Joan Veon
The Power Of The British Commonwealth Over The World
Sat May 28, 2005 14:39
64.140.158.46
The Power Of The British Commonwealth Over The World
By Joan Veon
Executive Director
The Women's International Media Group, Inc
2-8-5
Introduction
The following report on "The Power of the British Commonwealth Over the World" began when I was at the WTO meeting in Cancun in September 2003. There, several African countries held a press briefing in which they said that they would starve if America and other rich countries did not open their cotton and agricultural markets to them. I asked several questions about their vast natural resources (gold and strategic minerals) and if they had any monies left over after their World Bank loans were paid. They refused to answer. Afterward I spoke to each one and asked the following questions and received the same response. Since they were Commonwealth members, I asked if they could go to Britain for help. They could not. So I then asked why they don't withdraw from the Commonwealth if there is no help. With great alarm, they told me they could not withdraw from this voluntary association. When I returned home, I called the British Information Office to see if they could tell me if the countries which Britain de-colonized in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s received a vote at the UN at the time of separation. The lady told me she would have to research my very good question. She called the next day to tell me that every time a country was granted independence from Britain, they were given a vote at the UN. Bingo!
I have always questioned how Britain would regain control of America when they were defeated by Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. Are we so naive to think that they would not try some other way to "capture the world"? In the past ten years, as I have covered the UN, I have been amazed at the number of suggestions and key reports that come from the British which influence UN policy. So, just how much power does Britain have in the world today?
The first book that I wrote is 'Prince Charles the Sustainable Prince' which has to do with the role of the British Royal Family as the power behind the United Nations. This book asserts that the British ARE the power behind the United Nations. This opinion has not changed since I wrote Prince Charles. The prince is a key, behind-the-scenes mover and shaker and is responsible for the radical environmental agenda that perverts Genesis 1, 2, and 3 and puts the earth above man and not man above the earth as God intended. When I wrote Prince Charles, I was not aware of the information you are now going to read.
A Brief History of Britain
The following is taken from the Internet site, "britania," and is from 'England, A Narrative History' by Peter N. Williams. What I have tried to do is to show the aggressiveness of this little island nation and its role in the world today. Some of the sub-titles are my interpretation of the material reprinted.
Early History
The Celtic culture in Early Britain developed about 1000 BC and came from Gaul, driven from their homelands by the Romans who invaded in 55BC under Julius Caesar. In 43 AD an expedition was ordered against Britain by Emperor Claudius who sent an army of 40,000 men. The Romans established their bases in what is known as Kent and subdued much of Britain in less than 40 years. They remained for nearly 400 years. After the Romans left, England entered a dark period. By 314 an organized Christian Church seems to have been established in most of Britain. By 410 Britain had become self-governing in three parts. In 597 St. Augustine was sent to convert the pagan English by Pope Gregory. Ethelbert had married Bertha, daughter of the Merovingian King and was practicing Christianity. The first Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Britain was an Anglo-Celtic kingdom. In 726, Aethelbold called himself "King of Britain" while his son Offa called himself "king of all the English." For several hundred years, various kings in various part of Britain tried to gain control. In 896, Alfred occupied London. He was born in 849 and became King of Wessex in 871. Due to his battles with the Danes, he succeeded in becoming the first king of England. Throughout the 8th century, the Danes, Norwegians, Scandinavians, and British fought as to who would have power and control. The Normans invaded England in order to secure the throne for William of Normandy who was crowned King of England at Westminster on Christmas Day, 1066. With him, came feudalism and a new aristocracy. By 1086, other than small-estate holders, there were in the whole of the land only two Englishmen holding estates of any dimension. William insisted that landowners who had land from the king produce a set quota of mounted knights which produced a new ruling class in England. In this system, those at the bottom suffered most, losing all their rights as free men and coming to be regarded as mere property, assets belonging to the manor.
Feudalistic Sustainable Development
Further restrictions and hardship came from William's New Forest laws and his vast extension of new royal forests in which all hunting rights belonged to the king. The peasantry was deprived of a valuable food source in times of bad harvests. In 1080, the "Domesday Book" was begun and was an attempt to provide the king with every penny to which he was legally entitled. It worked only too well, reckoning the wealth of England, "Down to the last pig." William sent his men into every village and had them find out how many hides there were, what land and cattle the king should have in the country, and what dues he ought to have in twelve months from the town or village [JV: Does this sound like sustainable development and the UN Biological Diversity Treaty?].
>From the rule of the Plantagenet's to Richard the Lionhearted and the Crusades to King John who was forced to sign the "Great Magna Carta" in Runnymede on June 15, 1215, to Edward I, Longshanks to Henry VIII and to Queen Elizabeth I, the British kings and queens were concerned with holding on to the power of the monarchy.
As a result of the defeat of the Spanish Armada by Elizabeth I and her long reign, England saw remarkable economic growth and a time of calm from her chaotic past. Industry and trade prospered under the guidance of men like Secretary Cecil, later Lord Burghley. [JV: It should be noted that Lord Burghley perfected torture techniques and the secret police.] During her reign, many of the Dutch bankers and capitalists from Antwerp flocked to London to find a new and more secure international money and credit market. That year Thomas Gresham opened the Royal Exchange in London to make it the financial capital of the world. Cecil encouraged the fishing industry, the source of England's navy and backbone of its sea power. English sailors began their mastery of the world's oceans. Though little more than pirates, these seamen laid the foundations of their nation's naval superiority which was to last for centuries. John Cabot discovered Newfoundland in 1497, Martin Frobisher established trade with Moscow in 1555 to trade with Russia. Sir Francis Drake searched the world for treasures.
Key British Economic and Trade Concepts In 1694, the Bank of England was formed by a private stock company which raised their own funds and issued their own money to be lent to the government "in perpetuity." This started the concept of "central banking." Then a group of merchants and sea captains at Lloyd's Coffee House in 1688 formed marine insurance which would underwrite enormous expenditures in overseas ventures and shipping. On May 26, 1698, Parliament came up with the idea of granting monopolies in trade by an act of Parliament. This act created the East India Company. This company, with the newly formed Bank of England showed only too well the growing power of the British traders and financiers over the state government (emphasis added). [JV: This is very key for they still rule the world today.]
As a result of the East India Trading Company, the trading classes were able to control parliament. It became one of the ever-increasing problems for the country's government: the interference of trade with legislation and administration was to become an inevitable part of the future.
In 1496, John and Sebastian Cabot discovered Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. England's own era of exploration, initiated by the Cabots, was expanded by the journeys of Hugh Willoughby to seek a Northeast Passage to China and the spice trade. He reached Moscow by way of the White Sea and Archangel in 1553. As a result, the Muscovy Company was founded by Richard Chancellor to trade with Russia in 1555. Then John Hawkins, who began his career high-jacking Portuguese and Spanish ships in 1562, led to England's entering the Slave Trade. David Ingram explored from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and reported finding vines with grapes as large as a man's thumb. English mariner Francis Drake undertook his daring voyage of 1572 to capture the Spanish treasure fleet returning from Peru, a feat surpassed by his even greater haul one year later.
In 1580, Drake arrived back in Plymouth having circumnavigated the globe in the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind after the gallant ship had passed through the Straits of Magellan. Drake was knighted by the Queen after capturing the richest prize ever taken at sea. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh established a colony in Roanoke, Virginia. One year later, Chesapeake Bay was discovered by Ralph Lane and Davis Strait by John Davis.
In 1585, the first oriental spice to be grown in the New World, Jamaican ginger, arrived in Europe. In 1586, Sir Richard Cavendish became the third man to circumnavigate the globe when the ship the Desire reached England after a voyage of over two years. When the Portuguese closed its spice market in Lisbon to Dutch and English traders, the Dutch East India Company was created to obtain spices directly from the Orient. In 1600, the Honorable East India Company was chartered to make annual voyages to the Indies and to challenge Dutch control of the spice trade.
After James I made peace with Spain in 1604, he re-directed England's efforts at colonizing North America and the Plymouth and London companies sent ships and colonists. Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607. That same year, Henry Hudson sought a route to China and sailed around the Eastern Short of Greenland. In 1610, Hudson's ship Discovery reached the strait later to be known as Hudson Bay, Canada. In 1620, the Mayflower arrived off Cape Cod with 100 Pilgrims. In 1628, John Endicott arrived as the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1632, Maryland received its charger by a grant from King Charles to Cecil Calvert. In 1655, Admiral Penn captured Jamaica from the Spanish. In 1654, New Amsterdam was renamed New York after its capture from the Dutch. A year later, the New Jersey Colony was founded by English colonists. The 1674 Treaty of Westminster returned New York and Delaware to England. In 1681, Pennsylvania had its beginning in the land grant given to William Penn. In 1698, William Dampier sailed on his Pacific expedition to explore the West Coast of Australia.
In 1648, South Africa came to attention of Europeans when a Dutch ship broke up and the survivors urged authorities to establish a settlement for provisioning their East India fleets. In 1652, a small group of Dutch settlers founded Cape Town. In 1815, Britain gained its long-desired "half-way house" on the sea route to India when the Dutch ceded the Cape of Good Hope. The British arrived in 1820. When diamonds were discovered in the Orange Free State, the Boer War began. Then gold was discovered in the Transvaal in 1886. Cecil Rhodes who founded the De Beers Mining Corporation in 1880 was determined that the riches being discovered in South Africa were not going to the Boer farmers. Rhodes dreamed of extending British rule in Africa. Using his great wealth, amassed in the diamond and gold fields, Rhodes with other imperialists established British colonies to the north of the Boer territories. Both Northern and Southern Rhodesia were granted charters by London. Eventually the Boer republics were annexed to the British crown in 1900.
The South Sea company founded in 1711 had acquired a monopoly in the lucrative Spanish slave trade and other trading ventures in South America.
At the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Britain gained Canada, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, the right to navigate the Mississippi, the West Indian Islands of Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica and Tobago in the West Indies; Florida (from Spain); Senegal in Africa and the preservation in India of the East India Company's monopoly, and in Europe, Minorca.
In India, Robert Clive defeated pro-French forces at Arcot in 1751 thus helping his East India Company monopolize appoints, finances, land and power. The British victory led to the withdrawal of the French East India Company. Then Clive defeated the local Nabob at Plassey to become virtual ruler of Bengal and opened up much of the country to further exploitation and control by the East India Company. India was regarded as the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire; over two thirds of the vast sub-continent was ruled by the East India Company. Its finances and its troops were used to protect British interests, even overthrowing native Indian princes.
In 1769, Captain Cook discovered a country that consisted of two main islands, it was called New Zealand. In 1770, he explored the eastern coast of what was then called "New Holland." He took possession of the island continent in the name of George III. Britain had found a new empire, Australia to resettle criminals and to accommodate early settlers to help with the overpopulation in Britain which the agricultural and industrial revolutions had contributed to. In 1822, an article by James Mill on "colonization" in the "Encyclopedia Britannica" offered emigration as a remedy for over-population.
Between 1768 and 1781, Captain Cook made three exploratory voyages to the West Coast of Canada. Because the Chinese were interested in receiving fur in exchange for the tea, silks and porcelain which was in demand in Europe, the British went further west. In 1788, a group of English traders settled on Vancouver Island. Spain still claimed the whole West Coast of America up to Alaska but after a confrontation at Vancouver between the two countries, England presented an ultimatum to the Spanish whose lack of allies and an effective navy forced them to accept its terms. The Spanish recognition of British trading and fishing rights in the area opened the way for the establishment of British Columbia and the creation of a British North America. In 1867, the British North America Act united Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the Dominion of Canada.
When Admiral Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet near Gibraltar in 1805, the long struggle between Britain and France for world supremacy ended. English soldiers were involved in a war with China over British export of opium from India in exchange for silks and tea. When China forbade the opium trade and fired on a British warship, they were bombarded by a Royal Navy squadron. The Opium War ended with the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 that opened up five "Treaty Ports" for trade and gave Hong Kong to Britain.
Britain's rise to a world power meant that she found interest everywhere. Not only was she now head of the self-governing colonies such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, but also the vast Empire of India and a veritable host of dependent territories all over the world's oceans. Most of these had been acquired somehow to protect the merchants and traders of England. On the following page, you will find a chart of British interference and domination in the affairs of the world.
Observations of Commonwealth Countries While I could make numerous observations about the various countries that comprise the Commonwealth countries, I would like to offer the following:
1. There is an interesting mix between extremely wealthy countries such as Aus
- U.S. IS STILL A BRITISH COLONY —Bob Rose, Sun May 29 13:59
Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]
