Expanding territory without war

[brianusa]

Does Belize have or did they have any railways?

Brian

[whart57]

Have they thrown off one colonial power?

[Andy Y]

Stop posting political threads then.

First for all I will point out to you that I didn't start the topic. Many members do have the mental capacity to sensibly discuss political issues and I am tolerant of that but such discussions get trashed when someone comes along with glib statements. It's far from the first time I have noticed such posts from you and thanks to the attitude you have displayed if you post any further political comments I will remove access altogether.

 

 

When our joined the site you agreed to rules which includes 'No politics'.

 

Understood?

[brack]

Bon Accord - I think we're heading off topic. The colonial era was a different time and it is difficult to judge the actions of a century or two ago through our current eyes. Much of the poorer/less educated populace of this country was happily treated with abuse and indifference too (there is a statue in a marketplace near where I live of a man who campaigned against educating all children for instance). The British Empire was hardly an organ of unalloyed virtue, but it is fair to say that the British flavour of colonialism was generally preferable for the native than most of the other models (eg. Belgian), and the later years of empire did result in favourable improvements in the rule of law, education, infrastructure and investment which some of our former colonies could certainly do with today. I think it is a bit more complex than to write off our history for 300 years as wholly evil for which we must atone, or as wholly great for which we must be proud.

 

Back to the topic in discussion - The acquisition of new territory is the part which is currently (post WW2) unacceptable: outright wars of aggression and territorial expansion are pretty much not allowed in our current climate, so what we see is economic colonialism - The various Chinese investments (usually by state backed companies) in africa and central asia are an attempt to gain the benefits of a colony but without accepting any responsibility for the people living there, pretty much what we had with the East India Company before India came under British Rule. Similarly military interventions by the US and allies (usually us) with our companies picking up the spoils afterwards look rather like an attempt to extend our power and influence and secure resources (I fully agree that Saddam Hussein/the Taliban/whoever were definitely bad and did pretty inexcusable stuff, I'm not sure our course of action was the best one). The other thing which smacks of a modern economic colonialism is locking poorer countries into a aid/loan dependent state which effectively ties them to more developed countries if they want the cash to keep flowing to those overseas bank accounts.

As outright war is no longer on the table, we see more and more of this creeping economic colonialism, in some ways the old way of turning up and planting a flag seems more honest than the current one.

 

brianusa - yes, there were railways for a grapefruit and banana plantation which ended up part of United Fruit (read their history for an example of the economic colonialism I'm talking about), a logging line and a sugar mill, but all are now closed.

[phil_sutters]

We have been peacefully expanding our territory by digging big railway tunnels, under the Channel and London and dumping the spoil around the coast at Samphire Hoe, Kent and  Wallasea Island, Essex. So there is a railway element to this discussion.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Have they thrown off one colonial power?

That was in 1981 when they went from being a self-governing British Overseas Territory to being an independent Commonwealth Realm. The day to day impact of this change was probably negligible. 

 

As for Railways, there's some interesting stuff here, especially the Chaplin vertical boiler loco

 

http://www.guidetobelize.info/en/travel/belize-train-railway-guide.shtml

[rockershovel]

 

 

Interesting link about Honduran railways, took me a little while to work out what 0-4-0GTVB might mean.

Edited September 3, 2017 by rockershovel