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Cape to Alexandria, his British South
Africa Company pressing north.
There was a desire for a Cape–Cairo
railway, which sounded like a good
idea but has yet to reach completion.
In 1879–1890, the British
partitioned West and East Africa. In
the Scramble for Africa they
eventually ended up with the largest
share of empire, with nearly 30
percent of Africans coming under
British control, compared with 15
percent under the French.
Today, ex-British colonies (and
one former Portuguese) remain
members of the Commonwealth,
with many having English as a
useful international lingua franca. It
was Britain’s intention to leave
behind democratic parliaments,
modeled on Westminster; a legal
system; and military, police, civil
and educational services based
along British lines. Citizens may
drive on the left and enormous
numbers of them still enjoy a game
of cricket.
The problem for all empire-
builders was that colonies needed to
be self-financing: a centralized
bureaucracy
and an army cost money
and the European taxpayer was
neither keen on meeting the expense,
nor were African taxpayers in a
position to finance such institutions;
had they been forced to pay up, they
might have rebelled and a rebellion
was far too serious to contemplate.
A Concise History of Africa
65