Statistics as the science of government: The stillborn British Empire statistical bureau, 1918–20

The 1920 British Empire Statistical Conference was the direct outcome of the Dominions Royal Commission's Final Report, which had spelt out the need to increase the uniformity and comparability of statistics originating from various parts of the Empire and had proposed setting up an imperial central statistical office. Over 24 days, delegates debated a large number of topics, ranging from the practical and empirical subject matters of statistical inquiry to more abstract issues such as the nature and object of statistical data collection and analysis, and to the problems raised by the establishment of a statistical bureau that would operate on an unprecedented scale. This article seeks to understand why, despite apparently favourable conditions, this project soon ended in complete failure. The reasons must be sought in the neatly distinctive outlooks held by the British government and Dominion representatives as regards the function of statistics for the purpose of government, in the quite different bureaucratic settings that embodied and sustained these views, as well as in the tensions and centrifugal pressures that acted upon inter-imperial relations following the Great War.     

The Politics of Empire: Douglas Hailsham and the Imperial Policy of the National Government, 1931–38

While the majority of high-profile imperialists were excluded from Britain's National Government during the 1930s, at least one leading imperialist of the era, Douglas Hogg, first Viscount Hailsham (1872–1950), was at the heart of British policy-making. Although historians have largely overlooked the multifaceted contribution of this leading Conservative to inter-imperial affairs, as a senior cabinet minister he made significant interventions in Britain's policy towards both India and Ireland. He was, both publicly and privately, at the forefront of attempts to resist Irish violations of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and, at the same time, became one of the government's leading advocates of a progressive solution to India's constitutional development. The article demonstrates that the simplistic image of Hailsham as a diehard reactionary requires significant modification. His approach was characteristically underpinned by a belief in the sanctity of existing agreements and pledges—whether or not he intrinsically approved of them.     

Trade,Politics and the Navy in Latin America: The British in the Paraná, 1845–46

When military conflict and economic disruption in the river Plate region led to a British naval occupation of the river Paraná in 1845–46, traders from many nations followed the warships upstream hoping to conduct business in the Argentine interior and with Paraguay. Since the 1920s historians have uniformly disparaged this Paraná expedition as a commercial failure, insisting that the foreign intruders found neither trade nor welcome among the local populations. In Argentine historiography, the episode is consistently presented as a successful assertion of national identity in the face of European imperial assault. Research here, however, demonstrates not only the expedition's economic success but, again contrary to established opinion, its military and strategic achievements, before the British government abandoned its policy of armed intervention. The Paraná was eventually opened to foreign navigation by international treaties in 1853.