During the days of the British Empire, were people allowed to travel?
Travel in the British empire was asymmetric. In general, most empire nationals were British subjects (up to the postwar 1940s) thus could hold only British passports and therefore enter Britain freely, and work and vote in the UK; but many colonies were not democracies or were self-governing dominions: both types could admit or exclude people at the discretion of the local government. Secondly, international travel before WW2 was largely a privilege for the rich (except for sailors, servants, contract employees and overseas scholarship winners.)