Mixed rationales accompanied early colonial endeavours, from the quest for grandeur and a global presence to the profitability that was, for some, the crux of empire. This economic rationale has outweighed other reasons to those who have sought decolonisation and opposed exploitation. Yet in every region, every period, and at every scale, the extent to which the colonies proved profitable has been contentious. Much evidence suggests that contemporary overseas territories have tended to be an economic cost to the colonial powers, most obviously in recent times. Nonetheless, varied geographies – in terms of the size, location of territories and distribution of various natural resources – histories and cultures have made general conclusions over the economic significance of empire difficult.

Over time, as colonial powers occupied smaller and more distant places, the economic rationale for empire became exceptionally weak. In the South Pacific, for example, the French bid for New Caledonia in the 1850s was greeted in Australia with uninterest. Australia was a vast continent still to be finally explored and conquered, and such small islands were of little consequence. Britain took over the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (Kiribati and Tuvalu) without competition from other metropolitan powers; colonialism was a matter of duty rather than the acquisition of a valuable area, in either economic or strategic terms. There was little wealth or grandeur in this distant fragment of empire.