Britain's War Debt Through the 18th Century

[Frodo]

As people are no doubt familiar with by now, the impetus for the American Revolution began with the British needing to pay off their war debt from the Seven Years' War (or the 'French and Indian War' as we in North America call it), and wanting the colonies to pay their fair share of the burden which, to be fair, was accumulated for their defense in a war that began on the North American frontier.  

So out of curiosity, I looked at the British war debt, and interestingly enough, it only began growing in the late 17th century with the War of the Grand Alliance (or the Nine Years War) against King Louis XIV of France, and accelerated through the course of the 18th century particularly with the Seven Years War and the War for American Independence until it reached its peak in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars:


image source: University of Warwick

Indeed, up until the outbreak of the First World War, Britain had almost entirely paid off its war debts over the course of the 19th century.  How did it do it?  By plundering India?  

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If you actually make an effort to pay down your debt and not just hold steady and also manage to continue reasonable growth rates it is possible to reduce your debts substantially in just a few decades. This is what happened post World War II. The problem today is that we have come to accept huge deficits as part of the norm and worse still said deficit hasn't been translating into decent growth.

If anything the Opium Wars and the Crimean War delayed the reduction in debt, but most of the reductions were achieved within 60 years of the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

[Frodo]

If you actually make an effort to pay down your debt and not just hold steady and also manage to continue reasonable growth rates it is possible to reduce your debts substantially in just a few decades. This is what happened post World War II. The problem today is that we have come to accept huge deficits as part of the norm and worse still said deficit hasn't been translating into decent growth.

If anything the Opium Wars and the Crimean War delayed the reduction in debt, but most of the reductions were achieved within 60 years of the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

You don't think British colonialism in the Victorian era had anything to do with that debt reduction?  Particularly with the establishment of the British Raj in India?  They called it the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire for a reason, I am sure.    

[Tintrlvr]

Colonialism was certainly part of it, but in general Britain was just very well off during this period: economic growth was steady, constant and substantial throughout the industrial revolution, and Britain didn't fight any major wars for the entire century from 1815 to 1914. The state also didn't provide that many services, so, without war expenditures, Britain was mostly running a significant surplus. This would have been true even without British rule in India, which did contribute to overall British wealth but which wasn't that much of a net positive for Britain; maintaining colonies was also quite expensive, and, while India was profitable, other British colonies, such as its African possessions, were mostly operated at a loss.

[Devout Centrist]

This is Debt to GDP; the total amount of the national debt wasn't paid off per se, it's just that the economy grew much quicker than the national debt during the latter half of the 19th and 20th centuries.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If you actually make an effort to pay down your debt and not just hold steady and also manage to continue reasonable growth rates it is possible to reduce your debts substantially in just a few decades. This is what happened post World War II. The problem today is that we have come to accept huge deficits as part of the norm and worse still said deficit hasn't been translating into decent growth.

If anything the Opium Wars and the Crimean War delayed the reduction in debt, but most of the reductions were achieved within 60 years of the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

You don't think British colonialism in the Victorian era had anything to do with that debt reduction?  Particularly with the establishment of the British Raj in India?  They called it the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire for a reason, I am sure.    

Of course it had an impact but Empire as a whole can be a costly thing, especially the wars such as the Opium Wars and the Sepoy Rebellion, not to mention as was said the African colonies were very costly as well.