Social Policy and Britain’s 1929 Colonial Development Act

Abstract

AbstractIn 1929, Britain passed the Colonial Development Act (CDA), which represents the first centralised and systematic attempt to allocate development assistance throughout dependencies in the British Empire. This chapter examines social policy in a British colonial development context through the lens of the CDA from 1929 to 1940. It argues that while the CDA was a redistributive mechanism, it was far from progressive in both concept and implementation. Instead, the CDA embodied many of the inherent tensions and contradictions about welfare in the British Empire, with Britain portraying itself as a duty bound and philanthropic colonial power on the one hand while simultaneously pursuing a colonial development agenda that explicitly prioritised metropolitan economic gains over the welfare of local and indigenous populations on the other.