Britain Abroad

_{Britain, like other European powers, was hurrying to conquer huge areas of Africa. © Alamy}

The years around 1891 were dominated by the scramble for Africa – the right to dominate the people, raw materials and territories of the Dark Continent.

Europeans were well equipped to occupy land as far as their forces would allow thanks to the refinement of quinine as a protection against malaria and the quick-firing Maxim gun that outclassed weapons used by locals.

The only rein on this imperial ambition was the competition of other European nations, which were equally technologically equipped. By 1891 order had to be brought to the map of conquest.

Britain made an agreement with France over spheres of influence in Africa in June – the same month an agreement with Portugal recognised British control of Nyasaland and Mashonaland while Portugal received acknowledgement of its dominance of land west of its territory of Mozambique. This followed up a deal with Germany of 1890 where the African island of Zanzibar that the Germans owned was swapped with Britain for the island of Heligoland in the North Sea that the British had taken in the Napoleonic Wars. The inhabitants of these lands were not consulted as to their fates.

All this diplomacy made little stir in the headlines but it represented an underlying determination not to go to war with other Europeans over imperial territories. More dangerous were European alliances. France and Russia this year agreed an entente that bound them to each other in case of an attack on either – an agreement aimed at defending them from future German aggression.

Another pointer to the future was the introduction in Germany of the state pension this year. Forward thinkers were already saying that if Britain wanted to stay competitive against newly industrialised nations, social provision would have to be introduced or an impoverished workforce would cause massive upheaval. An example was seen in France where nine people were killed and 30 wounded when troops fired on a workers’ May Day demonstration in support of an eight-hour day.

Horrified at social unrest, the British Cardinal Manning and German Bishop von Ketteler wrote a papal encyclical delivered to all Catholic bishops. Rerum Novarum rejected socialism but sympathised with “the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working clas”. Socialist parties were turning their backs on revolutionary activity on the streets, in favour of winning power by the ballot box.

In a British demonstration of this international trend, Keir Hardie, who moved to London in 1891 to seek his political fortune, would become Britain’s first Labour MP, as an independent for West Ham South at the 1892 election.

New Zealand had a new prime minister, John Ballance. His Liberal majority was committed to votes for women and a bill was promoted in 1891 that failed by two votes in the conservative upper house. Despite this, New Zealand was well on its way to becoming the first nation in the world to enfranchise women. It was achieved in 1893, but by then Ballance was dead.

Jad Adams