At the ILO’s 1947 Convention, the Indian workers’ delegate, Shanta Mukherjee, noted the almost total absence of workers from the colonies. ‘Can any policy which has not freedom as its declared objective secure the well-being and happiness of dependent peoples?’, she asked. By updating older civilisational and racial hierarchies for new welfarist times, the ‘progressive’ colonial policy of the period sought to forestall such questions. … ‘British socialists are not so concerned with ideals like independence and self-government, but with the idea of social justice.’ By taking the emphasis off the political question of independence, the Fabians portrayed colonial rule as necessary to protect colonial subjects from market fluctuations.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 242