DIAMONDS,GOLD,AND BRITISHIMPERIALISM
intensified among them and developed into an arms race that eventually
tore Europe apart."
The British government was put on the defensive by the decline of its
relative power and the rise of economic and military competition,
es-
pecially from Germany. In the last three decades of the century, successive
British administrations tried to find a policy that would prevent rivals from
encroaching on territories hitherto dominated by British trade and capital,
such as those in the Southern African interior. As the mineral wealth of the
region became revealed, some British politicians and businesspeople came
to regard its control as a matter of national importance. The increase in the
British political commitment in Southern Africa was modified by tactical
differences between the political parties. Under Disraeli and his successors,
the Conservative or Unionist party took a strong imperialist line, whereas
Gladstone's Liberal party split from top to bottom over the question of
territorial expansion.
In the I 870S local circumstances rather than international competition
prompted Britain to annex first the diamond fields (187 I) and then the
Transvaal republic (1877) and to conquer the Zulu kingdom, the most