[Zhang Fei]

The Empire was essentially a trading bloc — albeit based on mercantalist theory, and heavily favouring Britain.

I wouldn't be too sure it favored the metropole. As the empire dissolved, British per capita income went up, whereas per capita income in the former colonies stagnated or went down. The British empire wasn't run as a tribute-exaction system for building Taj Mahals (unlike Indian ones, or just about every other non-European empire in history) - the colonies were expected to pay for themselves, but the idea was that trade would make all parties richer. And that did in fact happen - population growth in the colonies ramped up rapidly (except in India, where the population increased, but encountered periodic famines because it had hit Malthusian limits).

[Cronos]

well, I dispute the population growth bit -- Australia and Canada were and are inhospitable places to live without some technology which the aboriginal peoples did not have

Also, the famines in India were to a large extent not managed due to political reasons -- case in point, the Bengal famine in the late 1800s. Independent India has not had any famine deaths