America and canada were the same colony to begin with. They were a weird one as they were practically settled by political refugees from the aftermath of the civil war to begin with and those settlers lobbied for protection. The money there was with trade with the natives for furs which the settlers kept fucking up by not respecting treaties and the slave trade. Although the north american slave trade wasn't as profitable as the carribean

australia was a penal colony focused on revenue collection

I don't know as much about south africa but from my understanding the intent was to make money from ivory and precious metals.

The French in comparrison to the British intended to make everyone French. The British horrors were largely motivated by a depraved indifference to human life and love of money. So yes all those colonies were for money which makes the fire nation more like the Japanese than the British as the fire nation rarely mention revenue which would have come up a lot in British discussion of empire