Milne - Famine

it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected

The British Empire was the most successful of the European colonial enterprises in terms of size administered, population taxed, and duration. While China was not officially a British colony, apart from Hong Kong and several treaty settlements, Britain and British administrators controlled its most important taxation, the land and maritime customs, and decided what could be imported and exported, if necessary by force of arms, commanding the most powerful military forces at sea, up the rivers and on Chinese soil.

During Britains control, Ireland, India and China suffered appalling famines that killed more people than any other political enterprise apart from the Mongol invasions.

Taxation forms the basis for this analysis of the worst aspect of Britain's colonial heritage. British taxation was inherited from the great Norman organisation that had made its perpetrators the richest men in the world, and had led to famine in England in the years following the Conquest. This made them particularly sensitive to expenditure, and focused it on those activities that granted them the greatest return from their investments.

Great Britain spent most of its tax revenues financing the largest professional military navy in the world. This navy protected the trade which came to dominate Britains economy in the years before industrial production took over. Britain benefited during the Age of Sail from its geography, having one of the longest coastlines for its size, and a fortunate position for winds and tides.

Leveraging the protection provided by nature and tax revenues, British trade and then industry grew faster than that of any other country in the world. The population also grew faster than that of any other country and, while not as large as that of France, India or China, it was still one of the largest populations in the world. The heterogeneous nature of Britain, with its English middle class, its Scottish and Dutch aristocracy, its Scottish and Huguenot technocracy, its Scottish lawyers and economists, and its Irish writers, made it a peculiarly tolerant and inclusive country. This facilitated further improvement in its agriculture, technology, education and trading networks.

From the time of the Union with Scotland in 1703, which coincided with the addition of Ireland in what would become a lop-sided United Kingdom, Britain drove the creation of the largest colonial empire the world had ever seen. Far from the technological powerhouse that it is seen as in retrospect, Britain did not start its industrial revolution until the 1750s, but it had already achieved its greatest victory, the conquest of Bengal, by 1757, and defeated the French in the Seven Years War by 1763. The industrial revolution was therefore the result of its efficient tax system, not the cause of the empire.

Just a few short years after conquest by the British, Bengal suffered its first famine. The same tax system in Britain that drove the industrial revolution was able to kill millions of its own tax-payers through purely economic means.

Although a demographic disaster, the economic success for individual Britons involved in the Bengal occupation led to similar developments elsewhere. What started as a commercial trading empire or an agricultural plantation evolved in Ireland, China and the rest of India into one of extraction to finance trade and banking investments elsewhere.

Britains success in Asia came long after that of the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French. Driven by the economic and demographic growth of the homeland, a limitless supply of young men eager to succeed and powerfully armed established within a few years profitable trading factories in Bombay and Madras, conquered Bengal, and opened trade with China. Over a hundred years, they opened the doors to trade in China along the coast and along the mighty rivers a thousand miles inland. By then, famines in Ireland and India had made the news, and famine in China soon followed.