Economic power at the periphery: Canada, Australia and South Africa, 1850–1914

In minimizing colonial autonomy, Cain and Hopkins register their 'dissatisfaction with the peripheral thesis' and the 'claim that the fundamental cause of imperialism is to be found on the periphery itself. They also stress that the machinations of financial capital have more explanatory power than the needs of industrial capital in identifying the source of the actions of the imperial state. ¹ In reaching these conclusions they devote considerable space to the temperate zone colonies of the empire established by substantial European migrant populations (see esp. C&H, I, pp. 202-75, 369-81; II, pp. 107-45). Here we examine the options open to imperial policy-makers to impose their priorities in Britain's relations with the expansive settlement colonies of Canada, Australia and South Africa. This approach has been suggested by Donald Denoon's work, which compares six polities in the southern hemisphere, including Australia and South Africa, and which probes their relationship with the metropole and emphasizes that 'settler capitalists' pursued export-led development to considerable material advantage. ² While Denoon does not concern himself with Canada, he does make reference to how his settler societies fared in relation to the USA. Since Cain and Hopkins's first volume concentrates on the period 1850-1914, this chapter will do the same. In each colonial case we begin with 1911. This year has been selected for two reasons: by then all three colonies had a central government; and at that particular juncture political and economic developments in each illuminate particularly well both 114the differences and the similarities in their internal dynamics and in their relations with the metropole.