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October-Novembcr 1970
three fourths of many
k<:y
products.
For instance, world petroleum output
in 1950 was about 3.8 billion barreis.
Of tbis total, the United States
a/one
produced 52 percent - more than the
rest of the world combined. With the
British Commonwealth added, the two
powers produced 60 percent of the
world's crude petroleurn, not counting
their vast foreign investrnents.
Britain and America mined sixty per–
cent of the world's coa!, 80 percent of
the aluminum, 75 percent of the zinc,
and 95 percent of the nickel. The
British Commonwealth ( mainly South
Africa, later withdrawn from the Com–
monwealth) mined 70 percent of the
world's gold. Meanwhile the United
States
owned
73 percent of all govern–
ment-owoed gold - almost three times
as much as all other nations combined.
We produced 65 percent of all elec–
tricity. Britain and Canada alooe out–
produced the Soviet Union, Germany,
and France cornbined. The United
States ffew more airline miles, had more
railroad track miles, more telephones,
radios and TV's, and drove more motor
vehicles than the rest of the world
cornbined!
The United States naval armada was
larger than the rest of the world corn–
bined. Great Britain and the United
States possessed well over half the rner–
chaot fleet tonnage. Britain led the
world in shipbuilding.
Surely no two nations have ever been
so close to complete domination of the
entire world - econornically, rnilitarily,
and politically. And yet they had no
design to do so.
Power Not Sought For
Great nations and empires abound in
man's history, but nearly all have come
about by the sword of conquest. Unlike
previous superpowers, the United States
and the British Commonwealth grew
great
seemingiy by accidmt .
"In
the course of history," wrote
French politician and author Andre
Malraux, "all empires have been created
with prerneditation, by an cffort sus·
tained ovcr severa! generations. Every
power has been Rornan to a degree. The
United States is the first nation to
becorne the rnost powerful in the world
witho11t having so11ght to be so."
The
PLAIN TRUTH
The worldwide British Empire, like–
wise, seemed to fall into Britain's lap by
"accident." Britain had only limited
colonies or military power in the
1700's. In fact, after America's indepen–
dence was won in the 1780's, Britain
had just scraps of empire.
But the American and French revolu–
tions made possible British industrial
and ecooomic revolution. "British pres–
tige reached its lowest ebb at the end of
the American revolution. The loss of
the best part of the empi re seemed
London, England
The British lion and Big Ben-symbols
of the once-powerful British Empire.
Ambou(Jdor
College
l'hoto
pos1t1ve proof that
Britflin'J
dti)'
ll"tlJ
done.
European observers were con–
vinced that it was, and many English–
men thought so too," wrote one expert
on British history.
"Yet
the dfl)'J' of British greatneSJ,
far from being ended,
tvere abo11t to
begin.
New life was stirring in the
land, new life that was to make
Britaiu
iefld the wodd"
(Alfred Leroy Burt,
The Evoiuti011 of the British Empire
fllld Commollu'eflith,
p.
15).
That new life had been forming for
over a century, since the completing of
the union of the nations on the British
home islands. As long as they fought
5
among themselves, they could not
become great. First Walcs and then Ire–
land was won for the Empire ( although
Southem
Ireland was later lost). Then
the English and Scottish crowns were
united in 1603 when King James
VJ
of Scotland became also James
I of Englaod on the dcath of his
childless cousin Queen Elizabeth. But
their greatness was sealed when the two
nations united their Parliaments in
l
707 (although they retained separate
national identities, separate legal and
cducational systems, and separate State
church establishmcnts).
Napoleon "Makes Britain
Great"
The French Revolution, more than
any other event after the union of 1707,
gave Britain her Empire. First of all,
the revolution and subsequent Napo–
leonic Wars retarded industrial develop–
ment on the continent, just as it was
beginning. But it stimulated industry in
Britain. This helped the British Isles to
open up a
fift;·)eflr iead
jn the Indus–
trial Revolution.
Sccondly, in ordcr to defend them–
selves against Napoleon, the Brítish