The sun never set on the British Empire
because the sun sets in the West
and the British Empire was in the East.Anonymous Student
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!Rudyard Kipling, "Recessional," 1897
Below is a 81.9K animated GIF file. In older computers, it may take a while to load, though individual frames should display during loading; and then, as the file runs, it may slow down the response of your computer for scrolling and other functions, even when the browser is minimized and other programs are used. With older versions of Netscape, the animation could be stopped at any time by hitting the "STOP" key, though this may not work with Explorer or newer versions of Netscape. Animation can be restarted by reloading the page or by leaving and returning to the page. Note that Los Angeles, the home of The Proceedings of the Friesian School, is in the same time zone as Vancouver (GMT -8).
Not all British possessions are listed in the image, only representative ones for each of the 24 time zones of the Earth. (All British possessions are listed below.) The time zones themselves may be said to be artifacts of the British Empire, since they are based on the Meridian of Greenwich (at the original Royal Observatory, 1675-1953, in London), which since 1884 is the internationally accepted prime meridian for the calculation of longitude. The animation may also be used to inspect the operation of the International Dateline, which divides the -12h/+12h time zone. It is interesting to note that although several places in the Pacific might fall into the -12h time zone, the Dateline itself and the boundaries of the -11h zone are today drawn in such a way that no jurisdiction uses the -12h zone (Tonga, formerly British, uses +12h; Midway Island & the Aleutians use -11h). Some time zone boundaries have been changed since 1937. Gambia no longer seems to be in the -1h time zone. Also, there have been several time zones that are at a half hour rather than a whole hour interval from Greenwich, including today India (+5h30m), Burma (+6h30m), and central Australia (+9h30m). My source for the 1937 zones (in the Atlas of the British Empire, edited by Christopher Bayly, Facts on File, 1989, p.246) does not clearly indicate these variations, so no attempt is made to represent them.
The "British Empire" was not a de jure entity (like the German Empire, Austrian Empire, Russian Empire, or Japanese Empire), since Britain itself was a kingdom (the "United Kingdom" of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). One British possession, however, was an empire, namely India. Queen Victoria became "Empress of India" in 1876. Subsequently, the term "imperial" worked its way into various official terminology about British possessions, e.g. the "Imperial General Staff" and the "Imperial War Museum." When India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Indian Empire ceased to exist and both countries became, for a time, Dominions -- the category for previous British self-governing territories, starting with Canada (1867) and later coming to include the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, and, for a time (1926-1934), little Newfoundland (which did not join Canada until 1949). As the "Empire" faded, the British Commonwealth took over, though that organization seemed to offer less and less as time went on in terms of real economic, military, or political advantages.
Today Queen Elizabeth II is still the official Head of State of scattered former possessions, like the Solomon Islands; but the British connection for the remaining Dominions (Canada, Australia, & New Zealand) has been increasingly compromised and questioned -- with even the term "Dominion" itself passing out of usage. Canada has come up with its own flag (losing the Union Jack canton), its own national anthem ("Oh Canada!"), its own constitution, and its own perhaps fatal political division between francophone Quebec and all the other, sometimes bitterly resentful anglophone provinces (resentful in part for the cost of bilingualism -- mandated for federal business everywhere, while Quebec restricts or prohibits public uses of English -- New Brunswick is the only Province that is officially bilingual). Why Canada should then continue with a "Queen's Government," or even as a single country, is increasingly an open question. When I visited British Columbia as a child in 1959, there were Union Jacks as well as Canadian Ensigns on sale everywhere for tourists. On my last visits to Canada, in 1995 (at Niagra Falls) and 2004 (Toronto), there were no Union Jacks to be seen at all -- but in a park in Toronto I did notice a statue of Edward VII that had been relocated from Delhi! Meanwhile, Australia, always resentful of much of what happened in World War I (at Gallipoli) and in World War II (at Singapore and in Burma), contains a powerful movement to become a Republic. Recently, however (November 6, 1999), this was put to stand-up vote and lost; so Australia will remain a Dominion (or whatever) for a while yet. The British Empire, in one sense long gone, confirmed with the return of Hong Kong to Communist China in 1997, thus continues a slow fade everywhere. At the same time, British sovereignty in Britain itself becomes increasingly compromised by participation in the ill designed, ill considered, corrupt, and heavy handed Euro-government of the European Community, and by separatist movements in Scotland, Wales, and, as always, Ireland.
In 1909 the British Empire encompassed 20% of the land area of the Earth and 23% of its population. Although the first industrial power, by 1900 Britain had been surpassed by both United States and by Germany; but Britain was still the financial center of the world and the premier merchant carrier.
| 1900 | 1914 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Import/Export millions of £ | Import/Export millions of £ | Investment millions of £ | |
| Canada | 22/8 | 22.2/9.6 | 500 |
| United States | 139/20 | 138.8/37.4 | 750 |
| India | 27/30 | 27.4/31.0 | 400 |
| Australia | 24/22 | 23.8/23.6 | 400 |
| New Zealand | 10/6 | 11.6/5.9 | |
| West Indies | 2/4 | 1.8/4.7 | 750 |
| South America | 28/24 | 287.3/216.5 | |
| Europe | 221/118 | 200 | |
| Mediterranean | 27/21 | ||
| Middle East | 19/12 | 1000 | |
| East Asia | 20/26 | ||
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 8/20 | 8.4/21.6 | |
| Bayly's Atlas, pp. 170-171 | Lloyd's British Empire, p. 423 | Lloyd's British Empire, p. 258 | |
Indeed, Britain in this period is running a large trade deficit. This is usually taken as a sign of British decline. However, as David Hume noted as early as 1752, this really just means that enough money is exported to make up the difference. This would cause a deflation, unless enough money is created or brought in (for investment) to make up the difference. Since Britain did not experience any deflation after the 1890's, it is fairly clear that the money flows were correcting the balance. This kind of thing was later thought to be indicative of American decline when the United States began to run large trade deficits and in the 1980's became a net debtor from foreign investment in United States securities. However, the dire predictions at the time gave no hint of the relative strength of the United States economy, with good growth, low unemployment, and negligible inflation in the 1990's, with the American advantage over Europe and Japan increasing in the course of the decade. By 1999, the United States economy was all but carrying, Atlas-like, the stagnant or shrinking economies of the rest of the world.
The British balance of trade and balance of payments situation in 1900 thus need not have been an indicator of any real ill health. British decline ultimately had to be from other causes, like an absolute decline in innovation and investment at home. Indeed, when Americans in the 1980's worried about the Japanese buying up the United States, the largest foreign investors were actually British -- which for the future meant American growth rather than British growth.
Another lesson to be read off the trade figures is that a relatively small fraction of British trade involved colonies that would later constitute the "Third World." Indeed, the only trade surpluses in the table are with India, Africa, the West Indies, and the Far East, which might give some heart to Marxist claims that British colonies, especially India, were the outlet for Capitalist "excess production." However, the trade surpluses are small, and overall British trade with India and the other colonies is hardly larger than with the much, much smaller populations of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. No serious argument can be made that the likes of Australia and New Zealand, with their own autonomous governments and protective tariffs, were being "exploited" by Great Britain. Instead the largest British export market is simply with the rest of Europe. Indeed, Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada, etc. are the places where more people would have enough money to buy British goods.
The figures for investment reveal the truth about the thesis first advanced by J.A. Hobson in 1902 (Imperialism), and later taken up by Lenin, that British conquest followed British investment. Hobson wished to explain the recent Boer War as the effect of £400 million of investment in the South African gold and diamond minds. Lenin saw British colonies as the necessary outlet for British capital, as well as for British capitalist "overproduction." Unfortunately, if this thesis were true, then the British should have been conquering the United States, not South Africa, since the largest single destination of British investment was the Americas, but Canada was the only large scale British possession.
In the following list of present and former British possessions, current British possessions and dependencies are in boldface red, current members of the British Commonwealth are in plain red, and independent states in the Commonwealth that retain Queen Elizabeth as their Head of State are followed by a crown, 
. The list of Princely States in India is incomplete but is certainly enough to convey the complexity of the place under British rule.
One artifact of British influence is the side of the road on which traffic moves. In Britain, you drive on the left, and cars have the steering wheel on the right. It was probably France and United States that established the larger international patern of driving on the right, with the steering wheel on the left. In Europe, only Austria-Hungary, Portugal, and Sweden followed the British pattern The successors to Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary, switched to the right, ironically, only under the occupation or influence of Nazi Germany. Portugal and Sweden, however, switched on their own. Elsewhere, switches from left to right reflect the decline in British influence. This would appear to be the case with places like China, Argentina, and Ethiopia. In former British colonies, this is also understandable. However, three significant countries still drive on the left, without a heritage of British control: Japan, Thailand, and Indonesia. Otherwise, major former British possessions, like a large part of Africa, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, etc. preserve the British preference.
The animated GIF file on this page was originally 226.2K in size. Sven Mitsdörffer sent me a 43.8K version, which, however, did not seem entirely compatible with my assembler [the Alchemy Mind Works GIF Construction Set (32-Bit) 1.0Q, 1995]. The present 81.9K image is one that is redone using some of the techniques I found in Sven's version.
Atlas of the British Empire, edited by Christopher Bayly, Facts on File, 1989
The Black Battlefleet, by Admiral G.A. Ballard, Naval Institute Press, 1980
British Battleships, "Warrior" 1860 to "Vanguard" 1950, A History of Design, Construction and Armament, by Oscar Parkes, Seeley Service & Co., London, 1957
The British Conquest and Dominion of India, Sir Penderel Moon, Duckworth/Indiana University Press, 1989
The British Empire, 1558-1995, by T.O. Lloyd, The Short Oxford History of the Modern World, general editor J.M. Roberts, Oxford, 1996
Castles of Steel -- Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea, by Robert K. Massie, Random House, 2003
Crucible of War, The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, Fred Anderson, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000
Dreadnought -- Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War, by Robert K. Massie, Random House, 1991
End of Empire, by Brian Lapping, St. Martin's Press, 1985
Great Battles of the Royal Navy, as Commemorated in the Gunroom, Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, editor-in-chief Eric Grove, Naval Institute Press, 1994
The Horizon History of the British Empire, edited by Stephen W. Sears, American Heritage Publishing/BBC/Time-Life Books/McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973
Jutland, An analysis of the fighting, by NJM Campbell, Naval Institute Press, 1986
The Oxford History of the British Empire
The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, edited by Kenneth O. Morgan, Oxford, 1984
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy, general editor J.R. Hill, Oxford, 1995
The Pax Britannica Trilogy, by James Morris, Harvest/HBJ/Helen Kurt Wolff Book
The Royal Navy, An Illustrated History, by Anthony J. Watts, Naval Institute Press, 1994
Prime Ministers of the Dominions
The Kings of England and Scotland
British Coins before the Florin, Compared to French Coins of the Ancien Régime
| Prime Ministers of Canada | |
|---|---|
| Sir John A. MacDonald | 1867-1873, 1878-1891 |
| Alexander MacKenzie | 1873-1878 |
| John Abbott | 1891-1892 |
| John Thompson | 1892-1894 |
| Mackenzie Bowell | 1894-1896 |
| Charles Tupper | 1896 |
| Sir Wilfrid Laurier | 1896-1911 |
| Sir Robert Borden | 1911-1920 |
| Arthur Meighen | 1920-1921, 1926 |
| William Lyon MacKenzie King | 1921-1926, 1926-1930, 1935-1948 |
| Richard Bennett | 1930-1935 |
| Louis Saint Laurent | 1948-1957 |
| John Diefenbaker | 1957-1963 |
| Lester Pearson | 1963-1968 |
| Pierre Trudeau | 1968-1979, 1980-1984 |
| Joe Clark | 1979-1980 |
| John Turner | 1984 |
| Brian Mulroney | 1984-1993 |
| Kim Campbell | 1993 |
| Jean Chrétien | 1993-2003 |
| Paul Martin | 2003-2006 |
| Stephen Harper | 2006-present |
Canada was the first Dominion, a term invented for the specific purpose of referring to it as a self-governing possession of the British Crown, rather than having the country be a "kingdom" (orignally what John MacDonald wanted) or some other traditional territorial realm. The term was suggested by S.L. Tilley of New Brunswick, who, while negotiating in London in 1866, found it in the (King James) 72nd Psalm: "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth" ["May he have dominion" in the Revised Standard Version, 1952, or "He will rule" in The Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, 1987]. Recently, official usage of "Dominion" seems to have been discontinued, though even Canadian correspondents are unclear about exactly when this was done, or if "Dominion" was ever legally abandoned at all. The Constitution Act of 1982, which "patriated" the British North America Act of 1867 (i.e. made it Canadian rather than British law), does not use the term, but neither does it say not to use it. Either way, Canada is now in practice simply "Canada," neither a republic nor a kingdom. If anything, it could end up being called a "federation" or "confederation," the way Australia has been a "Commonwealth" since 1901. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says of "Dominion" that "after 1947 the use of the expression was abandoned because it was thought in some quarters to imply a form of subordination," though it does not say if any official act or legal instrument was involved in this. Since "Dominion" was coined and adopted by Canadians for Canada, it is a little sad if it is now abandoned for somehow implying colonial subordination to Britain. Designations like "kingdom" or "republic" traditionally indicate where sovereignty in a country resides, i.e. whether with a king, over a kingdom, or with the people, over a republic, respectively. Whether a monarch is a king, prince, emperor, etc. depends on whether the domain is a kingdom, principality, empire, etc. "Dominion" addressed a case where sovereignty resides in a monarch -- Canada is not a republic -- but the domain itself does not confer a particular title.
Newfoundland did not join Canada until 1949, and for a brief period it was even a Dominion in its own right (1926-1934) -- though it was not regarded as a separate state for purposes of membership in the League of Nations.
Almost from the beginning Canada had to contend with comparison to, and influence from, the Great Republic to the south. Indeed, one of the first acts of the Dominion was to adopt a Dollar coin equal in value (in gold) to the United States Dollar. Canadian silver and bronze coinage, however, for many years was proportional in size to British coinage. Thus, Canadian silver dollars were smaller than American ones, but nearly equal in size to the British 4 shilling (double florin) coin, which was worth 97 US cents. Until after World War I, Canadian cents were equal in size to the British half-penny, which was worth about one US cent. Briefly, there were Canadian half-cents equal in size to the British farthing.
Expanding an identity for Canada separate from Britain (no one, indeed, ever would have confused them) became a goal in the 1960's. A
new flag was adopted in 1965, eliminating the Union Jack canton. And a new National Anthem, "Oh Canada!" is now heard. Since the constitution of Canada was actually the British North American Act, Pierre Trudeau cut the last legal ties to Britain by "patriating" the old Constitution and adding to it with a new Constitution Act in 1982. Quebec did not like the Charter of Rights of the new Constitution because it might override laws in Quebec favoring the French language.
In 1987 the "Meech Lake Agreement" was drawn up recognizing Quebec as a "distinct society." This was not agreeable to the other Provinces, however, and was defeated in a national referentum in 1990. This strengthened the nationalism in Quebec that threatens to break Canada apart -- though Separatists so far have failed to win a secession vote in Quebec and things have quieted down a bit. In the election of 1993, when the "Progressive Conservative" Party, despite a woman Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, was all but annihilated, new power ended up going to regional parties. Canadian correspondents inform me that (1) Campbell was not regarded as a serious candidate by her party, which was expecting to lose, or
Stéphane Dion |
In January 2006 Paul Martin's Liberal Party has lost its plurality in Parliament to Stephen Harper's Conservative Party. This result occurred despite campaign ads that accused Harper of being a minion of George W. Bush. After the survival of other American supporters in Britain and Australia, this seems to be part of an interesting trend -- even as Marxists seem to be returning to power in South America.
| Prime Ministers of New Zealand | |
|---|---|
| Richard Seddon | 1893-1906 |
| William Hall-Jones | 1906-1907 |
| Joseph Ward | 1907-1912, 1928-1930 |
| Thomas MacKenzie | 1912 |
| William Massey | 1912-1925 |
| Francis Bell | 1925 |
| Joseph Coates | 1925-1928 |
| George Forbes | 1930-1935 |
| Michael Savage | 1935-1940 |
| Peter Fraser | 1940-1949 |
| Sidney Holland | 1949-1957 |
| Keith Holyoake | 1957, 1960-1972 |
| Walter Nash | 1957-1960 |
| John Marshall | 1972 |
| Norman Kirk | 1972-1974 |
| Hugh Watt | 1974 |
| Wallace Rowling | 1974-1975 |
| Robert Muldoon | 1975-1984 |
| David Lange | 1984-1989 |
| Geoffrey Palmer | 1989-1990 |
| Michael Moore | 1990 |
| Jim Bolger | 1990-1996 |
| Jenny Shipley | 1997-1999 |
| Helen Clark | 1999-present |
New Zealand contains a large Polynesian population, the Mâori, but otherwise is like another Great Britain in the Antipodes. It also boasted the first officially socialist Government in the world. By the 1990's, however, decades of socialist attempts to control the economy and "protect" workers had done their damage. Growth was slow and unemployment high, inflation was at 19%, and "social" spending and government debt (67% of the GNP) were out of control. The heroic response was a volte-face that turned New Zealand into one of the freest economies in the world, with a spurt of growth, investment, and prosperity -- in 2003 The Economist rated New Zealand as the 3rd freest economy in the world, after Hong Kong and Singapore. Suddenly, workers could no longer even be forced to join unions as the result of "collective bargaining." Two thirds of bureaucrats were let go or privatized. The Ministry of Transportation was reduced from 5,500 employees to just 56. This is a very basic reform when public employee unions in the United States have become rent seeking engines of poisonous political influence. The Ministry of Employment reduced 34 redundant and wasteful employment programs to just 4, but processed 300% more people, at 40% less cost. Income taxes were cut in half, with capital gains, sales, property, excise taxes and even tariffs simply eliminated. As we would expect from the Laffer Curve, revenues actually increased by 20% after the tax cuts. Not all state social entitlement programs, to be sure, were abolished, but it should be encouraging for all to see that the creep of social democracy can be dramatically reversed. A recent setback has been the return to power of the Labourites and the compromise of some reforms -- though the Labourites were the ones who started all of it -- but one does not expect the Opposition to be out of power forever. Hopefully, reform will eventually start up again and whole nasty lesson will not have to be learned all over.
When I lived in Hawai'i in the early 1970's, I was struck by a photo one morning on the front page of the Honolulu Advertiser. A volcano in New Zealand, Mt. Ngauruhoe, was erupting. It was some years before I found an atlas detailed enough to show that particular mountain, one of several active volcanoes on the North Island. At the time, I was interested in Polynesian languages and ended up ordering Bruce Biggs's Let's Learn Maori, book and records, [A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, 1969, 1973] through Basil Blackwell of Oxford. It took many months for them to make their way from New Zealand to Oxford and then out to Hawai'i. I rather liked the idea of them going almost entirely around the world to get to me.
After I moved to Texas in 1975, one of my new neighbors, Donna, ordered something from New Zealand herself, a spinning wheel. It needed to be assembled and stained, and I helped her out. I even learned from her how to use it. I thought it was enough fun that I considered buying one myself; but the price, $50 back then, was far beyond my budget (and the price subsequently went up). I don't know what I would have done with the thread anyway, since I never got into weaving the way Donna did. Now, however, the question has arisen again. Donna bought other spinning wheels, and in 2000 decided that the original one was maybe more than she needed. So she offered it to me. It arrived at our house in January 2001, and I got to put it back together all over again. After 25 some years, I had forgotten how to spin, but Donna had retained, and sent, all the original documentation, including instructions on use, and the story of how these particular spinning wheels had been developed in New Zealand, a country with more sheep than people, during World War II so that women could make homespun clothing for the boys off in the War. Donna also sent a selection of materials to spin, including hair from the Angora rabbits that she keeps. As for what to do with the thread, she says that she even sells some of hers on eBay. I may settle for keeping it as a bit of historical New Zealand and a momento from my own youth.
Governors-General of New Zealand
| Prime Ministers of Australia | |
|---|---|
| Edmund Barton | 1900-1903 |
| Alfred Deakin | 1903-1904, 1905-1908, 1909-1910 |
| John Watson | 1904 |
| George Reid | 1904-1905 |
| Andrew Fisher | 1908-1909, 1910-1913, 1914-1915 |
| Joseph Cook | 1913-1914 |
| William Hughes | 1915-1923 |
| Stanley Bruce | 1923-1929 |
| James Scullin | 1929-1932 |
| Joseph Lyons | 1932-1939 |
| Earle Page | 1939 |
| Robert Menzies | 1939-1941, 1949-1966 |
| Arthur Fadden | 1941 |
| John Curtin | 1941-1945 |
| Francis Forde | 1945 |
| Joseph Chifley | 1945-1949 |
| Harold Holt | 1966-1967 |
| John McEwen | 1967-1968 |
| John Gorton | 1968-1971 |
| William McMahon | 1971-1972 |
| Gough Whitlam | 1972-1975 |
| Malcolm Fraser | 1975-1983 |
| Bob Hawke | 1983-1991 |
| Paul Keating | 1991-1996 |
| John Howard | 1996-2007 |
| Kevin Rudd | 2007-present |
Australia is actually a "Commonwealth" rather than a "Dominion," because individual Australian States were originally Dominions themselves. The six separate Dominions of the time federated as the Commonwealth in 1901. The form of the government, however, is still as a Dominion, with a Governor-General reigning in the name of the Queen. In 1986 both Australia and New Zealand followed Canada in removing the last vestiges of residual legislative authority of the British Parliament over them.
Foreigners know that Australians are called "Aussies." Americans, however (like me), tended to think of the "ss" as pronounced voicelessly, like, indeed, an "s." But it appears that Australians actually pronounce it as a "z": "Auzzie." The Crocodile Dundee movies were largely instrumental in correcting this misperception. The right pronunciation produces several happy puns, like calling Australia itself the "Land of Oz."
Australia may now be the Dominion most tempted by Republicanism. The relationship with Britain has been of a love-hate variety ever since the first shipload of prisoners arrived at Botany Bay. Real strain began in World War I. Britain declared War against Germany in the name of all the Dominions without actually asking them, or even telling them, first. This was an irritation that could be perhaps forgiven, once. Australians enthusiastically volunteered for the Army, and the ANZAC, "Australia-New Zealand Army Corps," entered combat. Unfortunately, the combat ended up being at Gallipoli, where Winston Churchill had gotten the idea of seizing the Dardanelles and putting Turkey out of the War. This was a good idea, but amphibious landings were a new idea, and the campaign ended up poorly conducted, and a failure. There was great slaughter on both sides, but many of the Allied dead were specifically Australians and New Zealanders. Were the British really this careless? Or were they just careless with the ANZAC's? Well, that was World War I, but the Australians can certainly be forgiven for some resentment about dying in a campaign that owned nothing to their direction or consent.
The postwar era got off to a bad start with the Washington Naval Treaty (1921), whereby Britain accepted naval parity with the United States and agree with Japan to limit its military presence in the Pacific. This gravely compromised Britain's defense responsibilities to Australia and New Zealand; and, again, it looked like Britain was making its own decisions without concern or consultation about the Pacific Dominions. Meanwhile, in the 20's and 30's, the Dominions were recognized as independent in all but name. In the Statute of Westminster of 1931, the British Parliament renounced all legislative, even constiutional, authority over the Dominions. This could not mean that they were simply on their own, however. Australia and New Zealand did not have the means to defend themselves against Japan and had no desire to do so alone.
When Japan entered World War II, Britain was already stretched thin. And the ANZAC force was in North Africa. The whole British position in the Pacific depended on the base at Singapore, with obsolete aircraft and few ships. The Japanese landed in Malaya, drove against Singapore and, in part by bluff against a larger force, compelled a British surrender. Many Australians ended up dying in Japanese prison camps, or suffering to build the infamous Japanese railroad from Thailand to Burma (as seen in The Bridge on the River Kwai [1957]). Britain had little left to offer for the defense of the South Pacific. Only America could help, and the war effort in New Guinea and the Solomons came to be a cooperative ANZAC-American effort. Henceforth, while Constitutional ties were retained with Britain, Australia would always be as much a partner of the United States as of the "Mother" country. Republican advocates, like the art critic and historian Robert Hughes, seem to spend as much time in the United States as Down Under. And the British ("bloody pommies") would never understand surfing.
In 2004 Prime Minister Howard has been reelected, a result of some international interest, since he had supported the American war in Iraq, attracting the attention of Islâmist terrorists, who killed many Australians in a bombing on Bali. It was a good question whether Australians would go the way of the Spanish and vote in a Government bent on appeasement. It didn't happen, despite the presence of some American anti-war political activists during the election. One wonders about the dynamic of all this in Australian domestic politics, but it is a good sign.
Governors-General of the Commonwealth of Australia
| Prime Ministers of South Africa | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Louis Botha | 1910-1919 | ||
| Jan Christiaan Smuts | 1919-1924, 1939-1948 | ||
| James Hertzog | 1924-1939 | ||
| Daniel Malan | 1949-1954 | ||
| Johannes Strijdom | 1954-1958 | ||
| Hendrik Verwoerd | 1958-1966 | ||
| South Africa becomes a Republic, leaves Commonwealth, 1961 | |||
| Presidents | |||
| Charles Robberts Swart | 1961-1967 | ||
| Jozua François Naudé | acting, 1967-1968 | B. J. Vorster | 1966-1978 |
| Jacobus Johannes Fouchá | 1968-1975 | ||
| Nicolaas J. Diederichs | 1975-1978 | ||
| Marais Viljoen | acting, 1978 | 1978-1984 | Pieter Willem Botha |
| B. J. Vorster | 1978-1979 | ||
| Marais Viljoen | 1979-1984 | ||
| J. Christian Heunis | acting, 1989 | ||
| Frederik W. de Klerk | 1989-1994 | ||
| Nelson Mandela | 1994-1999 | ||
| Thabo Mbeki | 1999-present | ||
The Union of South Africa was formed from the British colonies of the Natal and the Cape Colony, together with the subjugated Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The flag of the Union was, significantly, an archaizing Dutch flag, with an orange instead of a red stripe, and the flag of Britain, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal on the middle stripe. Since the Boers never wanted to be ruled by Britain in the first place, and they had gone on the Great Trek into the interior to get away from them, it was perhaps only a matter of time before this was made good. Meanwhile, relations were cordial enough, and General Smuts became a familiar elder statesman of the British Empire, though in World War II South Africans refused to fight anyplace but in Africa -- little did they know that very serious fighting would actually occur in North Africa (though General Smuts himself had encountered tough fighting in World War I against the Germans in Tanganyika). In 1948, however, Boer nationalism seized the helm. The laws that had always been discriminatory and humiliating against non-whites, against which Mahâtma Gandhi had already been fighting in the 1890's, were then expanded into the rigid, police-state-like system of Apartheid. By 1960, with African colonies becoming independent, and the harsh racist principles and rhetoric of the Boers all too reminiscent of Hitler, this had grown into an embarrassment, and worse. 
In 1961, after condemnation at a Commonwealth Conference, the Union was turned into a Republic, which left the Commonwealth, to live under international hostility through the 60's, 70's, and 80's, until a peaceful transition to majority rule in 1994. Whether the new South Africa will be able to remain peaceful is a good question. Already with a very high crime rate, the precedent of neighboring Zimbabwe, with one party rule and the increasing expropriation of white farms, usually by informal violence, is not reassuring.
Commanders & Governors of the Dutch Cape Colony (1652-1806)
British Governors of Cape Colony (1806-1910)
The Boer Republics (1854-1902)
Governors-General of the Union of South Africa (1910-1961)
| Kings of the Zulus | |
|---|---|
| Senzangakona | 1781-1816 |
| Sigujana | 1816 |
| Shaka | 1816-1828 |
| Dingane | 1828-1840 |
| Mpande | 1840-1872 |
| Cetshwayo | 1872-1884; exiled, 1879-1883 |
| Zulu War, Battle of Isandhlwana, 1879 | |
| Dinuzulu | 1884-1887, d.1913 |
| annexed by Britain, 1887; joined to Natal, 1897; revolt, 1907 | |
| Solomon kaDinuzulu | 1913-1933 |
| Arthur Mshiyeni kaDinuzulu | Regent, 1933-1948 |
| Cyprian Bhekuzulu kaSolomon | 1948-1968 |
| Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu | 1968-present |
and Natal, together with the Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. However, other political units, of Africans, were in the area. Two of these, Swaziland and Lesotho (Basutoland until independence), were never integrated into South Africa and today are independent nations. Another, the land of the Zulus, lost its independence in the epic Zulu War of 1879. Both surviving kingdoms are landlocked, but Lesotho is also entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. Swaziland does share a stretch of border with Mozambique.The most colorful history is certainly that of the Zulus, who grew into an aggressive and dominant power under King Shaka, whose life was made into a popular movie not long ago. However, conflict arose with the British. At the Battle of Isandhlwana, 1879, the British ran out of
Kings of Swaziland | |
|---|---|
| Sobhuza I | 1815-1839 |
| Mswati II | 1839-1865 |
| Ludvonga | 1865-1874 |
| Mbandzeni | 1874-1889 |
| Bunu | 1889-1899 |
| Sobhuza II | 1899-1982, regency, 1899-1921 |
| British Protectorate, 1903-1968 | |
| Mswati III | 1982-present, regency, 1982-1986 |
| Kings of Basutoland | |
|---|---|
| Moshweshwe I | 1828-1870 |
| British Protectorate, 1868-1966 | |
| Letsie I | 1870-1891 |
| Lerotholi | 1891-1905 |
| Letsie II | 1905-1913 |
| Griffith | 1913-1939 |
| Seeiso | 1939-1940 |
| Moshweshwe II | 1940-1990; regency, 1940-1960, deposed, d.1996 |
Kingdom of Lesotho, 1966 | |
| Letsie III | 1990-present |
Bophuthaswana consisted of no less than six landlocked and gerrymanered fragments, mostly surrounded by South Africa -- looking like something from early 19th century Germany. South Africa was obviously reserving for itself both political, territorial, and economic advantages over the Bantustan. Bophuthaswana got the most publicity, with a flashy Las Vegas-like resort called "Sun City." For a while it was a cause célèbre among international performers that they would not perform at Sun City.
"KwaZulu" would have been the Zulu Bantustan, but it was never to be. The homeland consisted of even more fragments than the others, mostly surrounded by Natal province. It was obviously not worth it for Zulus to be confined to the equivalent of Grand Fenwick while losing all rights in the rest of South Africa. Zulu reluctance to go along with the idea was finally overtaken by the collapse of the whole project. When Nelson Mandela's government took over in 1994, the independence of the four Bantustans became a dead letter. KwaZulu is now identified with Natal province itself.
For all of its problems -- crime, AIDS, white flight -- South Africa so far has not suffered from any large scale ethnic conflicts. As the government adopts a more dictatorial manner, however, and the economy suffers from crime and crackpot socialist schemes, people like the Zulus, proud and self-conscious, may be the ones to act first.
The lists of the Zulu, Swazi, and Basuto Kings are from the Oxford Dynasties of the World, by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002, pp.237-238]. The Oxford Dynasties did not continue the line of Zulu Kings after the imposition of British rule. This has now been made up from Wikipedia.
| Prime Ministers of Ireland | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Eamon De Valera | 1919-1922 | ||
| Arthur Griffith | 1922 | ||
| Michael Collins | 1922 | ||
| William Cosgrave | 1922-1932 | ||
| Eamon De Valera | 1932-1948, 1951-1954, 1957-1959 | ||
| Ireland becomes a Republic, 1938; leaves Commonwealth, 1949 | |||
| Presidents | |||
| Douglas Hyde | 1938-1945 | ||
| Sean O'Kelly | 1945-1959 | John Costello | 1948-1951, 1954-1957 |
| Eamon De Valera | 1959-1973 | Sean Lemass | 1959-1966 |
| Jack Lynch | 1966-1973, 1977-1979 | ||
| Erskine Childers | 1973-1974 | ||
| Carroll Daly | 1974-1976 | Liam Cosgrave | 1973-1977 |
| Patrick Hillery | 1976-1990 | Charles Haughey | 1979-1981, 1982, 1987-1992 |
| Garret FitzGerald | 1981-1982, 1982-1987 | ||
| Mary Robinson | 1990-1997 | Albert Reynolds | 1992-1994 |
| John Bruton | 1994-1997 | ||
| Mary McAleese | 1997-present | Bertie Ahern | 1997-present |
Ireland gained independence as a Dominion -- though I have also seen this denied. The original idea was Home Rule, which would have made it an autonomous Kingdom within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Several Liberal British governments fell over Home Rule bills. When one finally passed, World War I led the British to delay its effect. Then in 1916 there was an Irish Rising. None of this made anyone any happier. When autonomy finally came in 1921, however, the terms were the subject of bitter debate in Ireland. Britain expected there to be a Governor-General and a loyalty oath to the King. Acceptance of these terms led to near Civil War in Ireland. Michael Collins was killed by the Irish Republican Army, and Eamon De Valera was imprisoned by the Irish government. When De Valera came to power in 1932, the loyalty oath was abolished, the Governor-General was stripped of all power, and then in 1938 a Republic was declared, just in time for World War II (and Irish neutrality -- though many Irish fought in the British Army nevertheless). The expectation of many British colonial possessions, that they would suddenly become rich once the predatory British were gone, was repeated in Ireland. And consequently Ireland remained for many years one of the poorest countries in Europe. By 1986 unemployment was over 15%, inflation at 10%, growth only 0.4%, and the budget bleeding hopelessly. As in the days of the potato famine, people left Ireland for better lives elsewhere. The English, and even the Irish, told "stupid Irish" jokes. Then Ireland awoke. The supply-side, Reagan/Thatcher formula of tax cuts was adopted, and the economy took off like a rocket. Ireland is now growing at triple the rate of the European Union, 9.4% per year. According to The Economist's Pocket World in Figures, 2003, in per capita purchasing power Ireland is #13 in the entire world, just behind Hong Kong (#12) and ahead of Germany (#15), France (#19), the UK (#21), and Italy (#22). People now move into Ireland, not out of it. There is a budget surplus. American companies put their European headquarters there. Unemployment, at 15.7% in 1993, was down to under 5% in 2000. Public housing, which an audit discovered cost more to run than if it were just built and given away to tenants, is being sold off. Brussels, the statist headquarters of the European Union, which continues to love high taxes, is screaming; but Irish finance minster, Charlie McCreevy, is telling them where to get off. What a blessed day for what was so long a sad and suffering land. How wonderful what a little real capitalism will do. Erin go brah! As in the days of St. Columba, they now could use a little of the Irish formula in Great Britain, which has forgotten some of its Thatcherite wisdom. Never have I been more proud to be a Kelley.
Lords Lieuenant, Deputies, or Viceroys of the Ireland (1528-1922)
Governors-General of the Irish Free State (1922-1936)
Governors & Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland (1921-1973)
| Prime Ministers of India | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Jawaharlal Nehru | 1947-1964 | ||
| India becomes a Republic, 1950 | |||
| Presidents | |||
| Rajendra Prasad | 1950-1962 | ||
| Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan | 1962-1967 | Lal Bahadur Shastri | 1964-1966 |
| Zakir Husain | 1967-1969 |  IndiraGandhi | 1966-1977, 1980-1984 |
| Varahagiri Venkata Giri | acting, 1969 | ||
| Muhammad Hidayat Ullah | acting, 1969 | ||
| Varahagiri Venkata Giri | 1969-1974 | ||
| Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed | 1974-1977 | ||
| Basappa Danappa Jatti | acting, 1977 | Morarji Desai | 1977-1979 |
| N. Sanjiva Reddy | 1977-1982 | Charan Singh | 1979-1980 |
| Zail Singh | 1982-1987 | Rajiv Gandhi | 1984-1989 |
| Ramaswamy Venkataraman | 1987-1992 | Vishwanath Pratap Singh | 1989-1990 |
| Chandra Shekhar | 1990-1991 | ||
| Shankar Dayal Sharma | 1992-1997 | P.V. Narasimha Rao | 1991-1996 |
| H.D. Deve Gowda | 1996-1997 | ||
| Kircheril Raman Narayanan | 1997-2002 | Inder Kumar Gujral | 1997-1998 |
| Atal Bihari Vajpayee | 1998-2004 | ||
| Dr. Manmohan Singh | 2004- present | ||
| Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam | 2002-2007 | ||
| Pratibha Devisingh Patil | 2007- present | ||
India and Pakistan both became independent as Dominions, mainly because the procedures for doing this already existed and it could be done quickly. India then soon enough became a Republic. Bitterness, however, was minimal, and India remained a friendly member of the British Commonwealth. Although Mahâtmâ Gandhi was affectionately, reverently regarded as the father of Indian independence, he never had the slightest interest in exercising political power, and Nehru, a British educated Brahmin, had always been the logical choice. Unfortunately, Nehru had been educated in the fashionable socialism of the day and immediately applied to India the tried and true techniques of that paradigm of economic development, the Soviet Union. This, of course, condemned India to decades of continued poverty, even while Indian emigrants prospered mightily elsewhere. The day of reckoning may have come in 1991, when the new Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, discovered that the country's gold reserves had been flown to London to cover an International Monetary Fund loan, itself sought because of the looming exhaustion of foreign reserves. Soon Rao's government was moving to liberalize the economy, allowing foreign investment and something approaching free, certainly freer, trade. Most importantly, the "Licence Raj," by which no business count start, or do much else, without the endless red tape of government permission, was in great measure dismantled. The economic acumen of Indians now could be manifest in India itself, not just in emigrant communities. The effects of the Nehruist folly have not been shaken off completely, however. The government itself is still a vast parasite on the economy, it is all but impossible to fire workers, and bankrupt or unproductive businesses cannot legally close or lay off workers. )
The State of Bengal remains in the grip of an actual Communist government, with monuments to Ho Chi Minh and the other luminaries of leftist murder and dictatorship. Since Bengal, like adjacent Bangladesh itself (with only about 4.7% of the per capita purchasing power of the United States), remains one of the poorest places on Earth (the poorest is Sierra Leone, with 1.4% of the per capita purchasing power of the United States, India itself has 6.9%, PRC China 11.5% -- but Taiwan 66.7%), one wonders when such people will give themselves a break.
Looming large in recent Indian history is not just Jawaharlal Nehru but his family. Nehru's daughter Indira dominated the country for nearly twenty years. When she arrested the opposition, India briefly lost its democracy. When she figured on a vote of confidence from the people in 1977, she was voted out of power instead. The opposition, however, was no more popular; and Indira returned to office in 1980. Ordering a military suppression of the Sikhs, she was assassinated by a Sikh guard in 1984. Her son Rajiv was also assassinated.
In 2004 Rajiv's wife, Sonia, led the Congress Party to a surprise victory. This seemed to rest on criticism of privatizations and other economic reforms, and was in alliance with the Communists. Stock markets fell in dread of what such a victory meant. However, Sonia excused herself from assuming the Prime Minister's post, because of protests over her Italian birth. The new Prime Minister instead would be Monmohan Singh, the very man who engineered the beginning of economic liberalization under P.V. Narasimha Rao. Stock markets recovered on this promising sign.
In 2008, the Indian Tata Group automobile manufacturers have bought Jaguar and Land Rover from the Ford Motor Company. This is a far cry from the dark days of the Indian economy when the gold reserves of the Republic, burdened by debt, were moved to the Bank of England. Now two quintessentially British companies are in Indian hands. Jaguar, to be sure, had been losing money and dragging down Ford. Land Rover perhaps accompanied the deal just so it wouldn't be just for a losing venture. The appearance of Indian manufacturers in the world market -- I have also noticed ads in America for the Mahindra tractor company -- is a hopeful sign indeed for the growth of the Indian economy.
Governors-General of India (1947-1950)
| Prime Ministers of Pakistan | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Liaquat Ali Khan | 1947-1951 | ||
| 1st Indo-Pakistani War, partition of Kashmir, 1947 | |||
| Khawaja Nazimuddin | 1951-1953 | ||
| Muhammad Ali Bogra | 1953-1955 | ||
| Chawdry (Chaudhri) Muhammad Ali | 1955-1956 | ||
| Hussein Shahid Suhrawardi | 1956-1957 | ||
| Pakistan becomes a Republic, 1956; out of Commonwealth, 1972-1989 | |||
| Presidents | |||
| Iskander Mirza | 1956-1958 | Ismail Chundrigar | 1957 |
| Malik Feroz Khan Noon | 1957-1958 | ||
| 1958-1969 | Muhammad Ayub Khan | 1958 | |
| 2nd Indo-Pakistani War, 1965 | |||
| 1969-1971 | Agha Muhammmad Yahya Khan | ||
| 3rd Indo-Pakistani War, Independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh, 1971 | |||
| 1971-1973 | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto | ||
| Fazal Elahi Chawdry | 1973-1978 | 1973-1977 | |
| Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq | 1978-1988 | ||
| Muhammad Khan Junejo | 1985-1988 | ||
| Ghulam Ishaq Khan | 1988-1993 | Muhammad Aslam Khan Khattak | 1988 |
| Benazir Bhutto | 1988-1990, 1993-1996 | ||
| Mustafa Jatoi | 1990 | ||
| Nawaz Sharif | 1990-1993, 1996-1999 | ||
| Farouk Ahmed Leghari | 1993-1997 | ||
| Wasim Sajjad | 1997-1998 | ||
| 4th Indo-Pakistani War, "Kargil War," 1999 | |||
| Muhammad Rafiq Tarar | 1998-2001 | Pervez Musharraf | "Chief Executive," 1999-2002 |
| Pervez Musharraf | 2001- present | ||
| Zafarullah Khan Jamali | 2002-2004 | ||
| Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain | 2004 | ||
| Shaukat Aziz | 2004- 2007 | ||
| Muhammad Mian Soomro | 2007- 2008 | ||
| Yousaf Raza Gillani | 2008 | ||
With a slightly greater delay, Pakistan followed India to become a Republic. Pakistan left the Commonwealth for a while after India, and international opinion, supported the revolt of East Pakistan against the Western dominated central Government. The East then became Bangladesh, the "Bengal Nation," which retained its own Commonwealth membership. Unlike India, Pakistan has had long periods of military rule, but has distinguished itself as the only Islâmic country to have been led by a woman, the admirable Benazir Bhutto. Now sadly, in December 2007, Bhutto, after returning to Pakistan and apparently in line to be elected the new Prime Minister, has been assassinated. It is apparently an open question whether this was done with the connivance of President Musharraf, or, as Musharraf contends, was the work of Islamist radicals. Both are real possibilities. Bhutto's People's Party won the election anyway.
Some periods of outright dictatorship, under Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, and Zia-ul-Haq, are evident from the absence of a Prime Minister. The secession of East Pakistan and the disastrous defeat by India over it led to the tenure of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was later executed, supposedly for corruption under his rule. Benazir was his daughter and set out to vindicate him. The current government under Pervez Musharraf began as another military coup and dictatorship. Musharraf has regularized his regime with election as President, but its military character is still evident. Meanwhile, Musharraf has become an ally of the United States in opposing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Terrorism of their al-Qa'ida protégés. When the Taliban were driven out of Afghanistan in 2001, much of this became Pakistan's problem. As of 2007, both the Taliban and al-Qa'ida are well entrenched in Pakistan's frontier area (where the British in their day never exercised much control over them), where Musharraf actually made an agreement with the local tribes to leave them alone. This has effectively meant leaving the Terrorists alone. This is an explosive situation, where American and Afghan forces do not like respecting a Pakistani sanctuary for these people, but where Musharraf is in danger of losing more popular support, as he has already, by moving forcefully against the radicals, or countenancing the Americans to do so. As in Algeria and elsewhere, this is a situation where an unpopular military government may be a better force against Islamism and Terrorism than a more democratic and popular government. While Benazair Bhutto seemed to be in favor of more forceful measures against the Terrorists, and her Party has won the election early in 2008, it remains to be seen how much of this will really translate into decisive action. The Terrorists have taken to applying their tactics in Pakistan itself, with suicide bombings, and it is hard to imagine that they are really going to cultivate support in that way.
Governors-General of Pakistan (1947-1956)
| Prime Ministers of Ceylon | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Don Stephen Senanayake | 1947-1952 | ||
| Dudley Shelton Senanayake | 1952-1953 | ||
| John Lionel Kotalawela | 1953-1956 | ||
| Solomon Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike | 1956-1959, assassinated | ||
| Wijeyananda Dahanayake | 1959-1960 | ||
| Dudley Shelton Senanayake | 1960 | ||
| Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike | 1960-1965 | ||
| Dudley Shelton Senanayake | 1965-1970 | ||
| Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike | 1970-1977 | ||
| Ceylon becomes Republic of Sri Lanka, 1972 | |||
| Presidents | |||
| William Gopallawa | 1972-1978 | ||
| Junius Richard Jayewardene | 1977-1978 | ||
| Junius Richard Jayewardene | 1978-1989 | Ranasinghe Premadasa | 1978-1989 |
| Ranasinghe Premadasa | 1989-1993, assassinated | Dingiri Banda Wijetunge | 1989-1993 |
| Dingiri Banda Wijetunge | 1993-1994 | Ranil Wickremesinghe | 1993-1994 |
| Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga | 1994 | ||
| Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga | 1994-2005 | Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike | 1994-2000 |
| Ratnasiri Wickremanayake | 2000-2001 | ||
| Ranil Wickremesinghe | 2001-2004 | ||
| Mahinda Rajapaksa | 2004-2005 | ||
| Mahinda Rajapaksa | 2005- present | Ratnasiri Wickremanayake | 2005- present |
Ceylon stands as one of the most distressing stories of post-colonial history. About 74% of the population is Sinhalese, largely Buddhist but with some Christians. About 18% is Tamil, largely Hindu. The Tamils, speaking a Dravidian language, were originally from the South of India. There had been little strife between the communties, and at independence in 1948 Ceylon seemed poised to set an example of amiable relations between different ethnic populations in one historic state. The conflict that emerged can hardly be blamed, as many such post-colonial conflicts are, on a population introduced by the British that colaborated with colonial rule. The British did introduce a new population of Tamils, but these were brought to do plantation labor, and they remained the poorest population group on the island. It was Tamils who had lived in Ceylon long before Europeans arrived, the "Ceylon Tamils," who took advantage of Western education and became the most accomplished and prosperous group in the country. This doesn't seem to have excited much open enmity until a demagogue made an issue of it. That was Solomon Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, an English speaking, Oxford educated, Christian, who learned Sinhalese, converted to Buddhism, and ran on a platform of making Ceylon Sinhalese speaking and Buddhist, regardless of the wishes of the Tamils. Not only did this win him the Prime Ministership in 1956, but it stirred things up enough that there were riots where Sinhalese attacked Tamils, often burning them alive. The Sinhalese cause hardly qualifies as "nativist" in the most usual senses, since, not only had the most prosperous Tamils been in Ceylon for centuries, but the language and religion of the Sinhalese themselves both came from India also. Sinhalese is even an Indic language, a descendant of Sanskrit.
Bandaranaike made Sinhalese the only official language of Ceylon (an exclusivism subsequently abandoned) and made Sinhalese the only language at state teachers' colleges. Tamil protests in 1958 were met with further Sinhalese mob violence. Bandaranaike himself began to think better of the polarization he had created, and he was assassinated by a Sinhalese for moderating his policy. Bandaranike's wife, Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, came to power in the elections of 1960. Preferential policies for Sinhalese and discrimination against Tamils became further institutionalized. Private Christian missionary schools were nationalized in 1960 in order to Sinhalize them. In 1963, Sinhalese speaking bureaucrats were placed in Tamil speaking regions, and monolingual Tamil speakers retired in 1964. A Tamil bureaucrat then appealed this to the Privy Council in England, which, since Ceylon was still a Dominion, still had appellate jurisdiction over Ceylonese courts. The government then abolished the right of appeal to Britain and altered the Ceylonese constitution to eliminate minority rights. In the face of all this, the Tamils seem for many years to have been extraordinary patient. By 1973 patience was running out. Radicals began to push their way to front of Tamil leadership, and they began to think of a partition of the island.
Meanwhile, in 1972 Ceylon had become a Republic and officially changed its name, something that had already been suggested by Solomon Bandaranaike. The island was Lanka in Sinhalese and Ilange in Tamil. Now it was to be Sri Lanka, where sri is an honorific prefix from Sanskrit, meaning "famous" or "glorious." In fact, this is shrî in Sanskrit, which seems to be how the word is usually pronounced in "Sri Lanka."
Replacing English with Sinhalese and Tamil at the universities showed which students were Tamils, and policies began to be introduced to discriminate against them, arbitrarily reducing Tamil scores on exams (in the U.S. this was called "race norming"), and then limited admissions by district, which meant quota limits for Tamils. A Tamil guerrilla movement began to form -- the "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" (LTTE), "Tamil Eelam" being the name for a Tamil state in Ceylon. In 1977 Sinhalese rioters killed 150 Tamils and drove 20,000 out of their homes. By 1981, the police and the military seemed to be accomplices of Sinhalese rioters. Civil war began to threaten, and by 1983 it was in full bloom. Army units began to take reprisals against Tamil civilians for guerilla attacks on the army. This meant massacres of civilians.
India, the Tamil homeland, did not view these developments with complacency. By 1985 there were 40,000 Tamil refugees in India, and the Tamils were deriving support from their Indian brethren. In 1987 Rajiv Gandhi landed 50,000 Indian troops in Sri Lanka. Since the "Liberation Tigers" did not want to be disarmed by the Indians, and did not want any compromise at that point with the Sinhalese, the Indian army was stuck with fighting against them. And Rajiv Gandhi himself became the target of Tamil enmity. He was actually assassinated in 1991 by a female LTTE suicide bomber. The conflict in Sri Lanka thus had a major effect on political history in India itself.
Although there was a 1987 accord brokered by India, this was by no means the end of the matter. As the years went by, perhaps 64,000 people were killed, and 20,000 some Tamils "disappeared" while in government custody. In 1978 the constitution was changed and the Prime Minister was made answerable to the President rather than to Parliament. This gave the country a government more like that of the French Fifth Republic. In 1994, the (French educated & 1968 radical) daughter of Solomon and Mrs. Bandaranaike, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, was elected President. She appointed her own mother as her first Prime Minister, her third stint in the office. In February 2002, a truce was arranged with the Tamils. However, since then the matter seems to be unravelling again. The LTTE has been identified as a "terrorist organization" by most countries, but its activities have been little inhibited. The Indonesian earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 resulted in 31,000 deaths in Sri Lanka, perhaps a majority of them Tamils. Since LTTE controlled some of the tsunami damage areas, President Bandaranaike signed an agreement with them over delivery of aid. This contact resulted in some political trouble with the President's supporters, but it also led to some negotiation with the LTTE. Nevertheless, since then any possibility of rapprochement has apparently passed, LTTE has continued with terrorist attacks and suicide bombers, with Sinhalese reprisals. Full Civil War could develop again.
This appalling and pointless history is an excellent example of how wrong things can go when political means are employed for economic ends. In this case it is where the economically successful and envied group is itself an ethnic minority, unlike in the United States, where the public impression is that only minorities are economically oppressed -- because, obviously, they don't have majority political power. However, the most economically successful groups in the United States actually are minorities, namely Jews, Japanese, and Chinese, while elements of the majority "white" community, like the Scotch-Irish (in Appalachia in particular), are economically depressed. Wisdom in these matters is to be found in a book such as Preferential Policies, An International Perspective, by Thomas Sowell (William Morrow, 1990). Sowell's treatment of Sri Lanka (pp.76-87) is in a chapter significantly named "Majority Preferences in Minority Economies." This book is now out of print, but it is replaced by Sowell's new Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study, with an entire chapter, "Affirmative Action in Sri Lanka" (Yale University Press, 2004, 2005, pp.78-94). The folly and horror of the history of Ceylon should thus be a lesson to us all -- though it is certainly ignored in American political debates about preferential policies and "affirmative action."
The list of Prime Ministers and Presidents is simply from Wikipedia. Other information is from the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Governors-General of Ceylon (1948-1972)
The red, white, and blue of the flags of Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand contrast with the oranges and greens that turn up in the flags of South Africa, Ireland, India, Pakistan, and Ceylon. The orange of South Africa and Ireland is actually of the same origin, the Dutch House of Orange, following the Dutch settlers of South Africa and the cause of the Protestants of Ireland, delivered from James II by William of Orange. The Republican tricolor of Ireland hopefully lays the white of peace between Protestant orange and Irish green. The orange on the flag of India, like the orange on that of Ceylon, stands for Hinduism rather than Protestantism. The green of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon also has a common origin, for Islâm, which India hopes to reconcile with Hinduism as Ireland hopes for the Protestants and Catholics. Pakistan, however, was founded to be a purely Islâmic state. The flag of Ceylon/Sri Lanka, with its elements for Hinduism and Islam, nevertheless the lion's share of the field to the lion of the Buddhist Sinhalese Kingdom of Kandy. This is symbolic of the modern dominance of the Sinhalese, as examined, in the politics of that country.
Ceylon, Kings of Lanka & Kandy, Portuguese, Dutch, & British Governors
British Coins before the Florin, Compared to French Coins of the Ancien Régime
The Kings of England and Scotland