ca Company but without success. The southern portion of Africa did not fully stabilize until after the end of the scramble for Africa in the first years of the 20th century (Porter, p. 243-44).British imperial growth in Africa during the last two decades of the 19th century was on the grand scale but as porter and to some degree Lloyd point out this growth was not do to a British expansionist policy. This is made particularly clear under Gladstones government but through reactionary response to other European powers imperial conquests, both failed and successful economic reasons were also influential in expansion, and by British imperialists at home and in Africa who were kept on shoestrings and forced expansion such as with the cape colony and to some degree the British East Africa company in the Boganda Kingdom. Porter sums up the value of African expansion that would come to be recognized in the later by making a comparison with Asian expansion, The first reason was that Africa was not really so valueless by contrast with Asia; South Africa especially was rapidly becoming a treasure-house itself with it diamonds and gold and the prospect of much more to come, and from Indias point of view it, and Suez at the other end of the continent, were as essential as ever for access to Britain. The second reason was that Africa was easier for Britain to defend anyway. None of her rivals there had the natural advantages Russia had in Asia except perhaps the Afrikaners, and they were underrated; Britains naval strength could count for more, and her military weakness need show less in skirmishes with Africans or European expeditionary forces then in wars with standing armies; and there was no India to fall apart at the first sign of trouble (Porter, p.163). The British role in Africa only began with the scramble for Africa. British influence would continue to grow until the African colonies began to gain their independence in the middle an...
