The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 (117 page)

3.
For a vigorous exposition of this, see
D. C. North
, ‘Conference Summary’, in
L. R. Fischer
and
E. W. Sager
(eds.),
Merchant Shipping and Economic Development in Atlantic Canada
(St John's, Newfoundland, 1982). See generally,
D. C. North
,
Understanding the Process of Economic Change
(Princeton, 2005).

4.
F. Knight
,
Risk, Uncertainty and Profit
(Boston, 1921), p. 268.

5.
Figures from
W. Woodruff
,
The Impact of Western Man
(1966), p. 253.

6.
D. Headrick
,
Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850–1914
(1988), p. 105.

7.
Woodruff,
Impact
, p. 289.

8.
Ibid
., p. 313.

9.
R. C. O. Mathews
,
C. H. Feinstein
and
J. C. Odling-Smee
,
British Economic Growth, 1856–1973
(Stanford, CA, 1982), p. 433. The figure for 1964 was 16.3%.

10.
B. R. Mitchell
,
An Abstract of British Historical Statistics
(Cambridge, 1971), p. 334.

11.
R. C. Michie
,
The City of London
(1992), p. 72. For an account stressing the diverse interests in the City, see
M. J. Daunton
, ‘Financial Elites and British Society, 1880–1950’, in R. C. Michie (ed.),
The Development of London as a Financial Centre
, 4 vols. (2000), vol. II, pp. 355–6.

12.
Woodruff,
Impact
, p. 257.

13.
Mitchell,
Abstract
.

14.
M. Edelstein
,
Overseas Investment in the Age of High Imperialism
(1982), p. 48.

15.
C. H. Feinstein
, ‘Britain's Overseas Investments in 1913’,
Economic History Review
, New Series,
43
, 2 (1990), 288–95.

16.
Woodruff,
Impact
, p. 154.

17.
Michie,
City
, p. 112.

18.
Ibid
., p. 113.

19.
Ibid
., p. 114.

20.
D. Kynaston
,
The City of London: Golden Years, 1890–1914
(1995), p. 262.

21.
A classic example was the firm of Brown, Shipley and Co. See A. Ellis,
Heir of Adventure: The Story of Brown, Shipley and Co., 1810–1960
(privately printed, n.d.).

22.
For Rothschilds, see
N. Ferguson
,
The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild
(1998); for Barings, see
P. Ziegler
,
The Sixth World Power: A History of One of the Great Banking Families, the House of Barings, 1762–1929
(1988).

23.
See
S. G. Checkland
, ‘The Mind of the City 1870–1914’,
Oxford Economic Papers
, New Series,
9
, 3 (1957), 261–78.

24.
For a recent study, see
R. C. Michie
,
The London Stock Exchange
(Oxford, 2001).

25.
Michie,
City
, p. 134.

26.
J. A. Hobson,
The Evolution of Modern Capitalism
[1894] (rev. edn, 1926), p. 246. For Hobson's views, see
P. Cain
,
Hobson and Imperialism: Radicalism, New Liberalism and Finance, 1887–1938
(Oxford, 2002).

27.
C. Harvey
and
J. Press
, ‘Overseas Investment and the Professional Advance of British Metal Mining Engineers, 1851–1914’,
Economic History Review
, New Series,
42
, 1 (1989), 67–8; ‘The City and International Mining, 1870–1914’,
Business History
32, 3 (1990), 98–119;
J. J. van Helten
, ‘Mining, Share Mania and Speculation: British Investment in Overseas Mining 1880–1913’, in J. J. van Helten and Y. Cassis,
Capitalism in a Mature Economy
(1990).

28.
For a graphic description of the speculative and disinformational tendencies to be found in the City, see
I. R. Phimister
, ‘Corners and Company-Mongering: Nigerian Tin and the City, 1909–1912’,
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
,
28
, 2 (2000), 23–41.

29.
Checkland, ‘The Mind of the City’, pp. 265, 270, 278. For the outlook of bankers, see
Y. Cassis
, ‘The Banking Community of London, 1890–1914: A Survey’,
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
,
13
, 3 (1985), 109–26.

30.
Thus Salisbury dismissed the suggestion for diplomatic pressure on Argentina at the time of the Barings crisis in 1890 as ‘dreams’.
H. S. Ferns
,
Britain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century
(Oxford, 1960), p. 468.

31.
G. R. Searle
,
Corruption in British Politics 1890–1930
(Oxford, 1987), p. 13.

32.
See
Imperialism: A Study
(1902).

33.
Kynaston,
Golden Years
, p. 383.

34.
Ibid
., p. 385.

35.
J. F. Gilpin
,
The Poor Relation Has Come into Her Fortune: The British Investment Boom in Canada, 1905–15
(1992), p. 11.

36.
The classic expression of this is N. Angell,
The Great Illusion
(1909).

37.
For India's place in Britain's multilateral payments system,
S. B. Saul
,
Studies in British Overseas Trade 1870–1914
(Liverpool, 1960), chs. 3, 8;
B. R. Tomlinson
,
The Political Economy of the Raj 1914–1947
(1979), ch. 1.

38.
A. J. Sargent
,
Seaways of the Empire
(1918), ch. 1.

39.
‘England…is the telegraph exchange of the world. Every great line of telegraph communication centres in this country’, remarked the head of the Post Office telegraph department in 1893.
R. W. D. Boyce
, ‘Imperial Dreams and National Realities: Britain, Canada and the Struggle for a Pacific Telegraph Cable, 1879–1902’,
English Historical Review
,
115
, 460 (2000), 57.

40.
See the account in
J. Schneer
,
London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis
(New Haven, 1999).

41.
For a superb study, see
J. Forbes Munro
,
Maritime Enterprise and Empire: Sir William Mackinnon and His Business Network, 1823–1893
(Woodbridge, 2003).

42.
By the time of Mary Kingsley's visit in 1893, there was a weekly steamship service from Britain to the West Africa ‘Coast’. See M. Kingsley,
Travels in West Africa
[1897] (4th edn, 1982), Appendix 1.

43.
A recent account of this transaction is in A. Amanat,
Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy 1831–96
(1997), pp. 424–5.

44.
A classic study is
M. Lynn
,
Commerce and Economic Change in West Africa: The Palm Oil Trade in the Nineteenth Century
(Cambridge, 1997); see also
C. Jones
, ‘“Business Imperialism” in Argentina: A Theoretical Note’,
Journal of Latin American Studies
,
12
(1980), 440ff.

45.
R. Austen,
African Economic History
(1987), p. 275.

46.
Ibid
., p. 114.

47.
K. O. Dike
,
Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830–1885
(Oxford, 1956), is the classic study.

48.
J. D. Hargreaves,
Prelude to the Partition of West Africa
(1966), pp. 35–7.

49.
M. Lynn
, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade: The Case of West Africa c.1830–c.1880’,
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
,
15
, 1 (1986), 22–40.

50.
From £29 per ton in 1881 to just over £19 in 1888. J. D. Hargreaves,
West Africa Partitioned
, vol I,
The Loaded Pause, 1885–1889
(1974), p. 252.

51.
Goldie's eccentric personality is sketched in D. Wellesley,
Sir George Goldie: A Memoir
(1934), and his early career in J. Flint,
Sir George Goldie and the Making of Nigeria
(1960).

52.
Flint,
Goldie
, p. 326.

53.
Ibid
., Appendix 2.

54.
Bodl. RHL Mss Afr. S.1525, John Holt Papers, Box 4.

55.
M. Perham,
Lugard: The Years of Adventure 1858–1898
(1956), p. 544.

56.
Bodl. RHL Mss Afr. S.88, Scarbrough Mss 4: Lugard to Royal Nigeria Company Council, 6 February 1897. If their losses had been heavier, he told his main business partner, ‘we should not have had enough troops left for the work’. Goldie to John Holt, 9 January 1897, Bodl. RHL Mss Afr. S.1525, John Holt Papers Box 3.

57.
Perham,
Lugard 1858–98
, p. 168.

58.
The best account is now
J. Forbes Munro
,
Maritime Enterprise and Empire: Sir William Mackinnon and His Business Network 1823–1893
(Woodbridge, 2003).

59.
C. P. Groves,
The Planting of Christianity in Africa
, 4 vols. (1948–58), vol. II, pp. 189–93. For Livingstone's impact in Britain, see
chapter 1
above.

60.
Bodl. RHL Mss Afr. 229, Rhodes Papers (Le Sueur): G. Portal to F. Rhodes, 23 May 1890.

61.
Bodl. RHL Mss Afr. S.106, Gerald Portal Papers: Portal (Zanzibar) to Lord Salisbury, 15 August 1892; Mss Afr. S.113, Portal Papers, Salisbury to Portal, 11 September 1892.

62.
Munro,
Maritime Enterprise
, p. 476.

63.
See
chapter 6
below.

64.
R. Owen,
The Middle East and the World Economy 1830–1914
(1981), pp. 192–9.

65.
See the views of the financier Ernest Cassel, in Kynaston,
Golden Years
, p. 513.

66.
D. A. Farnie
,
East and West of Suez: The Suez Canal in History
(Oxford, 1969).

67.
See G. Baer,
A History of Landownership in Modern Egypt
(1962).

68.
See
J. I. Cole
,
Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt's ’Urabi Movement
(Cairo, 1999).

69.
R. Owen
,
Lord Cromer
(Oxford, 2004), chs. 10, 11.

70.
Baer,
Landownership
, p. 67.

71.
For this estimate, see Map 6, p. 118 above.

72.
For the Egyptian economy, see Owen,
Middle East
, ch. 9.

73.
J. Osterhammel
, ‘British Business in China, 1860s to 1950s’, in
R. P. T. Davenport
and
G. Jones
(eds.),
British Business in Asia since 1860
(Cambridge, 1989).

74.
I. Bird,
The Yangtse Valley and Beyond
(1899), pp. 64ff.

75.
For French calculation along these lines, see
M. Meuleau
,
Des pionniers en extrême-orient: histoire de la Banque de l’Indochine 1875–1975
(Paris, 1990), p. 187.