Editing New Imperialism (section)

===Britain during the era===
{{Further|Historiography of the British Empire}}
[[File:old disraeli.jpg|thumb|upright|British Prime Minister [[Benjamin Disraeli]] and [[Queen Victoria]]]]

In Britain, the age of new imperialism marked a time for significant economic changes.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Xypolia |first1=Ilia |title=Divide et Impera: Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions of British Imperialism |journal=Critique |date=2016 |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=221–231 |doi=10.1080/03017605.2016.1199629 |hdl=2164/9956 |s2cid=148118309 |url=http://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/9956/1/Xypolia_Divide_et_Impera_Vertical_and_Horizontal_imperialism.pdf |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Because the country was the first to industrialize, Britain was technologically ahead of many other countries throughout the majority of the nineteenth century.<ref name="Lambert">Lambert, Tim. "England in the 19th Century." Localhistories.org. 2008. 24 March 2015. [http://www.localhistories.org/19thcentengland.html]</ref> By the end of the nineteenth century, however, other countries, chiefly Germany and the United States, began to challenge Britain's technological and economic power.<ref name="Lambert" /> After several decades of monopoly, the country was battling to maintain a dominant economic position while other powers became more involved in international markets. In 1870, Britain contained 31.8% of the world's manufacturing capacity while the United States contained 23.3% and Germany contained 13.2%.<ref name="Platt">Platt, D.C.M. "Economic Factors in British Policy during the 'New Imperialism.'" ''Past and Present'', Vol. 39, (April 1968). pp.120–138. jstor.org. 23 March 2015. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/649858?seq=18#page_scan_tab_contents]</ref> By 1910, Britain's manufacturing capacity had dropped to 14.7%, while that of the United States had risen to 35.3% and that of Germany to 15.9%.<ref name="Platt" /> As countries like Germany and America became more economically successful, they began to become more involved with imperialism, resulting in the British struggling to maintain the volume of British trade and investment overseas.<ref name="Platt" />

Britain further faced strained international relations with three expansionist powers (Japan, Germany, and Italy) during the early twentieth century. Before 1939, these three powers never directly threatened Britain itself, but the dangers to the Empire were clear.<ref name="Davis">Davis, John. ''A History of Britain, 1885–1939''. MacMillan Press, 1999. Print.</ref> By the 1930s, Britain was worried that Japan would threaten its holdings in the Far East as well as territories in India, Australia and New Zealand.<ref name="Davis" /> Italy held an interest in North Africa, which threatened British Egypt, and German dominance of the European continent held some danger for Britain's security.<ref name="Davis" /> Britain worried that the expansionist powers would cause the breakdown of international stability; as such, British foreign policy attempted to protect the stability in a rapidly changing world.<ref name="Davis" /> With its stability and holdings threatened, Britain decided to adopt a policy of concession rather than resistance, a policy that became known as [[appeasement]].<ref name="Davis" />

In Britain, the era of new imperialism affected public attitudes toward the idea of imperialism itself. Most of the public believed that if imperialism was going to exist, it was best if Britain was the driving force behind it.<ref name="Ward">Ward, Paul. ''Britishness Since 1870''. Routledge, 2004. Print.</ref> The same people further thought that British imperialism was a force for good in the world.<ref name="Ward" /> In 1940, the Fabian Colonial Research Bureau argued that Africa could be developed both economically and socially, but until this development could happen, Africa was best off remaining with the [[British Empire]]. Rudyard Kipling's 1891 poem, "The English Flag," contains the stanza:
<blockquote><poem>
     Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro--
        And what should they know of England who only England know?--
     The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
        They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.readbookonline.org/readOnLine/2727/|last=Kipling|first=Rudyard|title=The English Flag|publisher= Readbookonline.org|date=1891|access-date=23 March 2015}}</ref></poem></blockquote>

These lines show Kipling's belief that the British who actively took part in imperialism knew more about British national identity than the ones whose entire lives were spent solely in the imperial metropolis.<ref name="Ward" /> While there were pockets of anti-imperialist opposition in Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, resistance to imperialism was nearly nonexistent in the country as a whole.<ref name="Ward" /> In many ways, this new form of imperialism formed a part of the British identity until the end of the era of new imperialism with the Second World War.<ref name="Ward" />