Metal-hulled steamships have been widely used in Africa since 1850. The Technology used is Submarine telegraph cables. It Improves Military Technology. The scope, intensity, and long-range consequences of this so-called new Imperialism of the late the nineteenth century has been impotent.

As early as 1902, the English social reformer and theorist J. A Hobson charged that “Scramble of Africa.” The profits of colonization went only to the rich. Lenin agreed that Imperialism was economic. The phenomenon, but according to him, Imperialism was the last stage of capitalism.

Limits to economic argument

Colonial markets could have been better at answering the needs of European manufacturers. Africa, the continent over which the most excellent scramble, was also the poorest and least profitable to investors.

Only a tiny proportion of German capital was invested in German colonies before 1914. Only one-fifth of the French capital was invested. French had more money invested in Russia. Hoping to stabilize that ally against the Germans, then in all their colonial possesses.

Indeed, there was little enthusiasm for territorial conquest in Africa from British, European, and American industrial and financial circles. On the contrary, the most ardent promoters were journalists, missionaries, military leaders, and politicians.

Imperialism and International Politics

Those in charge of the imperial building process decided policy in response to a combination of political and economic considerations, and as a corollary to the operation of nation-building.

Britain’s domination of Egypt in the 1880s was the result, in a considerable measure, of its fear of what might occur in the Near East, large portions of the decaying Ottoman Empire should fall into Russian hands. Suez Canal was considered a strategic byline to the east. Great power interest in the eastern Mediterranean grew with the domain of the Ottoman Empire.

At the Berlin Conference of 1878, France secured from Great Britain and Germany the assurance of a free hand in Tunisia as compensation for Cyprus.

(This understanding berthed new life into the principle that the renunciation of territorial claims in the region must be cooperated for by concussions elsewhere.)

The White Man’s Burden: –

To coastal slave trading, famine, fifth, and illiteracy seemed to many a legitimate reason for invading the Jungles of Africa and Asia. Imperialism as an idea was also used to incite patriotism and divert attention from domestic problems.