<!-Quote-!>Quote:This just isn't the truth though and it keeps them from the problems that King George had to deal with, rebellion in the colonies.<!-/Quote-!>
If you are citing rebellion in the colonies as the main downfall of British Empire, you would be terribly wrong.
Although rebellions had occured in the past, they were usually due to the meddling policies of government at time (notably in India with the rebellion of the militias upon hearing that British rifle rounds were smeared in pig fat, subversive to their religion). By the time of WW1 the British government was supporting a policy of increased cultural tolerance, and the majority of the colonies were in a stable state: Ghandi himself urged the whole of India to support Britain in the war. Hundreds of thousands of Indians, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and Africans fought on Britain's side.
In fact, the clear cut reason for the Empires' downscaling was the two world wars which tore it apart - in fact, you could say the British sacrificed their Empire in order to destroy other (more ruthless and destructive) European empires. After the world wars, the 'victors' were given huge amounts of land - a good thing for a massive empire you would think. However, the majority of the land Britain was given responsibility for was in fact massively unprofitable, which combined with the £12 billion it had spent on the first world war alone, economically crippled the Empire.
Often people cite the 'Evil British Empire's tyranny' as causes of any unrest in colonies. In fact the majority of atrocities commited by Britain in it's time of empire can be attributed to escalation in violence not supported by the British government anyway; very rarely (if ever) was genocide a state policy. The attacks on Native Indians in America, Aboriginis in Australia and natives in Africa we usually a result of the entrepeneurial colonists (not under state orders) forcing existing rivals away from potentially profitable bits of land. Throughout this time the central British state was actually passing laws to protect the rights of native people throughout the empire against this threat.
If you look at Belgian involvement in Africa or pretty much every interaction the Japanese had with China, you would see a massive increase in brutality. I am not saying Britain was blameless - it did plenty of disgusting things, but it was the lesser of many evils.
<!-Quote-!>Quote:King George outlawed the independent currency in the American colonies this made George Washington, the richest man in the colonies, upset as it put him immediately into debt to the Bank of England. According to Ben Franklin this is "probably the prime cause of the revolution"<!-/Quote-!>
This is also untrue. There were no major economic reasons for America to seperate from the British Empire - on average American citizens enjoyed a far greater GDP and much lower taxes than in the home nation. In fact at the beginning there was little demand for seperation at all, the foremost demand was the upholding of the magna carta (no taxation without representation). The British government foolishly denied this, even though they later adopted it with the other colonies to maintain peace and efficiency.
If you quote the Boston tea Party as an example of widespread disatisfaction you would also be wrong, if the evidence is actually looked at, you would find it was smugglers and black market tradesmen who threw the tea into the river - in disgust at Britains attempts at creating a 'duty free' tea policy which would drive them out of business.
The brutal truth be told however, Britain just did not value the American colonies enough to engage in a full scale cross-Atlantic struggle for it. In retrospect this may seem hard to believe, but at the time of the revolution Britain made 3 times as much money from the West Indies alone than from the American colonies. This was because existing cultures in the other colonies could be subdued/subverted and their existing infrastructure improved. In the USA the land was generally uncultivated and expensive to develop - for example around the Virginia area people had to be given vast tracts of land to tempt them over.
With regards to the British being in control of the American federal reserve and having the ability to financially cripple the state: In post WW2 years Britain somehow had to pay for the huge amounts of resoruces it had expended, so it turned to America. The conditions of it's loans literally forced Britain to give up massive (profitable) swathes of it's Empire. If Britain was in control of the American economy, would they have let this happen?
Overall, people misunderstand the fundamental nature of the British empire. The majority of expansion was not carried out by the state - it was carried out by 18th century capitalists going to new lands in search of massive wealth, which is in fact the largest migration of people in world history. The most the British government did to encourage this was grant these colonists state impunity and loans. Once the colonists had a hold, the government protected their assets and attempted to increase efficiency by introducing European law and infrastructure. In fact, the Victorians believed it was their duty as the most powerful nation on earth to attempt to (not forcefully) improve the conditions of life in undeveloped areas of the world that it controlled.
Another popular view is that Britain sucked the wealth from it's colonies for it's own betterment. In actuality, over it's entire existence the Emprie barely scraped a profit for Britain, due to the massive investments it made in the areas it controlled. Technically more % of western GDP was invested into Africa and the poor nations by Britain in it's time of Empire, than by the western world now. Taxes in India only amounted to 1% of it's economic output.
Statistically there is only one African nation that is comparitively richer to Britain than it was in the 18th-20th century, that is, every african nation's (apart from that one) GDP has decreased in ratio to Britain's since it gained independance.
~Rant over!!!~