'The Affairs of a Distant Dependency': The Nigeria Debate and the Premiership, 1916

We provide the first full account of the intertwined corporateconflicts and political tensions behind the ‘Nigeria Debate’of 8 November 1916, the beginning of the crisis that toppledthe Asquith coalition The debate had its ongins in an attemptby the Lagos authorities and the Colonial Office to break theemerging monopoly of a ‘Ring’ of British firms overNigerian trade The government sought to encourage foreign (especiallyAmerican) investment with a highly publiazed sale of formerGerman assets. Sir Edward Carson, the recognized leader of politicaldiscontent, took up the firms' agitation against the policy,alleging official neglect of British interests. Bonar Law, whoas Colonial Secretary was the minister responsible, decidedto counter-attack. He argued that Carson, while claiming tobe a disinterested patriot, was defending the private interestsof profiteering firms. Spurning compromise, and demonstratingthat the issue was not a simple tariff reform/free trade choice,Bonar Law treated the debate as a test of Unionist support forhis leadership. Carson's followers privately acknowledged thatBonar Law won; but the strength of Carson's support, even witha bad case, and uncertainties about Lloyd George's position,persuaded Bonar Law that the administration could not continueon its present basis. For Asquith the endgame then began     

POTTED HISTORIES – CREMATION, CERAMICS AND SOCIAL MEMORY IN EARLY ROMAN BRITAIN

Summary.   Archaeologists have identified the adoption of new forms of cremation ritual during the early Roman period in south-east Britain. Cremation may have been widely used by communities in the Iron Age, but the distinctive nature of these new rites was their frequent placing of the dead within, and associated with, ceramic vessels. This paper suggests an interpretation for the social meaning of these cremation burial rites that involved the burial of ashes with and within pots as a means of commemoration. In this light, the link between cremation and pottery in early Roman Britain can be seen as a means of promoting the selective remembering and forgetting of the dead.     

The Effects of Climate and Socio‐Demographics on Direct Household Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Australia

Household CO₂ emissions are a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and consequently climate warming. Despite this, there has been little consideration of how household CO₂ emissions may be affected by changes in climate. The aim of the present study has been to investigate the way climate, as well as socio‐demographic characteristics, may affect household CO₂ emissions produced from energy use. A national online survey was conducted to determine current household CO₂ emissions in Australia as well as capture the ownership and use of household appliances and installations. Electricity and gas‐based emissions as well as the ownership of a variety of household appliances and installations were found to be strongly associated with temperature. Electricity and gas emissions were found to decrease as annual average temperatures increase. However, as temperatures continue to rise under climate change this pattern may be reversed owing to increased reliance on air conditioners. One option for preventing this from occurring is to encourage houses to adopt more solar‐passive installations. Although this may be expensive, households with higher emissions tend to have higher incomes, indicating that they may have the capacity to pay for such installations.     

The United Nations: past and present

The UN is approaching its seventieth birthday in 2015. Kofi Annan, its seventh secretary general, and the only incumbent not to have come from a national government, has written the most honest and insightful memoir of any occupant of the thirty‐eighth floor, Interventions. Despite terrible setbacks in Bosnia and Rwanda, the United Nations remains the most representative and successful international organization in history. As Mark Mazower points out in his Governing the world, an acutely penetrating history of international governance, the successes of the UN are more than the founders of the ill‐fated League of Nations could have dreamt of. Mazower's tour de force combines a history of the intellectual ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their eventual realization in the League of Nations and the UN. While his conclusions question whether faith in international institutions has been lost, the reality of universal membership of the UN and establishment of an International Criminal Court might suggest otherwise.