Comment on J.R. Seeley's perception of the British Raj and its origin

Résumé du document

It was during the late 19th century that the British Empire in India reached its most imposing period. The period before the 1880s witnessed what is sometimes considered the climax of Victorian power, prosperity and enterprise. The most popular political themes of improvement, self-help and adaptation had brought immense wealth and led to an assertion of British naval power and to a significant industrial and technological advance. 1877 became the year of the inauguration of the Indian Empire. Consequently, a different approach to imperialism gradually set in but it required considerable political and strategic commitments. In addition, it was accompanied by a rise of foreign competition and by higher global growth rates. By the second half of the century, what had begun as a spontaneous initiative of international commercial exchange was displaced by a more conscious and more deliberate imperialism. Ironically enough, the very period of British paramount power, saw the rise of a growing envy of British influence. Europe, France and Germany were aware that influence in the East meant leadership on a global scale; Russia and especially America emerged as expansionist rivals in strategic areas of the globe. Later on, this phenomenon developed to such an extent that it came to be qualified as "the scramble for the partitioning of the world".

Extraits

[...] During the 19th century, the opium trade became yet another bone of contention on a greater scale and resulted in the Opium Wars which only very well illustrate the negative side of European trading zeal. On the other hand, India was one of the great outlets for British goods. The potential enlargement of markets in demand of the industry's excessive produce could prove largely beneficent to England. Merchant venturing did stand at the basis of the imperial movement and even though it had its dangers, investment abroad gave presence and solidity to the Empire, it developed new services and set new standards for commercial efficiency and reliability. [...]

[...] Seeley comments extensively on the economic and strategic disadvantages of India and briefly on the utility of Britain's eastern Empire. The numerous rhetorical questions are there to incite a critical reflection upon the problems of expansion and imperialism. Broadly speaking, from the third excerpt on, Seeley defines the Empire as a nuisance form a military, political and strategic point of view (lines 55 to 65). When it comes to commerce and economy, the balance sheet comes short of positive arguments (lines 95 and 96). The description of the advantages of India is limited to lines 80 to to 88. [...]

[...] Seeley and in his The Expansion of England in the Eighteenth Century. Along with his reflections upon imperialism and the underlying encouragement of imperial awareness, Seeley posed the fundamental question of the interdependence of history and politics. As a historian, he maintained that the teaching of history needed to focus on a practical object and in his lectures that practical object became politics. His lectures at Cambridge, therefore, carry the mark of an attitude that is half-historical - half-political in spite of the fact that he tried to refrain from explicit political commitments. [...]

[...] For example, by 1838 more than 25000 Indians were shipped overseas and their number continued to rise. By the 1880s, Indian markets took nearly 19% of British exports and almost 1/5 of British overseas investment was located in India. Lines 85 to 88 are there to remind that India provided Britain with £60,000,000 annually. But these are the only references to the economic advantages of the dominion and they are called “indirect” advantages. Opposed to them are the 50 lines, insisting on various “intolerable responsibilities”. This attitude is representative of the times. [...]

[...] On the other hand, Seeley suggests that there had been “little enough of calculation or contrivance” in British colonisation of India. Every British conquest is basically presented as the 'unintentional' result of a search for commercial possibilities throughout the world. To a certain extent, this was also true for the colonisation of the American continent where the English went in search for gold and where they developed an extensive tobacco and cotton production. The one thing that seems to differentiate India and America, however, is the fact that Seeley presents American expansion, evolution and its eventual independence as predictable, as foreseen. [...]