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Was The British Empire A Good Thing Or Not
Introduction: The British Empire was the largest colonial empire in history. Twenty five percent of the world’s people were part of the British Empire. “The sun never set on the British Empire” was a saying that showed how vast the British Empire was. This refers to the fact that the British Empire stretched right across the globe, so that when the sun was setting in Britain, it was rising in places such as Australia.
The Empire started in 1603 and ended in 1997. It ran for 394 years in total.
The Commonwealth of Nations is a group of countries. Originally, it was called the British Commonwealth of Nations which was founded in 1926 when the British Empire began to break up. Now there are 53 member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations. All except Mozambique were part of the British Empire.
Scotland was the first country to join the British Empire. This created the Stuart dynasty and was the start of the British Empire. The Republic of Ireland became independent from the British Empire in January 1922, the first country to be let go, followed by Egypt in February 1922. Hong Kong was officially the last country to become independent from the British Empire in 1997.
Benefits:
The British Empire brought good things to the colonies it ruled. For example it brought Kenya education and the Christian religion. British education enabled the people of the colonies to become well educated, allowing them to get jobs in the British army and in trading firms like the East India Trading Company. This helped Britain to win wars as all the soldiers that were sent out to fight came from all over the world, from countries as far away as New Zealand and Canada.
The British Empire brought the Christian faith to its colonies. For example, its introduction to India was a great success, with the British setting up Christian churches all over India.
The Empire also helped the ship building, iron and steel industries to prosper. This helped the export of coal for use around the world to provide fuel. With help from the British and their new technology things like raw wool and cotton could be exported and then bought back by the colonies as a finished material.
The British Empire provided business opportunities with the chance to invest money in the building of railways, harbours and plantations. Railways were made in the colonies which improved the transport links and also the roads were improved so that coffee and other goods could be transported to the harbours and then around the world. Hospitals and post offices were also built in the colonies. For example Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was unified under British ruling in 1815. Over the next 80 years the British built 2300 miles of road, 2900 miles of railway. The British Empire raised the area of land used for farming from 400,000 acres to 3.2 million acres, the livestock from 230,000 to 1.5 million, the Post Offices from 4 to 250 the telegraph lines from 0 miles to 1700 miles, the schools from 170 to 2900 and the hospitals from 0 to 65. The annual amount of goods shipped abroad went from 75,000 tons to 7 million tons. Britain had helped to create an infrastructure for many colonies in the British Empire which helped their development and raised many millions of people from poverty. Britain introduced cricket to India which is the most popular sport in their country today. Millions of Indians will be watching the ICC cricket world cup in Sri Lanka. Not many other sports are regarded in the same way as cricket is in India. Although land was taken from the lower classes in India to be given to the higher classes to farm, this was only a short term disadvantage for the people of India because the land produced more wealth afterwards. This land was put to good use for things like for coffee and tea plantations which employed more people than the previous small scale farming
The British Navy benefited from the Empire as well, with all the resources coming in to Britain from the colonies. Ships were designed to be much stronger and iron ships started to be introduced, the first of which was HMS Warrior, which was used between 1860 and 1871. She was indestructible in her day and the cost could be afforded because Britain controlled 70% of the world’s gold trade, 60% of its rubber and 50% of its rice.

Disadvantages For The Natives:
Although the British Empire did lots of good things for it’s colonies, some mistakes were made throughout British rule, which in some cases caused the death of many people. Famines in India resulted in more than 60 million deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. The last major famine was the Bengal Famine of 1943. The British could have tried to provide food for these famines, especially as India was one of Britians main sources of income with Britain selling things like coffee, rice and spices all over the world. A lot of people in the British Empires colonies were not very well treated even though, according to Queen Victoria, the aim of the British Empire was to “protect the poor natives and to advance civilization”. There was clearly more to the Empire than just trade. British imperialists believed that they were superior to the native peoples of the colonies, especially if those people were black. Even when slavery was abolished most white people in Britain continued to think that they were naturally superior to the black people. This affected the way in which the colonies were ruled. For instance, although the taking away of land in India was for a purpose, like coffee plantations, some small Indian farmers had their land taken away from them and given to the Zamidar Class (their colonial overlords). British people who went to live in other parts of the Empire, like India, because they wanted to have a better life and make money by running things like coffee plantations, did not always treat the natives as they should have done and they sometimes saw themselves as more important i.e. the British travelled in the first class carriages on the railways. When Christianity was introduced in places like India, this often caused hostility between some because of their differing beliefs. Also at the very beginning of the Empire the British were involved in the use of slaves. At the start of the 1500s slaves were being traded across continents in much the same way as sugar and rice. The slaves were needed on the plantations of the white people for the harvesting of crops and things like coffee although by the early 1800s slavery had been abolished.

Summary:
The British Empire did many bad things for its colonies but all in all I think that the British Empire was a good thing because it created an infrastructure for the countries and left behind a legacy of transport, culture and government, much of which is still in place today.