Let’s strike back for the truth about the Empire!

As Corbyn proposes an official inquiry into our colonial past, a top historian fears it’s a horribly skewed gimmick and implores...

SOME years ago, I met a London schoolgirl of East African and Asian heritage. She told me she didn’t feel that she or her family were part of ‘British’ history.

I tried to explain that, in fact, they were living representatives of one of its major themes. That theme, of course, was imperialism — and the British Empire of which we are all, regardless of our race, descendants.

It was a shame that this girl had never been shown how intimately wound up her ancestry was in British history — but such unfortunate ignorance is all too prevalent in British schools and universities nowadays.

That is what makes Labour’s planned inquiry into the history of the British Empire — reported in yesterday’s Mail — all the more concerning. For as recently as this year, Jeremy Corbyn has suggested that Britain should consider paying reparations to its former colonies.

The Labour leader has further demanded that children in British schools be taught about the ‘grave injustices’ of an Empire that historian Niall Ferguson argued ‘made the modern world’.

Corbyn’s scheme, designed to play well to his hard-Left base, is intended to make ever more apologies for our former Empire. But let us leave aside the transparent political gimmickry, and treat the proposed inquiry seriously.

Oppressive

On the face of it, learning more about one of the most important historical phenomena of modern times, about which most people are woefully ignorant apart from a few clichés and images from TV dramas, is much-needed.

If that is what Corbyn were genuinely proposing, I would cheer it. Yet his own statements on the matter show that is not what he intends.

He and many of those who share his political persuasions approach the Empire instead from the reflexive position that it was straightforwardly evil.

The truth is much more complicated — and more interesting. The British Empire did much to make our country what it is today and greatly impacted the wider world.

When you travel to the Empire’s former territories, such as India, Canada or Australia, people there often see it as far less negative than the British do.

It is true that the Empire ruled millions of people, usually without their consent. And if you think all rule by foreigners is ‘oppression’, then the Empire was oppressive.

But how much should we sympathise with those Zulu elders in South Africa who lamented in 1900 that under British rule they had ‘ practically lost control over their girls and women’?

British officers of the Empire also worked hard to end female infanticide, genital mutilation, widow-burning, cannibalism, head-hunting, tribal warfare, witchcraft and human sacrifice. Was it oppressive to ban these appalling practices?

The Empire is blamed for famines but rarely credited with raising living standards, or for the great cities it built, such as Calcutta, Sydney and Hong Kong.

And a serious analysis of the Empire’s economics shows that Britain probably gained little or nothing overall from all those centuries of rule. However, the countries that comprised the Empire often gained a lot: defence, law and order, cheap credit, low taxes, technology, communications and profitable markets.

The biggest gainers were Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon ( now Sri Lanka) and the Gold Coast (now Ghana).

The world of the 18th and 19th centuries was in a frequent state of chaos. A civilised power — Great Britain — that provided law and order was welcomed by many.

This is shown by the fact that so few people were needed to govern it.

Turbulent

In 1903, the Civil Service’s entire Colonial Office in London had just 113 clerks. Imperial rule would have been impossible without the co-operation of its subjects.

That is why from its earliest origins in the 16th century, to its apex in the late 19th when, as the popular saying had it, ‘the sun never set’ on it, the Empire was a source of pride to patriotic Britons.

Of course, it depended finally on force, and it ruled many turbulent regions. But it used fewer soldiers than the states that replaced it, such as modern India and Pakistan.

If Labour’s future inquiry is to judge fairly, it ought to consider the lives saved by the Empire — not just those lost.

It is true that, at times, the

Empire was ineffective and destructive. It is easy to pick out acts of violence — and even sickening atrocities — in its history. That is true of every state or empire.

Look, for example, at America. Few people know today that a major cause of the American War of Independence against Britain, which led to the founding of the United States, was our attempt to protect Native American lands from white settlement.

Americans today also rarely mention that indigenous peoples and slaves overwhelmingly fought on the

British side. Those who claim that the ‘ bad’ aspects of the British Empire outweigh the ‘ good’ make other assumptions.

For example, they argue that India, war-torn and divided when the British began to take over in the 18th century, would have created a peaceful, stable system. Maybe so, maybe not.

Would Australia have been an Eden without Captain Cook, the first European to chart its coast in 1770?

We cannot know — except that, if he had not done so first, some other European power would have taken over instead. It is perhaps just as likely that Australia would have become a free-for-all for gun-runners, rum-traders, gold-diggers and slavers, which is what nearly happened to New Zealand, and also Fiji (one of quite a number of countries that actually

asked to join the Empire). Of all the accusations against the Empire, slavery is the most notorious. Most states in the world were involved in slavery, and British traders were the biggest shippers of slaves in the 18th century.

I have even heard a prominent Left-wing intellectual claim that all Britain’s wealth was built on slave labour.

This is absurd. It is true that Britain profited from slavery. But our ancestors were also the most energetic opponents of that evil trade.

Ridiculous

Britain did more than any other country to stop slavery, using its vast naval power to police the African coast, and later using diplomacy to suppress slavery in Africa, the Muslim world and the Pacific.

If reparations are to be paid for slavery, as Corbyn wishes, who should receive them? Descendants of slaves, many living in Britain, who are better off than the people of Africa? The issue becomes ridiculous. We should give aid to those in need, and we do. But bogus reparations would poison that relationship.

There is no chance that Labour’s proposed inquiry would fairly explore any of these issues and help us as a country to understand and celebrate the diversity we enjoy thanks to imperialism.

The verdicts of history depend on who sits on the jury. I fear that this one would be packed with the most unimpartial jurors.

RoBeRt tomBs is emeritus professor of history at Cambridge University and the author of the english And their History.