legislation and laws, based on those of the British system, and common law. (17) Both New Zealand and the Solomon Islands also have laws very similar to the English, although amendments have been made since, particularly for the accommodation and inclusion of indigenous peoples. The Queen is still head of state in Australia, New Zealand and the Solomon Islands, all three nations identifying as independent sovereign states. In practise, the running of these countries is overseen by a President or Prime Minister and a democratically selected government. Elsewhere in Polynesia, Fiji and Samoa, which were at one point under British control, have reverted to indigenous monarchies or chiefdoms. These states are totally independent from British oversight, while Tahiti and the surrounding archipelagos became a French colony in 1880. The South Pacific has become fraught with political instability ever since the beginning of the move for decolonisation. The more economically stable countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, have strong established governments, whereas nations whose societies were the most heavily adapted by colonisation, notably the Solomon Islands have been faced with repeated coups and weak leadership. In recent years, countries united by their colonial pasts have come together to provide effective international aid in the form of RAMSI and similar schemes, showing that the scars inflicted by Empire can be reversed to do good.

To conclude, my research has clearly demonstrated that the impact of the British Empire has on the whole been hugely damaging to the culture of South Pacific nations, hugely impeding their social progression whilst systematically imposing Western culture, and destroying ‘savage’ practises. The British colonisers’ efforts to constrain indigenous culture is evident in their physical persecution, as well as the efforts made to change indigenous art, languages, location and politics. There is certainly also a degree of validity in Jeremy Paxman’s view that the Empire is “an amazing thing”, citing the education and medical innovation that it exported.

Furthermore the creation of stable government, judicial and educa