40issues in this close if fractious relationship. Such a perspective gives little sense of the cultural depth to their interactions. The ‘underbelly’ of Anglo-American relations – the bonds of language, literature and kinship that underpinned this transatlantic exchange – merit more attention.
The British World economy
While explored as a political, cultural and ideological concept, the British World’s economic foundations have not received as much attention.82 This neglect should not surprise us. With the increased prominence of cultural studies, the economic dimensions of imperial history have, more generally, suffered from want of attention in recent years.83 However, before we turn to the relationship between migration, trade and finance, and the informal ties of culture, networking and association discussed above, it is worth recalling the commentary upon Anglo-Dominion relations provided by an older literature on the global development of settler capitalism and dominion export economies.
Among the main consequences of the expansion of British power in the generations before the First World War was the creation of a group of settler societies with distinct economic characteristics.84 These hitherto sparsely populated regions occupied a privileged position in the first ‘global’ economy constructed by British free traders during the nineteenth century.85 With an abundance of fertile land, but a lack of capital and labour, they had an almost magnetic attraction for British investors and emigrants. Integration into the international economy was a sine qua non for their rapid development. By drawing in large numbers of immigrants and large amounts of capital, by building
82 As always, there are notable exceptions to the rule: see, especially, the analysis
of Anglo-Dominion financial relations in P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British
Imperialism, 1688–2000 (Harlow: Longman, 2001), pp. 205–42.
83 The role of finance and services in underpinning Britain’s continuing connection to
the neo-Britains is a major exception here; see Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism,
esp. pp. 205–9, 241; and Hopkins, ‘Back to the Future’, pp. 206, 218, 232–3.
84 The importance of external economic relationships in explaining the distinctive
evolution of settler societies was first recognised by ‘staples theory’, albeit that its
advocates tended to focus on particular societies rather than look at them compara-
tively; see especially the work of Harold Innis, On Canada: Essays in Canadian Economic
History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1956), pp. 200–10, 273–89; and
D. Drache (ed.), Staples, Markets and Cultural Change: Selected Essays (Montreal: McGill-
Queen’s University Press, 1995). For the staples theory revisited, see C. B. Schevdin,
‘Staples and Regions of Pax Britannica’, EcHR 43 (1990), 533–59.
85 See, for example, C. K. Harley, ‘The World Food Economy and Pre-World War I
Argentina’, in S. N. Broadberry and N. F. R. Crafts (eds.), Britain in the International
Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 244–68 (pp. 244–6).
41Reconfiguring empire: the British World modern transport infrastructures and by exporting a narrow range of ‘staple’ commodities (mainly foods and raw materials), they were able to achieve impressive levels of growth and high per capita incomes. They tend to be referred to as ‘regions of recent settlement’, ‘temperate colonies’ or ‘white’ dominions. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Argentina are usually taken to be the centrepieces in comparative studies of their economies, although South Africa and Uruguay are sometimes also included. The pioneer of this comparative study of dominion economies is Donald Denoon.86 His analysis of six settler societies (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay), while allowing for differing responses to world economic conditions, nonetheless firmly places them in their own distinct category of development.87 Settler capit alists, separated from Europe by large distances and yet self-consciously ‘European’ in their attitudes and aspirations, pursued export-led growth to considerable material advantage. They were, of course, dependent on Britain for both capital and markets. Denoon, however, sees this relationship as a state of ‘unforced dependence’ that was perfectly compatible with ‘wide autonomy’, even if it dissipated the energies of some groups who might otherwise have driven these societies towards greater self-reliance.88 Our study of the British World economy likewise sees significant strands of commonality among the dominions, even if our explanation of that commonality differs in certain respects from that outlined above. It is important, for example, to recognise how some parts of the British World were more than just primary producing export economies, and
86 D. Denoon, ‘Understanding Settler Societies’, Historical Studies 18 (1979), 511–27, and
Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).
87 P. Ehrensaft and W. Armstrong also draw attention to the ‘privileged cultural, social
and political linkage’ of settler societies to British imperialism, which they see as
a defining characteristic of their economic development. Their study focuses on
Canada, Australia and New Zealand (within the empire), and Argentina and Uruguay
as ‘honorary dominions’ (outside it), highlighting how their colonial ruling groups
were intent upon constructing labour markets from large-scale ‘free’ wage labour
from Europe rather than from indigenous or indentured workers. See P. Ehrensaft
and W. Armstrong, ‘The Formation of Dominion Capitalism: Economic Truncation
and Class Structure’, in A. Moscovitch and G. Drover (eds.), Inequality: Essays on
the Political Economy of Social Welfare (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981),
pp. 95–105.
88 See also R. Kubicek, who argues that ‘peripheral autonomy’ rather than ‘peripheral
dependence’ best captures the situation of Australia, Canada and South Africa by
1911: ‘Economic Power at the Periphery: Canada, Australia and South Africa, 1850–
1914’, in R. E. Dummett (ed.), Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The
New Debate (London: Longman, 1999), pp. 113–26 (pp. 124–6).
42how the scale of manufacturing and service industry, by the later nineteenth century, was greater in provinces like Victoria and Ontario than is sometimes assumed. By this time, the cities of Melbourne and Toronto were richly diversified economies, much more than mere processing depots for the export of primary products. By world standards, of course, their manufacturing sectors were modest. Yet as early as the 1860s and 1870s, they were already showing some signs of rapid development that would follow, giving work to tens of thousands of artisans and labourers, and producing goods worth millions of dollars every year.89 Their manufacturers, moreover, were becoming much better organised, and exerting increased pressure on public policy, especially with regard to tariffs (See Chapter 4). Our geographic frame of reference also differs from previous comparative studies of dominion economies. We pay closer attention to the United States as a recipient of British migrants and capital, and a link in the chain of ‘Anglo-bourgeois’ consumption.90 Furthermore, while recognising that South Africa’s integration into the world economy was different from that of Britain’s other dominions, and that its export-led growth was more mineral-based, we give it similar weight in our analysis to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This is partly because contemporary conceptions of the British World did so, partly because (like the other dominions) it collaborated with Britain from a position of strength, partly because imperial networks developed there on a similar basis to those in the dominions, and partly because of the ‘non-market’ advantages enjoyed by British exporters there (see Chapter 4).91
Conversely, while referring to Latin America (principally Argentina) as a point of comparison, we draw stronger distinctions between this region and other parts of the British World. Differences in political tradition and the origins of immigrant populations are significant here,92 as
89 M. Bliss, Northern Enterprise: Five Centuries of Canadian Business (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1987), pp. 243–4.
90 The presentation of data on migrant remittances (Chapter 3) and overseas capital
investment (Chapter 5) explains in more detail why we feel the inclusion of America to
be necessary in any study of the economy of the British World. Also of relevance here are
the late Charles Feinstein’s observations on export economies, and, in particular, the
strong similarities he sees in small-scale, intensive homestead farming across the regions
of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the type of growth this
was able to sustain: An Economic History of South Africa: Conquest, Discrimination and
Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 91–2.
91 The case for South Africa’s inclusion is well made by Kubicek’s ‘Economic Power at
the Periphery’, pp. 113–26.
92 So much is recognised by scholars who have placed Argentina, Canada and Australia in
the same analytic frame; see, for example, D. C. M. Platt and G. di Tella, ‘Introduction’,
in Platt and di Tella (eds.), Argentina, Australia and Canada: Studies in Comparative
Development, 1870–1965 (London: Macmillan, 1985), pp. 1–19 (pp. 2, 17).
43Reconfiguring empire: the British World is the very nature of the migration that took place. Take, for instance, the Italians who moved to Argentina. They did so as temporary or seasonal migrants, leasing pampas land on short-term contracts, or selling their labour during harvest. This diminished the risk and avoided the burden of fixed investments, while allowing them to accumulate considerable amounts of capital to remit home.93 Compare this with migrants to the Canadian prairies from eastern Canada, the USA and the British Isles, who made land ownership their main goal. They moved with an eye to setting up permanent enterprises, and their preference was for self-employment rather than for selling their labour.94 While the explanation for their behaviour rests partly in prevailing property relations (common-property commutation favoured large owners in Argentina, and smallholders in Canada), settler ideology also came into play. As noted above, within the British World of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a ‘secular utopianism’ entered into the emigrant creed; it was premised on the myth (or promise) of the yeoman freehold, and vigorously propagated by a plethora of emigrant literature.95 Hence the very nature of migration cautions against situating Latin America firmly within the British World. We return to this point in Chapter 4 when we examine the operation of migrant networks.
Another difference between our study and previous ones of dominion economies is that we are less concerned by class analysis, and more by the social science literature on networks. The ideas and information that flowed through imperial networks had a major impact on the economic development of the British World. Thus an examination of these networks – how they were formed, who belonged to them, and what they achieved – offers a way of reintegrating economic and cultural history, and, more specifically, of exploring the influence of culture and ethnicity upon economic behaviour.96 Imperial power, to be sure, has long
93 For example, we know that between 1889 and 1990, and 1913 and 1914, Italian
migrants in Argentina remitted 7,386,869 lira or, at 1913 exchange rates, around
£288,367 back home; W. Dean, Remittances of Italian Immigrants from Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay and the USA (New York: New York University Press, 1974), p. 3.
94 J. Adelman, Frontier Development: Land, Labour and Capital on the Wheatlands of
Argentina and Canada, 1890–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 1–5,
260–3. See also Platt and di Tella, ‘Introduction’, p. 5; and Schevdin, ‘Staples and
Regions’, pp. 537–8.
95 Belich, ‘The Rise of the Angloworld’.
96 Hopkins, ‘Back to the Future’, p. 199; D. S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of
Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (London: W. W. Norton, 1999),
pp. 516–18. The links between culture and economy have been fruitfully explored
in relation to physical science and technology; see, for example, M. W. Jackson, ‘A
Cultural History of Victorian Physical Science and Technology’, HJ (2007), 253–64;
and B. Marsden and C. Smith (eds.), Engineering Empires: A Cultural History of
Technology in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
44been recognised as crucial to the mobilisation and distribution of material resources. Yet equally economic behaviour, like any other form of human activity, was influenced by cultural attitudes and beliefs. By merging cultural and economic histories we hope to anchor more securely some of the more ‘free-floating forms of cultural history’ in imperial structures, so that culture is not artificially separated from material conditions.97 We emphasise how culture served to enhance economic integration, and how economic activity, in turn, served to enhance a sense of cultural connectedness. We also show how ‘culture’, in the context of the networks upon which this study focuses, was to a large extent bounded by ethnicity. As dizzying as they often were, therefore, the economic possibilities of the British World were also racially circumscribed.
The next chapter draws upon new research from the social sciences to explore further the nature, origins and consequences of these transnational networks.
97 J. Gascoigne, ‘The Expanding Historiography of British Imperialism’, HJ 49 (2006),
577–92 (p. 591).