‘The rules of the game’: London finance, Australia, and Canada, c.1900–14

Abstract

It is often asserted that, between 1865 and 1914, economic dependence on British capital subjected settler societies to an unofficial imperialism wielded by the City of London. This article argues that both advocates and critics of such models, particularly in the recent controversy over 'gentlemanly capitalism', pay insufficient attention to the City itself. Using the Edwardian City's connections with Australia and Canada, it illustrates the range of financial intermediaries involved and explores their perceptions of political economy in these countries. It concludes that the City's influence (or 'structural power') was limited by its internal divisions and hazy conceptions of political economy.e hr_518 1003..1031 T he relationships between the export of British capital and imperialism from 1870 until 1914 have long been the subject of controversy. 2 Much debate in the twentieth century was framed by the writings of Hobson and Lenin. Both, in different ways, sought to connect financial considerations with imperialistic actions by European states: meaning either the expansion of colonial empires or aggressive ('imperialist') foreign policies in other spheres. 3 However, most British capital flowed far from the frontiers of the British state's formal and informal empire building. 4 Between 1865 and 1913, 68 per cent of this investment was placed in regions also being settled by European migrants, especially in North America, the Latin American cone, Australasia, and southern Africa. 5 Except in southern Africa, interventions in the affairs of these countries were infrequent after the midnineteenth century. 6 The British government's influence was even curtailed in the settlement colonies within the British Empire (re-designated dominions from 1907). During the mid-nineteenth century, these colonies were conceded virtual internal autonomy in a devolutionary package dubbed 'responsible government '. 7 Britain's few remaining constitutional powers were rarely used, since intervening in 1 I would like to thank

Review of periodical literature published in 2010

“…The economics of empire, both formal and informal, proved a popular subject this year. Challenging the idea that an unofficial imperialism followed British capital abroad, Dilley finds that the City's influence over borrowers in Australia and Canada was weaker than has been claimed, while Accominotti et al. argue that financial repression accompanied political repression in the ‘dependent’ colonies, but not in the self‐governing dominions, race playing a major factor in economic decisions. Howkins explores the decline of Britain's informal empire in Argentina from the 1930s, drawing attention to the importance of what he calls ‘environmental nationalism’: challenges to Britain's claims of being able to assert control over nature, which had been central to its close relationship with the nation's land‐owning elites.…”