Explain the factors which attracted European imperialism either to Africa or to Asia in the later nineteenth century.
In the late nineteenth century, the most powerful European nations harboured a compulsive desire for conquest, domination and exploitation in the African continent, in pursuit of empire during ‘The Scramble for Africa’. Their struggle to get ‘a place in the sun’ involved the proliferation of conflicting European claims to African territory during the period, and was fuelled by a range of factors which varied with both the imperialist nation and the African colony. Among the primary factors for European imperialism in Africa were the grand economic prospects of opportunities for profitable investment, brilliant opportunities for trade with favourable market dynamics for the Metro pole and sources of cheap labour for industrial development. Raw materials were also readily in Africa in abundance. European Imperialism in Africa was also driven by rivalry among the superpowers. Conquest in the African continent also promised to confer prestige on the Imperialist nation, therefore European Imperialism promised to satisfy prevailing nationalist, liberal and jingoistic sentiments and interests of the period. Hence, it often emerged as a political priority, as it could diminish domestic discontent. Another prevalent factor of European Imperialism was based on the notion that the African continent was inhabited by relatively defenseless ‘uncivilized’ tribes and societies, and should therefore be converted as part of a ‘civilizing mission’.
European imperialists were lured to Africa by the potential economic benefits there. A sudden demand for foreign markets for manufactures and for investments existed, due to the mass productivity that resulted from Industrialization. Imperialist Europe opted to use the public resources of their country to find profitable employment for their capital which otherwise would be superfluous. Africa offered Britain, as well as Germany, France an open market that would garner it a trade surplus. As such, the African market would consume more from the metropole than it would sell to it. Britain, like most other industrial countries, was facing an unfavorable balance of trade which was increasingly counterbalance, however, by the income from overseas investments. Thus, financial services especially outside Europe became an increasingly vital sector of its economy. Local traders, agents, bankers, and investors encouraged imperial expansion. Bondholders pressed the British government to occupy Egypt in 1882. Additionally, this surplus capital could be more profitably invested Africa, where cheap labor, limited competition, and abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. They also wanted to open up markets for the goods they made and protection from the boom and bust cycle of . As one nation after another entered the machine economy and adopted advanced industrial methods, it became more difficult for its manufacturers, merchants, and financiers to dispose profitably of their economic resources, and they were tempted more and more to use their Governments in order to secure for their particular use some distant undeveloped country by annexation and protection.