They believed that they were the superiority of the world because of their race. Many Europeans thought that the conquering and destroying other weaker races was the best way of life and improving the species of human beings. They took up the scientific ideas of natural selection and the survival of the fittest and applied the concepts to the human social world. .
However, some westerners actually genuinely thought that they should help and westernize the inferior countries of the world. The British went into Africa, thinking that it was their duty to spread their advances of medicine, law, western civilization, and the Christian religion. This was proved to be embraced in the "anthem of imperialism,"" called the White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling. He expressed in the poem that the duty of the "white man- was to teach and help the people who they cast the inferior rank to. However, it is hard to believe that this was Britain's most important goal in their imperialism. .
Finally, the most important reason to British imperialism was their desire to advance economically. Their economy was primarily based on trade, and because colonies could be added as a form of imperial control, it only furthered and expanded trade. Because such countries as Germany and France began to rise to power, Britian was confronted with competition, so they felt that they had to take the African land first. The British feared that as the other countries began to become stronger and more stable, they would steal their markets, so that is how the scramble for Africa starts. As for the Suez Canal, it became extremely important for money making.
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The French, who built the Suez Canal in Egypt, s the dilemma between constant competition with continental Europe is in the case of Egypt. The French had retained control of the land in the Versailles Treaty and in 1869 the great French engineer Lesseps built the Suez canal as a money making scheme for France to grant passage for traders interested in an easier route to the east.
