Power, and Interests of the British Establishment

The resulting shift from agriculture to industry involved the financiers of the City. The reason was that industry and machinery speeded production. Exchange of mass production i.e. buying and selling commodities as a result, required the insurance and financial activities of the City which deals with large amounts of money. Manufacturing industry on the one hand and financial activities of the City on the other hand became the main areas of economic interest of the elite in Britain. The landed class however were involved in both operations. The situation has remained until the present.
As the technological developments brought a speedy method of production, which was beyond the capacity of the home market to buy all the produced goods or fully supply the need for raw materials to make the goods, Britain was forced to seek markets and raw materials overseas. To do this the elite had to implement a strategy which would ensure that markets would be developed and the flow of raw materials would be assured. Therefore, Britain had to resort to the policy of direct control over those far away land which were considered as the potential markets and places which possessed the raw materials that were important to Britain’s manufacturing industry.
The strategists were members of the elite which benefited from these economic and subsequently political developments. They were people who had controlling interests in manufacturing industry and the financial operations of the City of London; they included the landed class, and together have come to be known as “the establishment”9 This direct control of foreign lands which later led them to become acquisitions of Britain brought extra gains for the establishment. New professional opportunities arose: positions in those organisations which were created in order to look after the possessions abroad i.e. Colonial Office, and the department responsible for defence; in addition, all those state departments which already were in existence grew larger to enable themselves to cope with the extra activities created as a result of this economic and political growth.