I've been trying to think about your characterisation of the British empire as agrarian.
You might have a bit of an argument in India, though they destroyed the Indian textile industry. I don't really see how it applies to something like the treaty port or opium wars in 19th century China though.
I am probably stretching the historical analogies a bit, but Carthage practiced mercantilism as well. I think once England transitioned from agrarian and mercantilist (where land and size of empire is an asset not a financial burden) to a trading industrial nation; then it started shedding its colonies through responsible government. Which lessened the financial burden, while still keeping them under one coherent foreign policy through the commonwealth. I think it is the only way a post-agrarian empire can maintain the homogenous foreign policy that empire seems to require.
'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
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