The Scottish Nation at Empire's End

B. Glass

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137427304
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The rise and fall of the British Empire profoundly shaped the history of modern Scotland and the identity of its people. From the Act of Union in 1707 to the dramatic fall of the British Empire following the Second World War, Scotland's involvement in commerce, missionary activity, cultural dissemination, emigration, and political action could not be dissociated from British overseas endeavours. In fact, Scottish national pride and identity were closely associated with the benefits bestowed on this small nation through its access to the British Empire. By examining the opinions of Scots towards the empire from numerous professional and personal backgrounds, Scotland emerges as a nation inextricably linked to the British Empire. Whether Scots categorized themselves as proponents, opponents, or victims of empire, one conclusion is clear: they maintained an abiding interest in the empire even as it rapidly disintegrated during the twenty-year period following the Second World War. In turn, the end of the British Empire coincided with the rise of Scottish nationalism and calls for Scotland to extricate itself from the Union. Decolonization had a major impact on Scottish political consciousness in the years that followed 1965, and the implications for the sustainability of the British state are still unfolding today.

1

Scottish Business and Empire

Business was at the heart of the British Empire. Trade helped build the empire, both formal and informal, and remained its raison d’être even as other notions, such as the civilizing mission, grabbed the headlines as well as the hearts and minds of many British people. According to the historiography, the strong connection between capitalists and government actually led business pressure groups to agitate for safe markets in the empire and demand Westminster backing when searching for new opportunities to invest their capital in previously untapped areas.¹ This close connection between capitalists and the British Government meant that economics played a crucial role in the development of imperial policy. This, however, raises an important question. Since British business was intimately connected with the British Empire, how did its leaders react to the winding down of empire during the era of decolonization? More specifically, how did Scottish businessmen view the end of empire?

In order to understand the views of Scots towards imperial business concerns it is important to unveil the state of the economy at home. Scotland’s economy following the end of the Second World War remained stubbornly concentrated on the heavy industries of coal, steel, and shipbuilding. These three industries dominated the Scottish economy from 1870 to 1950.² Even though steel and shipbuilding would remain integral components of the Scottish economy into the 1960s, much of this continued production was done at the behest of politicians looking to placate social pressures.³ Market forces were, at times, largely ignored. This placed great strain on the Scottish economy, leading to economic turmoil especially from the late 1950s. Accordingly, Scotland needed access to all of the external markets it could secure or hold.⁴ The imperial markets cultivated by Scottish businesses provided possible relief to the problems at home. Scottish imperial business, after all, had a long and storied history of providing for the nation.

This chapter begins by looking at the history of Scottish attempts to build their own commercial empire before the Act of Union of 1707, culminating with the Darien Scheme. The Darien Scheme was a business venture that involved a large proportion of the Scottish population as investors and exemplified the overwhelming Scottish desire to build a commercial empire of their own. This aspiration nearly bankrupted the country and helped bring about the Union of 1707. The chapter then looks at the first major Scottish commercial success within the British Empire: the powerful role of Glaswegian merchants in the tobacco trade between 1740 and the American War of Independence. A brief investigation of Scottish business interests within the empire during the nineteenth century will follow.

The focus then turns to the era of decolonization and three Scottish businesses in particular: John Lean and Sons, a muslin manufacturer in Glasgow; the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, run by the Scotsman Sir William Fraser; and the African Lakes Corporation, a multifaceted trading organization based solely in the Nyasaland Protectorate. The archives of all three of these distinct business ventures do not demonstrate a close attachment between commerce and the continuation of empire as the latter rapidly collapsed. Instead, the leaders of these businesses were adamantly against agitating the nationalists in their respective spheres of operation on the Indian subcontinent, in Iran, and in Nyasaland. They all believed that business and nationalist politics were like oil and water: they did not mix. With these three businesses being dependent on foreign territories for their survival, either within the formal or informal British Empire, they focused on placating the indigenous peoples. For Scottish business leaders, this seemed to be the only sensible thing to do as British influence waned.

The final section of this chapter investigates working-class views on the end of the empire. The General Council of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), with substantial input from its members, passed resolutions and then submitted the organization’s views to the government minister responsible. This section demonstrates the anti-imperial nature of the STUC’s members as they, for the most part, vilified the British Government for the continuance of empire. But this was not the opinion of all members of the working class. Many working-class men and women, including those within the Orange Order, were strong supporters of the British Empire. Thus, the views and resolutions of the STUC represent only one variant of the opinion of workers on the British Empire.

Overall, this chapter demonstrates that the era of decolonization elicited both expected and unexpected views from business elites and workers. Whether they made their views explicit or quietly discussed the repercussions of its end, all members of what may be dubbed the business class shared one thing in common: an abiding interest in the British Empire.

Scottish Commercial Empire-Building Prior to Union

The Scottish understood the importance of foreign trade well before the Act of Union of 1707 exposed them to the opportunities presented by the British Empire. Trade was considered by elites to be the means of asserting the independence of Scotland from its more powerful English neighbour.⁵ Trade was also determined to be the fastest way to wealth, which would solve the omnipresent problem of a stagnant Scottish economy.⁶ In 1622, Sir William Alexander established a Scottish colony in present-day Nova Scotia. After ten fairly unproductive years, the territory was surrendered to France via treaty. The Guinea Company of Scotland, formed in 1636, attempted to trade with Africa. However, after just one year the Company failed when its ship, the St. Andrew of Edinburgh, was seized by the Portuguese and its crew murdered.⁷ A further hindrance to the development of Scottish trade occurred with the passage of the Navigation Act by the English Parliament in 1660. This act prevented the Scots from trading with the English colonies.⁸ A more concentrated effort by the Scots to break into global trade occurred with excursions to South Carolina in 1682 and East New Jersey in 1685. While the South Carolina settlement was overrun by superior Spanish military forces in September 1686, the East New Jersey colony proved much more successful given that it was the product of collaboration between both Scottish and English Quakers.⁹ The Scots did not enjoy great success with their early colonial ventures, but the collective appetite of the country had been whetted by the economic possibilities of a grand imperial enterprise.

William of Orange arrived in England in 1688. In 1689, William and Mary were declared the rightful monarchs of England, Wales, and Scotland first by the Convention Parliament in England and then by the Scottish Parliament. William immediately embarked upon a foreign policy defined by almost constant war with France. The war with France was not only debilitating because of the manpower demanded by the Royal Navy, but it also reduced Scottish trade with the Continent.¹⁰ As the 1690s progressed, Scotland would be hit with a calamitous famine. The first harvest to fail occurred in August 1695. It was followed by failures in 1696 and 1697. The year 1697 did not carry the same consequences as a result of the two-pronged move by the Privy Council to pay a bounty on imports for two months beginning in August 1696 and the prohibition of grain exports. This mechanism allowed Scotland to stockpile grain. The famine continued in 1698 with yet another failed crop just as the first set of Darien settlers were on their way west to try to change the economic fortunes of Scotland. Only with the successful harvests in 1699 and 1700 did the spectre of famine fade from the Scottish collective conscience.¹¹ The damage to the Scottish economy created by the famine had been immense. Scotland amassed high trade deficits in its attempt to feed the population during the famine years.¹² Yet, the Darien expedition pushed onwards. Thus, Darien, or a similar grand trading project, was viewed as the best way for Scotland to escape its inherent poverty. According to the Scottish political philosopher and statesman Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, Darien was a gamble to ‘recover us from our miserable and despicable condition.’¹³ For the Scots, commerce was the sole reason for engaging in empire. Darien seemed the perfect solution for Scotland’s economic woes.

The Darien Expedition

The Darien Scheme was officially put to the Directors of the Company of Scotland on 28 July 1696.¹⁴ In 1698 the first of the two Darien expeditions set sail from Leith with a view towards alleviating Scotland’s endemic economic woes.¹⁵ Upon arrival at the Isthmus of Darien, the Scots established the town of New Edinburgh with Fort St. Andrew to defend it.¹⁶ In addition to an inhospitable climate, which ravaged the settlers with disease and death, the Scots were attempting to erect a colony loathed by both the Spanish and English colonial powers.¹⁷ Although political thinkers as diverse as John Locke and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun thought that the Darien Scheme was economically sound, the opposition facing the Scots proved too overwhelming for the financially strained country to handle.¹⁸

The Isthmus of Darien lies in present-day Panama and was strategically located between two of the Spanish Empire’s most important colonial cities: Cartagena and Portobelo. Cartagena was one of Spain’s great naval bases in the Caribbean, while Portobelo served as the focal point of Spanish trade in the region. A successful Scottish colony at Darien would have undermined Spanish prestige as a great imperial power and threatened their existing commercial enterprises.¹⁹ The Spanish attacks on the Scottish colony at Darien were expected. What the Scots were not counting on was severe opposition from the English.

Lord Tweeddale, King William’s regent in Scotland, approved the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies in 1695 while the king was engaged on the Continent in war with France. William was angered that the Act had been passed in his absence because he felt that it could be damaging to English commercial interests.²⁰ The king is recorded as stating that the Act establishing the Company had left him ‘ill-served by Scotland.’²¹ But of more pressing importance were the strategic difficulties that could arise if William placed English support behind the Scots. On 20 May 1697, a letter from the Right Honourable James Vernon, Principal Secretary of State to King William, reached the English Board of Trade. The correspondence outlined that the Company of Scotland had set its sights on Darien for its imperial endeavour. Mr Vernon asked the Board what should be done to prevent the Scots from succeeding in a project that would injure the Spaniards and be ‘prejudicial to the trade of this kingdom.’²² The Earl of Tankerville, assisted by John Locke, conducted a thorough analysis of the feasibility of the Darien Scheme and presented it to the Board of Trade on 2 July 1697. Their findings were the following:

It would be no very difficult matter for any European prince or estate to make some secure settlement in Darien, and, by a fair correspondence with the natives, engage them in defence against all enemies. How injurious this will be to the Spaniards is easily conceived; and how prejudicial to his Majesty’s colonies, especially Jamaica, by alluring away the inhabitants, is hard to be expressed. They therefore recommend a proclamation against joining the enemies of Spain, and to respect the treaties, especially those of Madrid 8/18 July, 1670; and also a prohibition of help to the Scotch, and to take any Englishmen here in Scotch ships.²³

Accordingly, William declared that no English colonies should provide aid to the Scottish colonizers of Darien.²⁴ After all, the Spanish were a major ally of William in his wars with France. Strategically, he could not afford to lose their support or, even worse, have them ally with the French. The Scots were left to their own devices. Given the weak financial state of the country, they were bound to fail, and the Union became a viable solution to the severe economic difficulties they faced.

Scottish Imperial Business after 1707

Following the Act of Union of 1707, the Scots were slow to engage with the empire commercially. The nation was wracked by the Jacobite Rebellions, which exacerbated the Highland-Lowland divide. Internecine conflict seemed to be the norm rather than the exception. However, beginning around 1740 Scottish tobacco merchants centred in Glasgow began to surge forward in this imperial trade. The trade in tobacco would grow to become ‘the most remarkable example of Scottish commercial ente...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1 Scottish Business and Empire
• 2 The Church and the Empire
• 3 Debating the Empire in Public
• 4 Covering the Empire in Print
• 5 Teaching the Empire
• 6 Witnesses to Decolonization
• Epilogue
• Appendix A Questions from Scottish Leaving Certificate Examinations with Imperial Content
• Appendix B Additional Responding Secondary Schools
• Appendix C Questions Asked by the Scottish Decolonisation Project
• Appendix D The Very Reverend George MacLeod’s Speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 25 May 1959, Presenting the Report of the Committee anent Central Africa and Moving the ‘Deliverance’
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index