Werzit

Intel - History
British Empire

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• A year of so after the British failed to vanquish the United States in the Second War for Independence -- known today as the War of 1812 -- Lord Henry Brougham declared, "It was well worth while to incur a loss upon the first exportation, in order by the glut, to stifle in the cradle, those rising manufactures in the United States, which the war had forced into existence, contrary to the natural course of things."

• In 1835, Richard Cobden, declared after a visit to the U.S., "it is to the industry, the economy, and peaceful policy of America, and dot to the growth of Russia, that our statesmen and politicians, of whatever creed, ought to direct their anxious study, for it is by these, and not by the efforts of barbarian force, that the power and greatness of England are in danger of being superseded; yes, by the successful rivalry of America, shall we in all probability be placed second in the ranks of nations."

• Palmerston stressed the commercial consequences of paramount sea power: "The rivalship of European manufacturers is fast excluding our productions from the markets of Europe, and we must unremittingly endeavour to find in other parts of the world new vents for the produce of our industry. [opium, ed.] The world is large enough and the wants of the human race ample enough to afford all we can manufacture; but it is the business of the Government to open and secure the roads for the merchant...if we succeed in our China expedition, Abyssinia, Arabia, the countries of the Indus and the new markets in China, will at no distant period give a most important extension to the range of our foreign commerce, and though in regard to the quickness of the returns, markets nearer home might be better, yet on a political point of view it must be remembered that these distant transactions not only employ our manufacturers but form our sailors." In other words, Britain's world-wide commercial connections allowing access to most of the world's markets and raw materials were generally unbreakable because of her supremacy at sea. (The Politics of Naval Supremacy, pp. 117-118)

• It was idle for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called ''free trade.
• Other nations knew, as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by ''free trade ' was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages we enjoyed, to get a monopoly of all their markets for our manufactures, and to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manufacturing nations...
• The policy that (America) acted on was that of encouraging its native manufactures, and it was a wise policy; because, if it were freely to admit our manufactures , it would speedily be reduced to the rank of an agricultural nation, and therefore a poor nation, as all must be that depend exclusively on agriculture...

• America (was prosperous) under this system. In twenty years, America would be independent of England for its manufactures altogether.
• But since the peace, France, Germany, America, and all the other countries of the world, had proceeded upon the principle of encouraging native manufacturers.
• "American Orations" By Alexander Johnston, James Albert Woodburn, George H. Putnam p. 205

• I must tell you frankly, that what we are afraid of losing is our commercial and maritime pre-eminence, for this Canal will put other nations on an equal footing with us. (Tuchman, Barbara, Bible and Sword, 1956 p 258).

• In 1876, the year of America's first Centennial, Lincoln ally and American system economist Henry Carey released his pamphlet "Commerce, Christianity and Civilization Versus British Free Trade: Letters in Reply to the London Times".
• The pamphlet is striking for its scathing attack on the East India Company's murderous opium- pushing policy on China as demonstrative of the actual nature of British free-trade, so-called "Christian" principles.

• Comparing the barbarity of the British Empire to that of ancient Rome, Carey identified the Union victory over the Confederacy and slavery as an effective liberation of the United States from "British free-trade despotism", creating in America "a growth of internal commerce that places the country fully on a par with any other nation of the world."

• The first draft of Cecil Rhodes' will called for the "establishment of a secret society" whose "true aim and object whereof shall be the extension of British rule throughout the world.'' Rhodes conceived of the "occupation of the Holy Land" as being essential to the "consolidation of the whole Empire." (Rhodes and Rhodesia: The White Conquest of Zimbabwe, 1884-1902, p. 26)