former colonial powers

I'm researching a trip to some of the South Pacific islands, and I'm still trying to decide which islands to visit.

I was looking at the flags of the Pacific countries, and I noticed that in lots of cases, many flags still include the British flag, even those flags of Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. i didn't see any flags that include the Dutch/French/ German/Spanish/USA flags.

I was wondering about that. Was life under British rule so ok that the independent countries decided to include the British flag as part of their own. Why was that not the case for the other colonial powers?

Some people have speculated that their is a certain good feeling towards Britain because the British introduced Rugby to many of their former territories.

What do you think?

Am sure it has nothing to do with rugby :-) Possibly because most of those countries did not have to fight for their independence, it was freely given. There has been much discussion in Australia about changing the flag, competitions have been held etc. but in the end nobody can decide on the preferred option so it generally lapses for lack of interest.

:-) No, probably not rugby. I think it's more or less as #1 says. These are independent countries that grew out of colonies and that remained part of a Commonwealth of nations. The Union Jack signifies that membership. Canada also had a Union Jack in the corner of their flag (as do Aust and NZ) but managed to make a decisoin for a new flag back in 1967.

The story about Hawaii (and the Hawaiian flag) has to be different. I don't think it was ever a colony of any country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Hawaii

The Hawaiian flag as it is was adopted in 1845 already and it was kept even when Hawaii became an US territory and state later on.

I'm English and about 3 years ago, I spent about 4 months in various South Pacific countries. Whenever I said I'm English, I was told different things, but always complimentary towards the UK (maybe they were just being nice to me?). Some folk said it was because of the Commonwealth, some said because they didn't have to fight for their independence as it was always encouraged and assisted with, some did say Rugby, and a few said that they like various members of the British Royal Family. Most everyone I spoke with in Fiji knows of someone who is serving with one of the branches of the UK military. I never heard anything derogatory said about that sort of thing, even though some Fijians have died in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I remember meeting a lady whose Grand-Father had recently died, and the UK Royal Navy had paid almost 1500 quid to fly her to Fiji and back for the funeral. She wasn't even in the UK military, but her husband was (is).