Was British Colonial Rule Really THAT Bad?

The Brits get a real bad wrap these days. And, as a company based in one of their former colonies — we sort of get it. As the saying went, “the sun never set on the British Empire” — seriously, it didn’t…

But, let’s put this into perspective. If you were a developing nation, and you had to pick a European power to be colonized by…you really wanted it to be the British. Hear us out for a second.

Sure, the British Empire wasn’t exactly a beacon of what we would now call democracy. Except…it sort of was at the time. The country was among the first to adopt a modern parliamentary system, and its colonies actually enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is why the late independence movements in places like India were largely blood-less.

The same cannot be said for Belgium’s monarch, or Napoleon’s French Empire, or the Russian Empire, or the Japanese Empire…or really any other country that had the word “empire” in its name.

There’s a reason why many former colonies still keep the House of Windsor as the head of state. The Queen of England still graces the currency in many African countries. And the reason why is that the Brits really weren’t that bad. In fact, many locations are far better off because of the western-style democracy and free market economics the UK left behind. Hong Kong is one of the best examples we have.


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