# ARTICLES
## INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE COLONIAL EMPIRE AND THE IMPERIAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCE AT OTTAWA 1932
### NORMAN MINERS
It is generally agreed that the development of manufacturing industry in the colonial empire was very limited. A recent study of colonial development describes progress before independence as derisory.1 Joseph Chamberlain spoke of the colonies as a great underdeveloped estate that must be developed with imperial assistance for the sake of the local population and also for the benefit of the whole world. Similar sentiments were expressed by Lord Lugard, Lord Milner, Leopold Amery and many others. But development was seen primarily as the expanded production of foodstuffs, raw materials and minerals. Colonial governments encouraged the production of cash crops for export and built the roads, railways and harbours to transport produce to markets overseas, but they were unwilling to spend their limited tax revenues to assist the establishment of local industries.
The attitude of the British government was that the colonies were essentially agricultural and producers of primary commodities in a complementary partnership with the industrialised nations, chiefly the United Kingdom. The artificial encouragement of manufacturing was contrary to the prevailing ideology of free trade and the belief that the state should not intervene to distort the free play of economic forces. Expatriate trading firms were interested in the profits to be made from exports and imports rather than the processing of primary products or manufacturing for the local market. Indigenous businessmen were few and faced formidable obstacles such as the small size of the local market, unskilled and untrained labour, lack of access to long-term credit from foreign banks and competition from established imports from the metropolis.
It is said that the industrial development of the colonies was deliberately restrained by the British government, which was unduly deferential to commercial interests who objected to local manufacture displacing exports from Britain. It has also been claimed that colonial governors were reluctant to put forward schemes for industrial development because they believed they should act as trustees for the native peoples and avoid the disruption of traditional society by the social effects of industrialisation.3
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol.30, No.2, May 2002, pp.53-76
PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON