The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it Resolved, the British Empire did more harm than good

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

In 1933, at the height of the British Empire, a small island off the north east coast of Europe controlled 25% of the world’s population and land mass. India, Canada, Australia, the British West Indies, parts of South America and Africa were all under British sway to one degree or another for the better part of the preceding century or longer. In its heyday, this mighty colonial power was admired for the innovation and enlightened principles it brought to newly conquered lands. Now, however, some modern historians want to set the record straight and reconsider British colonialism by its true nature: one defined by mass torture, rape, censorship, and starvation. The British so-called commitment to virtue and social progress, they argue, was a fallacy used to hide the cruelty with which they dominated their underlings.  For these historians, the Brits were no less violent or savage than Russia’s Stalin or Japan’s Hideki Tojo. Other historians see the vilification of Britain by modern historians as lacking in context; Britain was no better or worse than all the other empires that preceded it. The British Empire is being unfairly blamed for the current economic and political woes of the global south, while the positive attributes they introduced to their colonies - such as free markets, the rule of law, and public transport - fail to receive the acknowledgement they deserve. Lest we are prepared to demand apologies from every colonial power that sought to grow their empire over the last two thousand years, Britain should be left well enough alone. Arguing for the motion is James Heartfield, he’s a historian and author of Britain's Empires: A History, 1600–2020 Arguing against the motion is Nigel Biggar, theologian, ethicist, and author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning SOURCES: Oxford Union, British Pathe, CNN   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran LynchBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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India's share of the world economy when Britain arrived on its shores was 23%. By the time the British left, it was down to below 4%. Why? Simply because India had been governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain's rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. Well, that was Shashi Taur, a longtime member of the Indian Parliament and a vocal critic of the British Empire. Like Shashi, a growing number of modern historians want to set the record straight and reimagine British colonialism.

according to its true nature, one defined by mass torture, rape, and starvation. The Brits, they argued, plundered their colonies to enrich themselves and use the appearance of social progress and enlightened principles to cover up their crimes. Other historians see the vilification of British colonial history as lacking in context. Britain was no better or worse than other empires that preceded it or did. succeeded it. It has been unfairly blamed for the current economic and political woes of the global south, while the positive attributes that the British Empire sowed across the world, such as free trade, the rule of law, democratic institutions all fail to receive the acknowledgement

that they deserve. On this installment of the monk debates, we go to the essence of these arguments by debating the motion, be it resolved. The British Empire did more harm than good. Arguing for the motion is James Hartfield. He's a historian and author of the best-selling book, Britain's Empires, a history, 600 to 2020. Arguing against the motion is Nigel Bigger, historian, ethicist, and author of colonialism, a moral reckoning. James, Nigel, welcome to the Monk Debates. Hi. Thanks for having us on, Roger.

Looking forward to today's debate, so let's get right to it. resolution be it resolved. The British Empire did more harm than good. James, you're up first with your two-minute opening statement. I don't think it's controversial that the British Empire in its long history, 400 years, let's say, was pretty violent, exploitative, was a, for the most part, hostile to democracy for the peoples that it governed. And I wouldn't want to say that every moment of everybody's lives under the British Empire was misery. I think that would be absurd. But certainly, I think it was all told in the main on balance. It was more harm than good. And whilst nobody wants people to feel bad about their own lives and positions in the world, I think an obligation to the truth

says that we should tell the whole story of the British Empire. Thank you, James. Okay, Nigel, your opportunity for an opening statement. You're arguing against our motion today, be it resolved. The British Empire has done more harm than good. Let's have your opening remarks, please. In its 400-year-long life, stretching from Newfoundland to New Zealand, the British Empire certainly did both good and evil. So, on that much, I think, probably James and I can agree.

It did both slavery and anti-slavery. It did racism and racial egalitarianism. It did unjustified violence and justified violence. Now, the fact that it sometimes did very bad things, indeed doesn't distinguish it from any other state. So for example in Amritsa in the Punjab in April 1919, General Dyer notoriously ordered 50 Indian troops to open fire on an unarmed crowd of 25,000 it's estimated, killing 379 people and wounding maybe around 1200. So that's true. It's also true that 60,000 people. 25 years later, in June 1984, the independent Indian government sent artillery and tanks into Amritsa to suppress Sikh nationalists.

The violence of the past two days reached its height in a massacre in the suburb of Trilok-Puri. According to eyewitnesses, the narrow lanes were blocked by a mob of youths. All the men in the houses were dragged out, knifed out, knifed. and set on fire. Those who resisted were hacked to pieces. And in the course of that engagement, they killed at least 493 people, and according to some reports, up to 3,000.

Now, did the empire's good outweigh it's bad, or did the harm outweigh the good? My view is we can't possibly say because we can't compare chalk and cheese. We can't say, for example, that the everyday, humiliation of indigenous peoples because of racial prejudice was worse than the benefit brought by Western tropical medicine to the people of Africa. The two things are so completely disparate.

We can't weigh them. There's no common quantity. Let's just do that. What we can say, I think, is that the British Empire was not radically evil like the Nazi regime. It's my position. that nowhere did the British Empire commit genocide, not even in Tasmania. And we can also say that the empire became increasingly humanitarian and liberal. So, for example, while yes, it presided over slave trading and slavery in the Americas from about 1650. In the early 1800s, the British Empire became one of the first states in the history of the world to abolish both the slave trade and slavery and then went on to lead the world in suppressing slavery from Brazil across Africa to India and Australasia. According to the American political scientist, Chaim Kaufmann and Robert Pape,

the empire's suppression of the slave trade across the Atlantic alone was the most costly international humanitarian endeavor in modern history. Nigel, thank you for that excellent opening statement. Okay, let's move on to rebuttals, the opportunity now for you. you both to react to what you've just heard. James, you're up first. Give us the flavor of your commentary on Nigel's opening remarks. I've a lot of sympathy with Nigel's approach insofar as, you know, it's too large, really, to make a single judgment. And I think it's fair to say that there are definite advances for human life that take place under the empire.

But I do think there is a continuous thread, which is that empire is, you know, colonisation is a process of domination. But what didn't happen as much as it could have, I think, is the modification towards government by consent. I think it is important that, you know, significant parts of the empire did advance towards self-government and, you know, through that process, independence, though pointedly and disappointingly, it does feel very much as if there was a different attitude towards white subjects and subjects of colour

that self-government was more easily yielded to New Zealanders, white Australians, Americans, Canadians than it was to West Africans, to Indians, alongside the winds have changed. There was a lot of kind of rearguard action, which is often when the empire was at its most intolerant. And we see the policing operations in Kenya and Malaya were pretty violent. operations and in the Middle East. They've been waiting almost half a century, but Kenya's Malma liberation vices

finally have an apology from the country's colonial era rulers. The expression of regret brings with it a payout, but no admission of liability over what is seen as one of the most brutal episodes of Britain's imperial past. As the empire struggled to put down the insurgency in one of its most important colonies, it detained as many as 160,000, Kenyans. You know, another way around would be to say that the, you know, that more often

it was liberals who built the empire, funnily enough, and conservatives who governed it. The role of governing, I think, in its nature, was much more defensive and for those reasons, was brittle and was often brutal. Thank you, James. Okay, now your chance, Nigel, for a rebuttal. can you react to James' opening statement or what you've just heard now? You started off by saying that, you know, there's not much controversy about whether the empire was considerably violent and exploitative. On exploitation, yes, there is controversy, because two things I say about that. First of all, if you're a neo-Marxist, it goes with that saying. And that the empire was basically about economic exploitation.

But then if you read Rudolf von Albertini, who was a Swiss economist, who according to David Fieldhouse, conducted the most comprehensive study of colonial literature after 1940, he concluded about colonial economics that it is impossible to capture the truth of colonial economics in terms of exploitation and plunder. because there were too many different things going on. Now, did exploitation happen in the empire? Certainly did. But then it also happened in England and America.

And it probably happens in India today. So exploitation is not peculiarly colonial. And on violence, yes, I mean, the empire was very violent. But I look back on history, I'm trying to figure if there's a part of the world up until 20th century Western Europe that wasn't subject to lots of violence, lots of the time. And it strikes me that in the past, most governments were weak, and a weak government tends to use violence a lot

because it can't survive otherwise. So I don't dispute the empire was often violent, and sometimes its violence was unjustified, not always. And I do understand that a government that does not rest on the kind of widespread popular consent that a democratic government rests on, is more likely to find itself faced with eruptions of violent rebellion, which then has to be dealt with violently. But then I think that probably would describe lots of governments, be the imperial or colonial or national, in terms of their precariousness in the face of popular views.

Thank you, Nigel. You are listening to our debate today, be it resists. The British Empire did more harm, has done more harm than good. James, let me come to you first with a question, and maybe just if you could play along with me a little bit. I'm always fascinated by counterfactuals. What if we played with a counterfactual that the British Empire never existed? What would be the argument then that the world would be a better place? because in some sense, that is at the essence of what your contention is here, that greater harm was done than good. So therefore, if we take that to the extreme and the British Empire never existed, then why would the world be a better place?

Oh, yeah, I don't know if I can take that one. I mean, not on the whole merit of it, because the... Yeah, because we can never know. But certainly I think a lot of countries in a trajectory might have been very different. And I think if you imagine, you know, particularly India, so much of economic development happens on the coast, you know, in human history, that the control of ports is such a fundamental thing. You know, what would India have been if it had had control of its ports?

It would have been, I suggest, quite a different place. But James, let me just push you for the sake of the debate. I push you a little bit on this. Further to Nigel's point, well, if the British Empire didn't exist, there were a lot of other empires, the Belgian Empire, the German Empire, the French Empire. Couldn't one make an argument that those empires demonstrably were worse than the British Empire? They, in comparison to the British Empire, they did more harm than good. Their colonial policies were more brutal. Their interests were more self-interested. Doesn't that give some credence here to Nigel's argument that, on mass, taken as a sum, you know, and again, with both of you are arguing for nuance here, and I appreciate that, but put it all together, the British Empire is exemplary among empires in history.

No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, France's attempt to unite Europe in 1800s, you know, could easily have been a very different road to civilization. I think there are often cases where the British Empire was, without doubt, the most destructive force. I think most pointedly, at its most offensive, which is when it was at its most extensive. And the way that other nations were kind of pushed out and held down, really added to some of the more destructive side. So generally, I don't think your counterfactual can work because we just can't know. But what I think psychologically, what it reads on is a kind of fantasy figure of a just English man, who we hope, you know, was going to do a bit better than a Belgian or a Frenchman. And, you know, I'm susceptible to that kind of prejudice myself, but I do think in the end it's just a prejudice.

Englishmen, in the wrong circumstances, you know, under significant pressures, were capable of taking some spectacularly, wicked decisions. So Nigel, let me come back to you and build on part of what I've just heard from James, which interests me that those who would argue that, no, it's wrong to say the British Empire did more harm than good. Fundamentally, their argument is based on a view of kind of English exceptionalism, that there was something special about the British Empire, that it just wasn't simply

founded and organized on the premise that all empires are organized on, which is the coordination of violence across vast geographies to extract material wealth from less powerful, less fortunate people, and expropriate that wealth, back to the metropole to enrich it and benefit from a relationship of fundamentally of exploitation. And all this is gussied up and dressed up in the veneer of the, you know, the inherent civilizing aspects, abilities of the Englishmen, which are somehow unique in history. I'd like to hear a little bit more from you on that.

Yes. So I'm not sure whether the British were very different from the French or the Dutch in this respect, It depends what aspects we're talking about. But were the British in their empire better than, let's say, some earlier empires or some non-European empires? Well, I think that when Englishmen and Scotsmen and Britons pitched up on the coast of North America in the 1600s or 1700s, my perception is, on the whole, it was pretty predatory and ruthless. They weren't much interested in civilizing Native Americans. they're much more interested in gold or land.

So that was pretty exploitative. And of course, slave trading and slavery was part of that, making money out of the West Indies by enslaving Africans. But I do have the strong impression, the longer I've looked at this, that there was something of a moral revolution in Britain and not just in Britain elsewhere in North West Europe in the late 1700s, which manifests itself, first of all, in the movement to abolish slavery, which proved to be a political campaign of unprecedented popularity.

In 791, I think 20% of the total male population of Britain is reckoned to have signed petitions to abolish the slave trade. And then moving into the 19th century, not only do you abolish slavery, you then end up spending the next 150 years suppressing it all over the world, the world. And then you get in 1840s, again, Christian humanitarian concern about the impact of colonisation on Australian Aborigines, for example, and you get the foundation of the society for the protection of original peoples in 1837, I think. And so there is a growing kind of humanitarian concern, also chasing by the loss of the American colonies in 1783, the British, the British

learn that you can't keep tight control over far-flung colonies. And so, starting with Canada in 1867, the British Empire begins to move along a liberal path toward what would become a voluntary Commonwealth of nations, so that by 1930, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa are virtually independent states. And India, a non-white settler colony, is put on the same road in 1919. In London, the flags of the New Indian Union flutter over the headquarters of India and Pakistan. An era has ended, a new epoch begins.

A subcontinent larger than the whole of Europe becomes two self-governing dominions within the British Commonwealth of Nations. After less than a century under the British crown, India's most crucial hour has struck. So by the First World War, by the end of the First World War, the Empire is beginning to relax into a involuntary socialist. which I would call, I would regard as a manifestation of a liberal vision of empire. And also you've got in Britain, you've got a pretty free press, you've got parliamentary accountability, you've got the courts, all of which were exported.

So I do think it says a lot about the empire, the fact that in 1939 it committed itself. In fact, it exhausted itself in 39 to 45, fighting what? well, in Europe, fascism. I think that says a lot about the empire. So I do, I've no doubt that it was better than many of the, as you put it, Rudyard, many of the simply oppressive and exploitative empires of the past. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of base, I know, but the Mongol Empire didn't do much except predation.

But actually, the end-debeli in Mashona land were pretty predatory too. And they weren't much into building. promoting public goods. If you're enjoying the Friday Focus podcast as a donor, but haven't yet taken that next step of becoming a monk supporter. Now is your opportunity. For the next couple of weeks, we have a flash sale on 30% off monk supporter level membership. You get all kinds of great benefits,

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Click on membership and at checkout, enter Munk 30, MUNK 30, to get your your 30% off discount before it's gone. Act now. Become a monk supporter. Thank you in advance for your generous support. James, let me come back to you and build on this terrific back and forth. One of the features, again, I think of this as a Canadian, as a citizen of a country that grew out of the British Empire to independence, is the idea that the British Empire bequeathed a unique set of institutions that were germinated in the soil of your country with its own struggle with royal and absolute power, its evolution into British parliamentary democracy and your other traditions around the rule of law and the exporting of all of this to countries around the world,

like Canada, New Zealand, across Africa. This is a very special legacy of the British Empire, a legacy, frankly not seen in many of any other. empires this rooting of arguably a successful pathway and then the achievement of a sustainable form of government not seen in other empires so why isn't this something that we could see as tipping the scales just that little but not unimportant bit in favor of the argument that the British Empire in fact did more good than harm. I think, you know, if you look at the, say, like the history of the Congress Party in India, you know, it begins very quietly as a lobbying group.

It's more or less encouraged from the top as, you know, but get the civil servants together. But intriguingly in that process that they, they fell into conflict eventually with, you know, a fairly persistent back and forth conflict with the colonial authorities, in which there's a great deal of give and take. But also there's an amazing amount of conflict. I don't think it was ever the case that Britain gifted parliamentary sovereignty without a fight, as it were, or at least an argument.

And if you look, say, particularly in the West Indies, where self-governing colonies became crown colonies, because what emancipation did is it raised the prospect of black elected chambers. And to avoid that outcome, they were made crown colonies again, and their self-governing was severely curtailed, most obviously in the case of Jamaica after the governor air controversy. So I think, yes, in the course of history, I think if you adopt a kind of longer view of the course of history, you could say, yes, the impact of the British Empire was broadly towards democracy and liberalisation. But I think to understand how that would happen, you also look at the way that it was withheld and demanded.

And, you know, how much of the history of West Africa and of the national liberation movements generally. generally was a fulsome and aggressive demand that we should have the rights that others had. And that wasn't granted freely. Final question for you, Nigel, before we move to closing statements. In law, there's this idea of, you know, the doctrine of a kind of poison fruit, that if a case is built on, let's say, the illegal seizure of evidence, that poison fruit pollutes the entire argument for the prosecution or the defense. I think listeners to this podcast would want to hear you talk a little bit more about slavery

because a lot has been said recently about the original sin of Britain and the British Empire being the mass enslavement of Africans in the United. the most horrible and inhumane conditions to exploit, as you mentioned earlier, the West Indies and the sugarcane trade, but also to build and enrich many of the myriad of British institutions that are recognized today as part of the patrimony and strength of your society. So for those, you know, in the closing moments of this debate, whose minds maybe aren't made up and are tipping between the pro and the con camps here, but have this niggling doubt, this worry about how do I reconcile slavery with any argument

against the proposition that the British Empire did do more harm than good? That's a great question. So my view is certainly that, of course, course slavery was abhorrent, but it has to be put in context. The context is that up until the 1700s, 1800s, everyone did slavery all over the world, regardless of skin color. The Comanche did it in the southwest of what's now the United States. West Africans did it a lot, did it from Roman times. They were selling Africans to Romans long before the Europeans arrived. So by all means, let's lament British and other European involvement in slavery, but let's put it in context.

Europeans were not the first to do this. Now, the kind of slavery involved in the West Indies and perhaps in the southern states of the US was of the worst kind, but it wasn't unprecedented. So that's the first thing I'd say about that. Second thing to say is I'm a Christian. I'm quite relaxed in a certain sense about sin. I mean, I, in the sense that you will not find a state on earth that wasn't born in sin, or that lived long enough. If it lived long enough, it will commit a great sin. So it wasn't slavery. It was the exploitation of the industrial masses in the 19th century, or the exploitation of serfs.

So I don't see this as quite the unique sin, slavery, as some are inclined to. And then the third thing I say is, you know, when you've done some, if you do something really bad, like enslaved people and if enslaved people die in chains there ain't nothing you can do about that to recover them all you can do is stop it and spend a century and a half

stopping other people doing it there's no short of short of God and resurrection of the dead the poor oppressed slaves who were worked to death the dead all we can do is repudiate that

stop it and stop others doing it. So the fact that there is that awful blot on the coffee book of the empire does not negate everything good that has been built since. And in fact, it's because we have liberal institutions and a free press.

And we can talk like this, that the question of the justice that should be done now with regard to that evil is being aired in a way that it would not be aired, in communist China with regard to the plight of the Uyghurs or the Tibetans. Well, let's move to closing statements. You're listening to our debate today, be it resolved.

The British Empire did more harm than good. James, you've been arguing in favor of the motion. Let's have your two minutes of closing remarks. I do think that if you're going to talk realistically and honestly and without rancor and guilt-tripping about the, British Empire, you have to know that a lot of it was a history of exploitation. And if it recovered from that, you know, what came out of that is some viable nations and, you know, some good histories and some good institutions, then I think that's at least

in part because people living under the gout of domination came to value freedom and stood up and demanded their own independence. Thank you, James, for that closing statement. Okay, Nigel, we're going to give you the last word today in our debate, be it resolved. The British Empire did more harm than good. You've been arguing against the resolution. I don't disagree that the empire caused sometimes very grave, very trocious harm, but it also did some very great good.

And it's still my view is that you can't weigh those two things up together in some kind of quantitative fashion. What you can say is that Britain was among the United States. the first states in the world's history to abolish slavery and slave trading. What you can say is that from early on, that the notion that British rule over India and other parts of the world was a provisional thing to enable native peoples, indigenous peoples to rule themselves decently took route. There was, I think, a continuous liberal theme that grows stronger and eventually flourishes into the Commonwealth of Nations, which is first conceived in 1917. And the last thing is,

I do think it says a lot about what the empire had become that between May 1940 when France fell to Nazi Germany and June 41 when Hitler and wisely invaded the Soviet Union. The British Empire offered Nazi Germany the only military opposition with the sole exception of Greece. It didn't have to do that. Britain and the Empire could have come to terms, arguably, with the fascists in Europe after the fall of France. It chose not to do that, and I think that stands to its credit. So in some, I think the empire did good as well as evil. We can't say it did more than the other.

We can say the empire was never Nazi. in fact it was anti-Nazi, and it became increasingly humanitarian and liberal. Thank you, Nigel. Thank you, James, for a terrific and far-reaching debate. We've done exactly what I hoped we would do today, which has approached this topic with nuance and civility, something often lacking from the conversation around British Empire and its impacts on histories and peoples around the world.

So it's a credit to you both, and on behalf of the Monk membership, Thank you so much for coming on the program today. Well, that wraps up today's debate. I want to thank our debaters, James and Nigel for a terrific and far-reaching conversation. Let's hear your feedback. Send us email to podcast at Monk Debates, MUNK, DebateswithanS.com. Also a friendly reminder that our weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus, that comes out each and every Friday, is yours free to listen to in this very same podcast.

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