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White Dominions

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White Dominions

Until the early years of the 20th century, the British government enforced and/or encouraged white colonial settlement, the assumption being that large numbers of settlers were needed to maximise economic benefit for the Mother Country. This approach changed after the First World War, when it grew increasingly clear that multinational corporations, backed by overseas capital and using cheap local labour, were far more efficient at building export-oriented colonial economies.

For a deeper exploration of this idea, see The Colonial Moment in Africa – Essays on the Movement of Minds and Materials, 1900-1940, by Andrew Roberts (1990)

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