with alternatives of the time? As you rightly say, no Viceroy of India was elected by Indians. So what? Who was? Was there some kind of Swedish-style social democracy, governed by the rule of law, and free of human rights abuses, and offering opportunities to all castes, amongst the Mughals and Maharajahs, and which was cruelly displayed by the British Empire?
India only became a true democracy after independence. The electorate in British India was only a pitiful 10% of the population, whereas in 1952, universal suffrage was introduced in time for that year's election, the first after independence.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Agreed. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't remember the East India Company cutting off the hands of labourers if they failed to meet their quotas.
They summarily blew people from cannons instead.
Which they seem to have got from the Mughal rulers of India
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Well, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 killed perhaps 10 million, and was largely precipitated and certainly made worse by the East India Company. Its in the same league.
For heaven's sake! 'Largely precipitated'? The East India Company caused the monsoon to fail, did it? It's true that the policies subsequently made it worse, but it wouldn't be the first or the last cases where that happened, in the British Empire or anywhere else in the world, including India before the British were involved.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Agreed. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't remember the East India Company cutting off the hands of labourers if they failed to meet their quotas.
They summarily blew people from cannons instead.
Which they seem to have got from the Mughal rulers of India
"Your overall position would be stronger if you admitted the existence of exceptions and edge cases. Consider, hypothetically, a patriotic German song written in the early 40s with a chorus which said that "True born Germans shall never ever ever be sent to death camps," and there's a valid historical claim that the song is really about, oooh, the fighting on the Russian front, not about Jews at all. Is that song OK? I know it's different, but what are the *relevant* differences?"
Looks a cracking point to me.
But then you are completely ignorant of the facts and are believing the lies of the marxist black lives matter movement.
Between 1809 and 1865, in the teeth of the Napoleonic wars, the Royal Navy West Africa squadron intercepted more than 1,000 slave boats and freed 150,000 West Africans bound for slavery.
In 1915 at the Battle of Jutland ensured German expansionism never took control in Europe
And in 1939-1942 the Royal Navy played its part to ensure that one of the most noxious regimes ever to inhabit the planet could not strangle the life out of the last remaining democracy to oppose it in the Atlantic
None of these amazingly good and anti-racist things would have been possible had not Britannia Ruled the Waves.
All in all your point one of the most spectacularly ignorant, most prejudiced and and least considered points ever made on here.
Do bugger off, you silly little man. cuntrarian by name, ...
You can't accuse people of historical ignorance and then start a sentence "Between 1809 and 1865, in the teeth of the Napoleonic wars..." Long old wars, those, and of course the French navy was very much a force to be reckoned with after the events of 1805 (look it up).
And don't be a fucking wazzock about the West Africa squadron, look at the numbers. We shipped over 3 million slaves across the Atlantic. When you add in the conditions under which their descendants lived and died in our colonies, the atrocity is probably worse than the holocaust. Saying we thought better of it and rescued 150,000 is on a par with contending that Adolf Eichmann was a lovely bloke who used to send his mother flowers, and that.
Not sure what your underlying problem is, and the best advice I can give is from the Beautiful South: Crap inside your union jack and wrap it round your head.
What a disgusting post
I am not sure you have read the earlier comments by Contrarian. If you have, language aside, I cannot understand why you find IshmaelZ's post disgusting.
Thank you!
Personally I find it bizarre. That 3 million were transported by Britain as slaves is deeply regrettable, but it is in no way comparable to a situation where 6 million Jews alone were put to death.
I can compare it. On the numbers, 3 is half of 6 but if you assume a minimum of two generations descended from the 3 million living under conditions amounting to an atrocity, the numbers at least even out. As for the quality of atrocity, is it obvious to you which was the more unfortunate, the passenger waiting for a train to Auschwitz or for a slave ship to New Orleans? It isn’t to me.
Of course you can compare it, that is your right, but to do so only makes it look more ludicrous. Slavery was gravely unjust but it was not extermination. Your last question beggars belief. I doubt a single passenger on the Auschwitz train wouldn't have gladly swapped with those boarding a slave ship. And I doubt anyone on the slave ship would have willingly swapped with someone on their way to Auschwitz.
People think differently. Its a very morbid hypothetical but there will be a reasonable proportion who prefer the quicker death of Auschwitz than a lifetime as a slave. I dont know which option I would choose, would probably depend on my age at the time and therefore the chance of escaping the slavery at some later point. Without actually agreeing with it, I think it is far from a ludicrous comparison, quite interesting I thought.
Of course Auschwitz was both an extermination camp and concentration camp; there was a fair chance of a (short) lifetime as a slave with extermination at the end. Not that different from the harsher plantations in the West Indies which were predicated on slaves being worked as hard as possible and being replaced on their deaths.
There's an unfeasible amount of utter wankery that's being spouted here just to try and justify binning a song.
I didn't mention a song, only factual observations.
It's not a fact. Auschwitz was designed to slaughter as many Jews as quickly and efficiently as possible to achieve the goal of racial elimination.
Slavery was not.
This argument really hinges on the fact that because both are terrible they're basically as bad each other.
They're not.
Slave labour was not an element of Auschwitz? Do tell me more.
They're undemocratic, certainly. They're not necessarily racist.
The Romans were notoriously unfussy about who they sold and shipped into and out of slavery, sometimes including members of their own extended families.
In fact, even the former isn't necessarily true since the British Empire tried (in almost all of its colonies) to move them to democratic models of self-governance prior to granting them independence.
The successor is the Commonwealth which celebrates those values.
Ironically, of course "Commonwealth" means republic!
BTW how many Indian viceroys were elected by the Indian public?
It's actually a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good.
Viceroy's weren't elected (nor would they have been in any country) as they were representatives of the monarch. However, the gradual introduction of self-government in India was declared (legally) as early as the India Act 1919, and further built upon in the India Act 1935. Involvement in local government goes back earlier still. So to characterise all Empires as autocracies isn't necessarily true.
The issue was that it didn't go far and quickly enough in India. Self governing political institutions (as well as the civic institutions like universities, courts and libraries that were constructed) should have been built in India in the 1860-1880s (as they were for Australia, Canada and New Zealand) so that India too could have become a fully self-governing dominion under the 1931 statue of Westminster.
Had that been done India would have been a full and willing partner in WW2, we'd probably have avoided a nasty partition and I expect it'd still be a Commonwealth realm today.
I think that would have been difficult Casino. India was different from the likes of Australia in two ways (1) its people didn't have ties to the home country as the Dominions did and (2) there were a number of Princely rulers which complicated matters.
PS sorry to be a pedant but India is still a member of the Commonwealth.
33 out of 54 members of the Commonwealth are republics, as the name ought to suggest!
India only became a true democracy after independence. The electorate in British India was only a pitiful 10% of the population, whereas in 1952, universal suffrage was introduced in time for that year's election, the first after independence.
Yes, they picked up European values. I wonder why?
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Agreed. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't remember the East India Company cutting off the hands of labourers if they failed to meet their quotas.
They summarily blew people from cannons instead.
Which they seem to have got from the Mughal rulers of India
So you're saying there was little difference between the Mughals and the "Honorable" Company? I agree with you!
Both were constructs of their time. No one would say the East India Company was the beacon light of Christian values but the analogy was that the East India Company was similar to the Congo Free State. The latter sought purposefully to make the native population into slaves. The former was interested in riches and conquest but there was no design to enslave all Indians.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Well, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 killed perhaps 10 million, and was largely precipitated and certainly made worse by the East India Company. Its in the same league.
For heaven's sake! 'Largely precipitated'? The East India Company caused the monsoon to fail, did it? It's true that the policies subsequently made it worse, but it wouldn't be the first or the last cases where that happened, in the British Empire or anywhere else in the world, including India before the British were involved.
Prior to the famine, the Mughal tax rate was 10-15%, and famine relief was provided from central reserves. After Plassey, the East India Company hiked the tax rate to 50%, so there were no reserves, and famine relief was not provided. When revenues began to fall because of mass starvation, the EIC raised taxes to 60% to make up lost revenue, worsening starvation further.
Like Leopold in Africa, death meant nothing provided profits were maintained.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Well, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 killed perhaps 10 million, and was largely precipitated and certainly made worse by the East India Company. Its in the same league.
For heaven's sake! 'Largely precipitated'? The East India Company caused the monsoon to fail, did it? It's true that the policies subsequently made it worse, but it wouldn't be the first or the last cases where that happened, in the British Empire or anywhere else in the world, including India before the British were involved.
Prior to the famine, the Mughal tax rate was 10-15%, and famine relief was provided from central reserves. After Plassey, the East India Company hiked the tax rate to 50%, so there were no reserves, and famine relief was not provided. When revenues began to fall because of mass starvation, the EIC raised taxes to 60% to make up lost revenue, worsening starvation further.
Like Leopold in Africa, death meant nothing provided profits were maintained.
Don't forget the other great famine in the 1870s, around the time Victoria became Empress.
India only became a true democracy after independence. The electorate in British India was only a pitiful 10% of the population, whereas in 1952, universal suffrage was introduced in time for that year's election, the first after independence.
Yes, they picked up European values. I wonder why?
Some Europeans didn't believe in Indian independence, like Churchill.
Prior to the famine, the Mughal tax rate was 10-15%, and famine relief was provided from central reserves. After Plassey, the East India Company hiked the tax rate to 50%, so there were no reserves, and famine relief was not provided. When revenues began to fall because of mass starvation, the EIC raised taxes to 60% to make up lost revenue, worsening starvation further.
Like Leopold in Africa, death meant nothing provided profits were maintained.
As Wikipedia says, "Little is known about death tolls in the many earlier Indian famines". As I said, there was no social democracy, concern for human rights, rule of law, fairness, equality of opportunity, or benign government displaced by the British Empire in India. And equating it with the deliberate horrors of Leopold in the Congo is just bonkers.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Well, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 killed perhaps 10 million, and was largely precipitated and certainly made worse by the East India Company. Its in the same league.
For heaven's sake! 'Largely precipitated'? The East India Company caused the monsoon to fail, did it? It's true that the policies subsequently made it worse, but it wouldn't be the first or the last cases where that happened, in the British Empire or anywhere else in the world, including India before the British were involved.
Prior to the famine, the Mughal tax rate was 10-15%, and famine relief was provided from central reserves. After Plassey, the East India Company hiked the tax rate to 50%, so there were no reserves, and famine relief was not provided. When revenues began to fall because of mass starvation, the EIC raised taxes to 60% to make up lost revenue, worsening starvation further.
Like Leopold in Africa, death meant nothing provided profits were maintained.
Don't forget the other great famine in the 1870s, around the time Victoria became Empress.
Hold on... this doesn't actually show what Mike says it does at all.
In every single party split, as well as in Remain/Leave, more respondants said the song should be performed with lyrics than said should be performed without them or not at all combined. Even in Labour, the split is, crudely put, 39/38. Remain is 46/26. That's overwhelming.
Suggests that the BBC is very much being swayed by a tiny and extreme cultural minority.
India only became a true democracy after independence. The electorate in British India was only a pitiful 10% of the population, whereas in 1952, universal suffrage was introduced in time for that year's election, the first after independence.
Yes, they picked up European values. I wonder why?
Some Europeans didn't believe in Indian independence, like Churchill.
As a Brexiteer, do you believe in an Indian superstate, or do you think it should be dissolved into separate sovereign states?
Prior to the famine, the Mughal tax rate was 10-15%, and famine relief was provided from central reserves. After Plassey, the East India Company hiked the tax rate to 50%, so there were no reserves, and famine relief was not provided. When revenues began to fall because of mass starvation, the EIC raised taxes to 60% to make up lost revenue, worsening starvation further.
Like Leopold in Africa, death meant nothing provided profits were maintained.
As Wikipedia says, "Little is known about death tolls in the many earlier Indian famines". As I said, there was no social democracy, concern for human rights, rule of law, fairness, equality of opportunity, or benign government displaced by the British Empire in India. And equating it with the deliberate horrors of Leopold in the Congo is just bonkers.
The 1770 Bengal famine was as deliberate as the Ukranian famine of the thirties.
If you want a more recent example of the dirty end of empire, this book is well worth a read. The events are well within living memory.
Hold on... this doesn't actually show what Mike says it does at all.
In every single party split, as well as in Remain/Leave, more respondants said the song should be performed with lyrics than said should be performed without them or not at all combined. Even in Labour, the split is, crudely put, 39/38. Remain is 46/26. That's overwhelming.
Suggests that the BBC is very much being swayed by a tiny and extreme cultural minority.
And why Boris was so quick to come out today and say the BBC should have played the songs in full with lyrics too
India only became a true democracy after independence. The electorate in British India was only a pitiful 10% of the population, whereas in 1952, universal suffrage was introduced in time for that year's election, the first after independence.
Yes, they picked up European values. I wonder why?
Some Europeans didn't believe in Indian independence, like Churchill.
As a Brexiteer, do you believe in an Indian superstate, or do you think it should be dissolved into separate sovereign states?
Me, are you kidding? Hey, I was with you all the time! That was beautiful! Did you see the way the Leavers fell into our trap? Ha ha!
These contemptible bullies are the most effective vote-winners Trump could ever ask for. Could the far left just, y'know, fuck off before they hand him an improbable second term?
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Well, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 killed perhaps 10 million, and was largely precipitated and certainly made worse by the East India Company. Its in the same league.
For heaven's sake! 'Largely precipitated'? The East India Company caused the monsoon to fail, did it? It's true that the policies subsequently made it worse, but it wouldn't be the first or the last cases where that happened, in the British Empire or anywhere else in the world, including India before the British were involved.
How many famines has India suffered since 1947, out of interest?
That's not a particular criticism of the British Empire of all empires, incidentally. But it's undeniably true that functioning democracies, even extremely poor ones, very rarely suffer famines whereas dictatorships and imperial possessions often do. That's not to do with functioning democracies having better weather and luck.
Our relationship with slavery was more complex than contrarian suggests after 1808. We did after all not free the slaves for a further quarter century, and even after that used indentured Asian labourers, trafficked across the world to Trinidad, Guyana, Mauritius and Fiji. A cynic may even suggest that the British policy was to prevent competition to British plantations from rivals with slave imports. The Lancashire cotton industry was also heavily dependent on slave produced cotton from the Southern USA.
My great-grandfather captained a ship in the South Seas assigned to hunt for slave=traders. He discovered that the New South Wales government was shutting a blind eye to shipping local natives in chains to the French colonies, which needed extra labour. He wrote a book about it which is available free online and makes an interesting read:
setting out the case pretty conclusively. The NSW authorities complained to London, who persuaded Parliament to order him to apologise. It looks like a stitch-up to me, but I'm rather proud of him for making the effort - as a serving officer it was clearly not a good career move to offend the colonial authorities.
I've inherited his astonishingly good paintings of the period, and have been trying to find a publisher who might be interested in the story with the illustration, but no luck. If anyone has any suggestions I'd be glad to hear them - not expecting to make much money out of it, if any, but it's an interesting story enhanced by the pictures and it's a pity that they're just sitting in my cupboard.
Looks interesting. My own ancesters in Colonial Australia were involved in campaigning against the dubious trade in "coolie labour". They were Presbyterian ministers in the Australian goldfields (and later in Fiji).
Once the early gold rush petered out, the mines became consolidated by a few owners who cut costs by importing indentured Chinese Labour. As well as the racism of the Australian frontier, it was felt that they were undercutting the paid labourers.
My ancestors ran a hospital and very controversially for the time insisted on treating the Chinese workers equally, and on the same wards as the white Australians. They got some stick for doing so. My uncle has a rather magnificent silk banner given to my great grandfather by the chinese community of the town in thanks.
The story of Empire is a mixed one, a complex brew of being both exploiter and exploited, and delivered opportunity as well as degradation*. Even at the time there was controversy and realisation that a lot of what was going on was morally wrong, like the "blackbirding" trade your ancestor tried to expose.
*for example, having been chucked out of Speyside in the clearances, my family benefited by farming and mining land cleared of aborigines.
I don't agree with OGH on his final sentence. I think we would get this reaction if the Proms were being broadcast by another broadcaster. Anyone stupid enough to think changing Last Night would create buzz and they could ride out the anger deserves what they get.
My mother who is a 90 y.o. woke Lib Dem is seething about this. She is more annoyed than she is about Brexit. That is saying something.
This is going to go down badly but I think it is the right thing to do, nobody is immune from prosecution
Has Corbyn come back ?
Do you believe soldiers should be immune from prosecution?
I think it doesn't look good publicly but I can't say I disagree with their position on this
We should protect those who protect us
The same argument could be used by German citizens regarding crimes committed by the SS and other members of the Wehrmacht during World War 2. To turn a blind eye to atrocfities committed by British military personnel but then condemn others who carry out similar acts - eg the Serbs in Sebrenica and elsewhere - is pure hypocrisy.
This is going to go down badly but I think it is the right thing to do, nobody is immune from prosecution
Has Corbyn come back ?
Do you believe soldiers should be immune from prosecution?
I think it doesn't look good publicly but I can't say I disagree with their position on this
We should protect those who protect us
The same argument could be used by German citizens regarding crimes committed by the SS and other members of the Wehrmacht during World War 2. To turn a blind eye to atrocfities committed by British military personnel but then condemn others who carry out similar acts - eg the Serbs in Sebrenica and elsewhere - is pure hypocrisy.
Are you seriously comparing British soldiers to the SS?
1. "The empire that I pathetically still identify with is coincidentally the best one in history. Basically benevolent, whereas all the other ones were terrible." (See also: "The British empire: fantastic because sometimes not as bad as the Belgian Congo") 2. "Nobody had ever thought of respect for human life, democracy, social welfare etc etc before the British came and enslaved them" (see also: "no country has ever managed to build a railway without the benefit of British rule").
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Agreed. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't remember the East India Company cutting off the hands of labourers if they failed to meet their quotas.
They summarily blew people from cannons instead.
Which they seem to have got from the Mughal rulers of India
So you're saying there was little difference between the Mughals and the "Honorable" Company? I agree with you!
Both were constructs of their time. No one would say the East India Company was the beacon light of Christian values but the analogy was that the East India Company was similar to the Congo Free State. The latter sought purposefully to make the native population into slaves. The former was interested in riches and conquest but there was no design to enslave all Indians.
Eh? You do realise the EIC were primarily slavers, extortionists and drug dealers? Having "Company" at the end of their name doesnt make them like a normal business.
From 1883 Sir Henry Bartle Frere who sat on the Viceroy Council (but will probably be presumed to be woke on here so can be ignored) said:
"Comparing such information, district by district, with the very imperfect estimates of the total population fifty years ago, the lowest estimate I have been able to form of the total slave population of British India, in 1841, is between eight and nine millions of souls. "
Ironically, of course "Commonwealth" means republic!
BTW how many Indian viceroys were elected by the Indian public?
This is what I don't get. Critics of the British empire - I mean the sort of brain-dead critics who seem to have taken over the debate - have the most bizarrely twisted view of history.
It starts with Enlightenment values - values which were created in Europe, and especially in France and in British-empire building Scotland , but also in England - and generalises those European, Enlightenment values to be universal. This is historically a very odd thing to do - no other society in the entire history of the world had these values before they became mainstream in Europe. But let's go with it, and judge the colonial period by the human-rights standards we would expect today.
Was the British Empire bad by those standards, compared with alternatives of the time? As you rightly say, no Viceroy of India was elected by Indians. So what? Who was? Was there some kind of Swedish-style social democracy, governed by the rule of law, and free of human rights abuses, and offering opportunities to all castes, amongst the Mughals and Maharajahs, and which was cruelly displayed by the British Empire?
Without the British Empire existing as it did at the time it's likely we'd have far less democracy and freedom in the world today, which would likely be a highly autocratic one - at best.
That's not to apologise for its many crimes but, in assessing its legacy in the round, it must also be part of the scorecard.
There's a reason that Marx spent a lot of time in the British Library in London while writing Das Kapital. The British Empire was the best of a bad bunch.
But, unavoidably, as an Empire, it's ultimate purpose was to extract wealth from the Imperial possessions to enrich Britain, by whatever level of force was necessary.
This is a common view, but it's far from the truth.
The Treasury actually didn't like extending the Empire (on the grounds of cost, hardly likely if all imperial possessions "enriched" Britain) which is why informal influence was preferred throughout most of the 19th Century. Extra colonies meant more responsibility and potential for clashes with other powers which is why the phrase "gained in a fit of an absence of mind" gained currency.
Colonies were established for a variety of reasons - the sugar islands in the Caribbean undoubtedly fall into the category you suggest, and Bengal made money for the buccaneers of the East India Company - but most of it was about ensuring opening markets and securing trading concessions, and then having overseas bases to protect them from other powers.
This was necessary because there was no "rules based international order" or WTO then - although that was something we helped create later - and if you wanted global trade you had to control it. If it was about purely plundering gold and silver - as Spain did in the new world - there'd have been next to no development in the colonies of physical and civil infrastructure, except mines & transport, and we'd also have experienced rampant inflation at home too.
The vast majority of Britain's growth in wealth in the 18th and 19th Centuries came about due to industrialisation, and the fact it could exploit (domestically) iron and coal to take advantage of this.
Quite obviously different political systems, but time does tend to throw a veil over these things.
The outrage about Mussolini in Ethiopia in the 1930s would have been unremarkeable for any European Empire just 50 years earlier. The East India Company in 18th Century Bengal was of the same order as Leopold in the Congo a century or so later.
Can't you see that "Land of hope and glory, mother of the free" rings rather hollow over much of the world, even as close to home as Connaught?
Err, no. The East India Company was by no conceivable standard comparable to Leopold in the Congo. Don't be daft.
Well, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 killed perhaps 10 million, and was largely precipitated and certainly made worse by the East India Company. Its in the same league.
For heaven's sake! 'Largely precipitated'? The East India Company caused the monsoon to fail, did it? It's true that the policies subsequently made it worse, but it wouldn't be the first or the last cases where that happened, in the British Empire or anywhere else in the world, including India before the British were involved.
Prior to the famine, the Mughal tax rate was 10-15%, and famine relief was provided from central reserves. After Plassey, the East India Company hiked the tax rate to 50%, so there were no reserves, and famine relief was not provided. When revenues began to fall because of mass starvation, the EIC raised taxes to 60% to make up lost revenue, worsening starvation further.
Like Leopold in Africa, death meant nothing provided profits were maintained.
That's simply not true - from Burton Stein, "A History of India": The base of the empire's collective wealth was agricultural taxes, instituted by the third Mughal emperor, Akbar. These taxes, which amounted to well over half the output of a peasant cultivator, after the costs of production had been met, is estimated to have been taken from the peasant producers by way of official taxes and unofficial exactions."
1. "The empire that I pathetically still identify with is coincidentally the best one in history. Basically benevolent, whereas all the other ones were terrible." (See also: "The British empire: fantastic because sometimes not as bad as the Belgian Congo") 2. "Nobody had ever thought of respect for human life, democracy, social welfare etc etc before the British came and enslaved them" (see also: "no country has ever managed to build a railway without the benefit of British rule").
Do you guys not get how ridiculous you sound?
I'm not sure anyone is "identifying" with it. We are simply saying it had good points, as well as bad, and that it's only fair to assess it within the geopolitical context of the times rather than by today's standards. Further, it's legacy has to be judged in the round and compared to the likely alternatives.
1. "The empire that I pathetically still identify with is coincidentally the best one in history. Basically benevolent, whereas all the other ones were terrible." (See also: "The British empire: fantastic because sometimes not as bad as the Belgian Congo") 2. "Nobody had ever thought of respect for human life, democracy, social welfare etc etc before the British came and enslaved them" (see also: "no country has ever managed to build a railway without the benefit of British rule").
Do you guys not get how ridiculous you sound?
I'm not sure anyone is "identifying" with it. We are simply saying it had good points, as well as bad, and that it's only fair to assess it within the geopolitical context of the times rather than by today's standards. Further, it's legacy has to be judged in the round and compared to the likely alternatives.
Why is this so threatening to you?
I just find it as absurd as listening to a French person droning on about how the French Empire was uniquely benevolent because they weren't as bad as the Belgians (or a Chinese on the benefits of Chinese rule in Tibet, or a Russian on how great the Russian empire/Soviet Union was etc).
Economist: Biden +8.8% RCP: Biden +7.6% Five Thirty-Eight: Biden +9.3%
Half the PB Tories: "Trump isn't the messiah - not at all; in fact some of what he says is downright unsavoury - but the election is certainly swinging his way. Footage from outside a restaurant and his expected sweep-up of the Mormon vote from McMullin prove it."
Comments
But, unavoidably, as an Empire, it's ultimate purpose was to extract wealth from the Imperial possessions to enrich Britain, by whatever level of force was necessary.
I'd rather have a Mr Whippy.
Good night comrades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun
Like Leopold in Africa, death meant nothing provided profits were maintained.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876–1878
In every single party split, as well as in Remain/Leave, more respondants said the song should be performed with lyrics than said should be performed without them or not at all combined. Even in Labour, the split is, crudely put, 39/38. Remain is 46/26. That's overwhelming.
Suggests that the BBC is very much being swayed by a tiny and extreme cultural minority.
If you want a more recent example of the dirty end of empire, this book is well worth a read. The events are well within living memory.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1844135489/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qxzrFbPJGGYRA
https://order-order.com/2020/08/25/land-of-hope-and-glory-hits-no-1-on-itunes-charts/
https://twitter.com/RobDotHutton/status/1298372510140989440?s=20
That's not a particular criticism of the British Empire of all empires, incidentally. But it's undeniably true that functioning democracies, even extremely poor ones, very rarely suffer famines whereas dictatorships and imperial possessions often do. That's not to do with functioning democracies having better weather and luck.
My mother who is a 90 y.o. woke Lib Dem is seething about this. She is more annoyed than she is about Brexit. That is saying something.
When will you stop with the Nazi comparisons.
1. "The empire that I pathetically still identify with is coincidentally the best one in history. Basically benevolent, whereas all the other ones were terrible." (See also: "The British empire: fantastic because sometimes not as bad as the Belgian Congo")
2. "Nobody had ever thought of respect for human life, democracy, social welfare etc etc before the British came and enslaved them" (see also: "no country has ever managed to build a railway without the benefit of British rule").
Do you guys not get how ridiculous you sound?
From 1883 Sir Henry Bartle Frere who sat on the Viceroy Council (but will probably be presumed to be woke on here so can be ignored) said:
"Comparing such information, district by district, with the very imperfect estimates of the total population fifty years ago, the lowest estimate I have been able to form of the total slave population of British India, in 1841, is between eight and nine millions of souls. "
The Treasury actually didn't like extending the Empire (on the grounds of cost, hardly likely if all imperial possessions "enriched" Britain) which is why informal influence was preferred throughout most of the 19th Century. Extra colonies meant more responsibility and potential for clashes with other powers which is why the phrase "gained in a fit of an absence of mind" gained currency.
Colonies were established for a variety of reasons - the sugar islands in the Caribbean undoubtedly fall into the category you suggest, and Bengal made money for the buccaneers of the East India Company - but most of it was about ensuring opening markets and securing trading concessions, and then having overseas bases to protect them from other powers.
This was necessary because there was no "rules based international order" or WTO then - although that was something we helped create later - and if you wanted global trade you had to control it. If it was about purely plundering gold and silver - as Spain did in the new world - there'd have been next to no development in the colonies of physical and civil infrastructure, except mines & transport, and we'd also have experienced rampant inflation at home too.
The vast majority of Britain's growth in wealth in the 18th and 19th Centuries came about due to industrialisation, and the fact it could exploit (domestically) iron and coal to take advantage of this.
Why is this so threatening to you?
RCP: Biden +7.6%
Five Thirty-Eight: Biden +9.3%
Half the PB Tories: "Trump isn't the messiah - not at all; in fact some of what he says is downright unsavoury - but the election is certainly swinging his way. Footage from outside a restaurant and his expected sweep-up of the Mormon vote from McMullin prove it."