ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the political, social, economic, demographic and geopolitical crises both the British metropolis and colonies confronted from the 1920s to the 1940s which compelled them to institute economic, cultural and social reforms in the colonies under study. It explores how the overcrowding of the colonial bureaucracies, international anti-imperialism, the British metropolitan government’s response to the Great Depression, the rise of indigenous reform movements and the rise of Nazi Germany forced the British metropolitan government to shift from a laissez-faire to a hands-on policy of colonial development. It analyzes the metropolitan mindset of this shift by examining the passage of both the Colonial Development Act of 1929 and the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940. This chapter further examines how these laws were used in an attempt to not only secure the loyalty of the indigenous populations in the British colonies during World War II but also divert the attention of the indigenous elite away from seeking access to colonial clubland. It concludes with an assessment of the British Council’s counterpropaganda campaign against Nazi propaganda aimed at creating disloyalty among the indigenous populations throughout the British Empire.
