British Office Research Articles

The Continental System as a Sieve: The Disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst in 1809

Diplomats, fidential knowledge about their own and other countries, are highly conspicuous and privileged individuals, protected from interference by treaties and convention.1 On the rare occasions when such a figure disappears, the event causes a sensation, widespread curiosity, and speculation. The excitement throughout the western world when Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean vanished from the British foreign office in 1951 lasted throughout the official cover-up to increase when they turned up at a press conference in Moscow to acknowledge that they had spied for the Soviet Union since the Second World War. The fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish businessman and diplomat arrested when Soviet troops reached Budapest, after he had managed to save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazi death camps, continues to be a matter of investigation and conjecture to this day. A similarly famous and unsolved case of a diplomat who disappeared is that of Benjamin Bathurst, the British envoy to Austria in 1809. Required to leave Austria by the treaty of Schonbrunn which followed Napoleon's victory over Archduke Charles at the battle of Wagram, he was being escorted home by the embassy's most experienced messenger when they stopped in the afternoon of 25 November at the small Prussian town of Perleberg, halfway between Berlin and Hamburg, to rest and change horses. A few hours later, as preparations were being made to resume the journey, Bathurst left the post house for a walk. When the carriage was packed and the horses were harnessed, he was nowhere to be found. Within fifteen minutes, he had vanished without trace. Throughout the night and for the next ten days, the local magistrates sought assiduously for the missing stranger, who they were informed was six feet tall with fair hair and a moustache, but whose true identity was unknown to them until it was published in the Hamburg newspapers two

Rational Expectations, Uncertainty and Cyclical Activity in the British Office Market

This study presents an econometric investigation of office building development in Great Britain. The results show that the cyclical activity in office development, measured by the changes in the office building output series compiled by the Department of the Environment, is explained by the changes in Hillier Parker real office rents, and changes in the volume of output in services. There is also strong evidence that uncertainty, originating in the volatility of rents, exerted a negative influence on the rate of office development in the 1990s. The study advances further the existing econometric treatment of office building development by undertaking direct tests of rationality and shows that the estimated model produces forecasts which are characterised by rational expectations. It is established that information contained in the past history of office building output and variables which are considered to explain its cyclical pattern is efficiently and consistently incorporated. The model also suggests that in the formation of one-period forecasts the weight attached to the error most recently observed is about 30 per cent.

The British Army's Counter-Battery Staff Office and Control of the Enemy in World War I

The British Army's Counter-Battery Staff Office and Control of the Enemy in World War I

Modelling Use, Investment, and Development in the British Office Market

The authors provide an empirical investigation of office market dynamics and model the user, investment, and development elements of this market. They recognise explicitly that the user and investment markets in office property influence trends in development and that development activity in turn affects office use and investment. This theoretical premise suggests that an analysis of these separate components of the market can make a significant contribution to a fuller understanding of office market dynamics, including swings in development activity. In the European context, there is a lack of research on modelling the functional elements of the office market individually, although such modelling is more common in US studies. Furthermore, most quantitative empirical work lacks an examination of the investment market for property and its intertemporal effects on development activity. In this paper, the authors estimate econometric models for rents, capital values, and development activity in the national office market in Great Britain. The results establish the significant influence of demand-side economic forces in the user market and the importance of use and investment market signals in the determination of office building output. However, the findings also strongly suggest that the investment market needs to be explored in more detail in order to identify and document the nature of the forces which interact in this sector of the office market.

Language and Politics, Interests and Constituencies: The Career of the Council for the Welsh Language

Accounts of events and pressures influencing the British government's Welsh Office to set up the Council for the Welsh Language precede reviews of the Council's composition and tasks, how it undertook its work, the recommendations to the Secretary of State for Wales in its bilingual report in English: A Future for the Welsh Language, their consequences and responses to them. These reviews show that the Council was even-handed in approach and mostly recommended fostering existing activities it believed to support Welsh and that the Council satisfied the middle ground of public opinion but acknowledged neither those clearly against the Welsh language nor those so enthusiastically for it as to be against the British state- even if by parliamentary means. These characteristics explain the role of the Council in demonstrating a governmental preparedness to support Welsh and in successfully avoiding widening two divisions: one separates those who favour the resurgence of Welsh as a cultural force from those resigned to, even content with, its becoming a cultural relic; the other perhaps similar division separates those who seek an independent Wales from those who prefer Wales to be within the United Kingdom.

Reversion to isolationism? The British foreign office view of American attitudes to isolationism and internationalism during World War II

Reversion to isolationism? The British foreign office view of American attitudes to isolationism and internationalism during World War II

A Fundamental Comparison of International Real Estate Returns

This study analyzes commercial real estate returns in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States over the period 1985-95, from the perspective of a U.S. investor. Because national indices can consist of differing property mixes, this study separately analyzes the office, retail and warehouse sectors. Moreover, these analyses also convert total returns into their fundamental components: initial yield, growth in income and shifts in capitalization rates. The paths of currency-adjusted income and asset values and, therefore, capitalization rates are also presented. Generally speaking, the fundamental components of retail returns across the four countries exhibit greater divergence than the office and warehouse sectors. It is interesting that the U.S. property sectors showed the worst performance, while the Australian retail and the British office and warehouse sectors were the best performers (both before and after currency adjustments). Additionally, the currency-adjusted Australian returns were adversely effected by exchange rate movements, while the British returns were positively effected. Lastly, the correlation of the quarterly percentage change in income was generally lower and less statistically significant than the correlation patterns observed among the other components of return. This might suggest that more idiosyncratic risk can be found in the real estate space markets (as proxied by income changes) than in the real estate capital markets (as proxied by the pricing of the income—that is, capitalization rates), which appear to be more globally influenced.

U.K. foresight' program begins to bear fruit

The U.K.'s Technology Program is making a major impact on investment in research and development and on the infrastructure for innovation, according to a report by the British government's Office of Science & Technology (OST). The Foresight First Progress Report highlights the development of a series of networks marshaling the country's academic, scientific, and business communities in an effort to improve industrial competitiveness. The program, announced in a 1993 government policy document titled Realizing Our Potential: A Strategy for Science, Engineering, and Technology, is a collaborative effort to identify and exploit trends and opportunities in markets and technology over the next 10 to 20 years (C&EN, July 3,1995, page 16). And it is having intangible as well as tangible results. There is certainly a much better feeling of partnership between industry, government, and academia now, comments Paul Leonard, head of research and innovation at the Chemical Industries Association and a ...

Exercise in the prevention of coronary heart disease

Forty years of population studies have shown that physical activity can protect against coronary heart disease (CHD) in men of middle and early old age. Vigorous aerobic effort was required for protection of British civil servants; high levels of other activity usually accompanied this. Serious methodologic problems are illustrated from studies of these British office workers, elite Harvard alumni, and U.S. men at high risk. Because of uncertainties in defining optimal exercise, the strength of protection may be underestimated. Some possible lines of advance are suggested: collaboration between physiologists and epidemiologists to expand the content of activity information beyond caloric costs; study of sweating and hard breathing as indicators of activity that is "vigorous" for the individual; focusing on coronary thrombosis, hypothetically the principal locus of protection; a shift to measurement of cardiorespiratory, endurance fitness; and randomized trial, e.g., of high risk men with low HDL-C and high fibrinogen levels. Responding to public need and the opportunities, physical activity could be today's "best buy" in public health for the West.

The Strategic Implications for the Randstad of the Dutch Property System

The aim of this paper is to decide how well the Dutch are served by their property system and whether it is organisation ally and functionally suited to advancing the competitive position of the Randstad cities within a unified Europe. In the first part of the paper, some of the distinctive features of the Dutch property system are highlighted by drawing comparison with trends and outcomes found in the British and Australian housing and office submarkets. Pricing policy in the Netherlands is outlined, followed by a consideration of some key outcomes including the relative stability of property prices; modest inter-regional price differentials; public benefits of a regulated land supply; occasional breakdown of coordination; indifference towards development gains. Then the property system is discussed in the context of 'internationalisation', subsidies, and coordinated property development within the Randstad. The concluding assessment suggests that at present the Dutch have a de facto, as much as a strategic, land pricing policy; but that so long as inter-governmental coordination and the management of building assets can be improved, it does not make sense to dismantle a system that has served the Dutch comparatively well.

Thirty years ago: A view of the Fijian political sceneconfidential report to the British colonial office, September 1959

Thirty years ago: A view of the Fijian political scene<i>confidential report to the British colonial office, September 1959</i>

‘Another’ Germany: The Secret Foreign Contacts of Ulrich von Hassell during the Second World War

foreign contacts of the German opposition to Adolf Hitler, particularly after the summer of 1938, offer some of the most interesting prospects for research into the Resistance. In the first volume of the Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte, published in 1953, Hans Rothfels, a pioneer in this field, introduced an article by J. Lonsdale Bryans in which Bryans describes the intermediary role he played in talks between a leading representative of the conservative opposition to Hitler, Ulrich von Hassell,1 and the British foreign office at the beginning of 1940. Criticism of the manner of these negotiations, and interest in them, have not yet subsided.2 Without doubt, Hassell's efforts rank with the Vatican negotiations of October 1939 to May 1940 (led by Josef Miiller, one of the group around Hans Oster and Franz Haider), and with Carl Goerdeler's venture of May 1941,3 as among the most important foreign contacts of the German opposition in the first phase of the Second World War. They also stand at the centre of this essay, which focuses mainly on the period between the German invasion of Poland in September 1939

Who Dies after Widow(Er)Hood? A Discriminant Analysis

A random sample of 503 elderly widowed people was flagged by the British Office of Population Censuses and Surveys for six years after their bereavement. Excess mortality after widow(er)hood was found for males aged seventy-five and over, in comparison with males of the same ages in the general population. Bivariate analyses showed a relationship between social, demographic, psychological, and some physiologically related variables (e.g., medication taking) and mortality. Multivariate analysis showed that the most powerful discriminating variables, independently associated with mortality, were: age seventy-five plus, a low happiness rating by interviewers, social class I and II, male sex, and having no one to telephone. It appears that those in older age groups and males may be more vulnerable after bereavement; it is also possible that certain social contact and a happier disposition may have modifying effects on the stress of bereavement and risk factors associated with subsequent mortality.

Queuing and other idiosyncracies

ABSTRACT: The most obvious differences between British and American English are in spelling and pronunciation and in the form and reference of words. Such differences, being obtrusive, are easily identified by speakers of the other dialect. Less obvious differences are those of subtle variation in semantics and grammar, especially those that are stylistic rather than systematic. Unobtrusive differences are seldom pointed to overtly by speakers of the other dialect, but can be identified by the fact that they are eliminated when speakers of one dialect restate the meaning of a text originally in a dialect foreign to them. These generalizations are supported by an elicitation experiment in which 90 native speakers of American English were presented with a notice from a British public utility office and were asked to restate the message in their own words and then to identify any words or expressions in the original that seemed strange to them. A comparison of their paraphrases with a corresponding notice from an American utility office shows considerable accuracy in the collective sense of how American and British styles differ for public notices.

Insects and International Relations: Canada, France, and British Agricultural Sanitary Import Restrictions between the Wars

After the outbreak of the Falkland Islands conflict in 1982, the British foreign and commonwealth office met strong criticism for failing to anticipate or avert the Argentine invasion. After the outbreak of the Second World War, similar charges were levelled against the foreign office, which prompted a number of former diplomats to spring to its defence. One of them was Sir Walford Selby who, in a lengthy account of pre-war events, pointed to other departments of state and accused them of interfering in the management of Great Britain's external relations. For example, he wrote, the ministry of agriculture's decision to ban the import of potatoes from France in 1931 'formed part of a chain that linked with the French attitude at the Disarmament Confer-

Some memories of the early years with optical fibres at the british post office: a personal account

At a time when the best available optical glass had a loss of 600 dB/km, when the break-even point for optical communications was put at 20 dB/km, and when the rival copper waveguide system was claiming 2–3 dB/km in field trials, the single-mode fibre project was born at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, and had the nerve to survive and to conquer

Buying British in the North Sea

Effective communication will be a key factor over the next two years as British industry strives to increase its share of North Sea oil and gas reserves. The pressure group British Indigenous Technology (BRIT) has been pursuing the following proposals at the British government's Offshore Supplies Office (OSO): to persuade overseas companies (whether established or newly arrived) to joint venture with British firms; to monitor and discourage foreign take‐overs; to take specific action on the offshore support‐vessel front (if necessary, unilaterally against Norway or any other country operating restrictive practices); to improve linkage between industrial strategy and mechanisms for licensing/production approval; and campaigning against customer prejudices. There are proposals for the development of indigenous technology calling for increased R&amp;D expenditure and practical input from operators in identifying projects highly relevant to development requirements; and proposals for the increase of exports, in particular improved export finance facilities and review of tax treatment for employees of British firms working temporarily overseas.

第一次大戦前イギリスにおける大規模兼営保険企業の出現

When we study the history of British insurance offices, especially in terms of comparative business history, it is paramount to consider 'composite' offices which handle various types of insurance -life, fire, marine and accident. There are no such insurance offices in the US, Germany, Japan and most other countries, but in Britain all major insurance offices, except a few, are large-scale composite offices.Composite offices, in the strict sense of the word, did not emerge until the turn of the century. During the years of 1904-14, some major insurance offices expanded their business by handling 'new-type' of insurance-personal accident, employers, liability, and so on-in addition to tranditional insurance. In other words, it was at this time that the British insurance offices undertook diversification of business.The purpose of this article is twofold. One is showing the process of the emergence of composite offices, and two, more importantly, presenting a picture of the historical character of British insurance business against the background of the maturity of the British economy. References used were the Board of Trade Returns and some insurance journals and yearbooks.The following are the conclusions of this article. Firstly, large-scale composite offices did not derive from life offices (e.g. Equitable, Standard Life), but from fire-life offices (e.g. Royal, North British and Mercantile) or fire-life-marine offices (e.g. Royal Exchange, Liverpool and London and Globe). Secondly, diversification, strictly speaking diversification to 'related business' according to R.P. Rumelt, was the result of amalgamations rather than internal growth. Furthermore, it was around this time that the post, of 'General Manager' emerged, bringing an 'Age of General Managers' to the British insurance business. Thirdly, traditional London based offices (e.g. London Assurance) and specialist life offices (e.g. Scottish Widows' Fund) continued to lose their shares in the insurance market. To the contrary, some active non-London insurance offices, which had a comparatively short history, gradually became of increasing importance.

How will the British post office cope with technological change

This article considers the trends and the new technologies available to the Post Office which will have some bearing of the transfer of message carrying fromt the Post to Telecommunications. It also considers the practicalities of electronic mail and the future prospects for the traditional mail service. The objective is to provide some practical guidelines for the communications input to corporate planning.

The Calculation of Astronomical Refraction in Marine Navigation

Since programmable electronic calculators were first employed in marine navigation, a variety of formulae has been used for calculating astronomical refraction. As the choice is wide, some formulae have been selected from commonly used reference sources and their accuracy and suitability examined. No attempt has been made to assess the validity of the selected formulae to represent astronomical refraction in practical circumstances. Accuracy comparisons have been made using the refraction algorithm proposed by Garfinkel – the standard adopted by the British and American Nautical Almanac Offices. New formulae are given that are simple and accurate, even over a wide range of temperature and pressure, and which for all practical purposes may be considered equivalent to the tables of refraction given in the Nautical Almanac.