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7. Triumph of the Expert: Development, Environment, and the “Second Colonial Occupation,” 1945–60
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CH A P T E R 7 Triumph of the Expert Development, Environment, and the “Second Colonial Occupation,” 1945–60 Order is the condition of all Progress; Progress is always the object of Order. Or to penetrate the question still more deeply, Progress may be regarded simply as the development of Order; for the Order of nature necessarily contains within itself the germ of all possible Progress . . . —Auguste Comte, 1 In my opinion this Colonial Empire was won on a classical education and lost on a scientific education. —N. B. Favell, Colonial Surveyor, 2 AFTER NEARLY SIX YEARS of total war, Germany and Japan were finally defeated in . For Britain, it was a bittersweet victory. The economic costs alone were staggering. Once the world’s banker, the country was left owing more than $ billion to foreign creditors, mostly to the United States. In retrospect, the disengagement and liquidation of the British Empire over the next two-and-a-half decades appears inevitable. And indeed, the writing was already on the wall in Asia: the postwar Labour government quickly came to the realization that India was ungovernable and that withdrawing on good terms with as few entanglements as possible was in the best interests of the country. On August the British Raj came to an end with the partition and creation of two separate independent states, India and Pakistan, both with Dominion Status within the Commonwealth . Other losses followed: Palestine in September , and then Burma and Ceylon in . But for many of Britain’s political leaders, including prominent Labour cabinet ministers such as Ernest Bevin, Arthur Creech Jones, and John Strachey, the immediate postwar years also brought You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying, or distributing of this work except as permitted under U.S. copyright law is illegal and injures the author and publisher. hopes of an imperial renaissance, with the boundaries of the overseas empire simply shifted further to the east in Asia and into the Middle East and Africa as well. Averting bankruptcy and extending the empire’s lease on life, however , depended on American financial and military backing, which in the context of the Cold War and the growing threat posed by the Soviet Union was given, although not without conditions. With the end of the Lend-Lease system in , Britain turned to the United States for a massive $. billion loan, which it agreed to, but only if dollars would no longer be impounded in Britain’s Foreign Exchange Pool, thus allowing private citizens and companies to purchase U.S. exports with dollars passing through Britain. The result was a frantic run on the Bank of England’s reserves and the rapid depreciation of the pound against the dollar. In response to the postwar sterling crisis, the Labour government looked to empire for salvation, impressing on individual administrations the need to intensify the exploitation of imperial resources in an effort to use the colonies to earn dollars by exporting to the United States, and save dollars through substitution of imports from the dollar area to Britain. The pot was sweetened by the Overseas Resources Development Bill of , which created two new public corporations: the Colonial Development Corporation (CDC), which was given authority to borrow up to £ million, and the Overseas Food Corporation (OFC), with up to £ million. The new state corporations were established ostensibly with the goals of both improving the general standard of living and welfare of colonial peoples and increasing the supply of colonial products abroad. The – period was the only time, as Cowen and Shenton observe, that a fully blown Chamberlainite “colonial development offensive” was mounted by the imperial government to serve the direct interests of the British national economy.3 Throughout what remained of Britain’s overseas empire, individual colonial administrations emerged from the war,under pressure from above, prepared to penetrate local agrarian society more deeply than ever before. Over the course of the next several years the colonial state would move on an unprecedented scale to act as the prime agent of agrarian change and rural development in Africa and elsewhere. Over seventy major agricultural development initiatives were listed by the Colonial Office as active in , including pilot projects for water and soil conservation and food production; numerous land improvement and resettlement schemes; various mechanized cultivation projects for cotton, rice, and padi culti- | Triumph of the Expert You are reading copyrighted material published by Ohio University Press/Swallow Press. Unauthorized posting, copying...