ABSTRACT
By now the reader must suspect that the author is unhealthily obsessed with the White Dominions. Unfortunately for the present-day theorist of Empire, the structure of this essay is a faithful reflection of politicians’ obsessions during the nineteen-twenties and thirties. It was the Dominions which mattered most: they had the markets; they welcomed the settlers and the capital. Funds moved reluctantly toward the rest of the Empire, and settlers went in small numbers, drawn-only by natural resources and by government service. In economic affairs it was Dominion questions, not Indian or colonial ones, which came before the Cabinet frequently, and which preoccupied committees of senior ministers. These are the facts—the conclusions to which the documents force us.
