The Canadian Agency was established in 1906 by Arthur Morton Grenfell for the purpose of organizing British capital for investment in Canada. The role of this agency was to promote Canadian interests in London, create a market for Canadian shares and bring quality Canadian stocks to this market to ensure its proper operation. The creation of the Canadian Agency took place at an opportune moment to reap the potential benefits of handling the increased capital flow from Britain to Canada since British interest in investing in Canada and the capital needs of the Canadian economy were starting to rise dramatically because of railway construction, immigration, urbanization, consolidation within various industries and the anxieties of the British aristocracy over the economic policies of Lloyd George. The timing of the creation of the Canadian Agency does not, however, indicate that Arthur Grenfell recognized this trend and acted upon this knowledge accordingly. The Canadian Agency's creation derived from more personal reasons which included the Fourth Earl Grey's appointment to the office of Governor-General of Canada which served as the catalyst for Arthur Grenfell to create this family and class based investment group. In the context of the relationship between Britain and Canada, the collapse of the Canadian Agency represents a lost opportunity to establish a stronger economic relationship between the two countries and provides a perfect example for the critics of Canadian investment which had predicted a disastrous end to the Canadian boom.

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The subject is the formation of official British policy on international security between the entry into force of the Treaty of Versailles and Germany's entry into the League of Nations, and defence policy in relation to foreign policy. The problem of security in these years, for Britain, falls into three parts: international security in the broadest sense; the security of areas of the world of importance to Britain and the Empire; and the security of Britain and the Empire itself. International security in the broadest sense was largely a matter of the development of the League of Nations, The attitude of British Governments to the obligations of the Covenant and the rejection of the attempts of 1922-24 to give them greater precision, are shown to have been much influenced by the abstention of the United States from membership of the League and by the position of the Dominions, In terms of "foreign policy the areas of greatest importance for regional security were western Europe and the Far East, The problem of western European security is traced from the unsuccessful negotiations of 1921-22 for an Anglo-French pact to the apparent solution at Locarno; that of the Far East from the early discussion of the future of the Anglo-Japanese alliance through the Washington Conference to the problems of developing the Singapore base. Defence policy was, it is shown, more closely related to foreign policy in the Far East than in Europe, The security of France and Belgium was generally regarded as a British interest; but danger was nowhere imminent and economy was a paramount consideration. The solutions sought were political rather than military: no commitment was undertaken in the Far East; and when Britain finally accepted one in Western Europe no provision for its fulfilment was considered.

This thesis portrays the interest manifested by the British in the trans-Burma trade routes to China between 1826 and 1876, within the span of half a century after the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War. A historical background to the story is given in Chapter I. Chapter II describes the period during and after the First Anglo-Burmese War in which the British displayed considerable amount of interest in the land routes across Burma. Chapter III recounts attempts made by the British Administrators of the newly acquired province of Tenasserim to regularize trade by the land routes between Burma and China. Chapter IV shows the growing interest of the British in the trans- Burma routes in the period following the Second Anglo- Burmese War* it also shows the "Pressure Groups" (Home Merchants) at work in England. The chapter concludes with an account of the 1862 Anglo-Burmese Commercial Treaty which "opened" the way to China, Among the trans-Burma trade routes which had captured British attention in the post-1852 period, the most outstanding was the Irrawaddy or Bham. o route; this theme is developed in Chapter V wherein are recorded the efforts of an enthusiast, Dr. C. Williams, and the founding of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. Chapters VI, VII and IX comprise details of alternatives to the Bhamo route project, such as the Kra scheme, Sprye's project, and the proposal to utilize the Saitiveen as a highway to China. Chapters VIII and X narrate the stories of the two Bhamo Expeditions undertaken between 1868 and 1875. The latter half of Chapter X discusses the significance of the Second Bhamo Expedition which ultimately brought' about the de jure opening of Western China to British trade in 1876 - an important landmark in the history of the trans-Burma trade routes to China.

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In attempting to evaluate British policy towards Korea during the years 1882- 1910 , the first requirement is to consider the nature of Korean society itself and the changes that were taking place within it . Korea, however, had a special historical relationship with China and there impinged on this both Japanese and Russian aspirations . As a result, British policy towards Korea has to be examined in the light of Britain's interests in the highly complex Far Eastern situation which,in turn, cannot be divorced from her global interests. The Study thus becomes one of an analysis of inter- state relationships. The course of investigation flows from the British Korean Treaty of 1882 to the British response to the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 . The main areas of investigation are the Port Hamilton Incident (1885- 1887), the Sino- Japanese War (1894- 1895) , the Anglo Japanese Alliance (1902), the Russo - Japanese War (1904 - 1905) and the renewal of the Anglo - Japanese Alliance (1905)· It is within the above framework that an attempt is made to consider the extent to which British policy towards Korea was determined by her attitude towards Korea alone and to what extent by far broader considerations.

between 1907 and 1917 the Persian question was of vital importance in Anglo-Russian relations. It was dealt with in the most important section of the Anglo-Russian convention of 1907, which formed the basis of the Anglo-Russian entente. Persia was one of the few areas of the world where Britain and Russia could co-operate to establish a basis for a wider underetandin:,. The crucial years in the development of Anglo-Russian policy in Persia were 1909 to 1915. The exchange of the pro-Russian Muhammad 'Ali Shah for a government unsympathetic to Russian interests was the first blow at Anglo-Russian cooperation, because the Persian capital lay within the Russian zone. In 19lu the interference of the Germans and the opposition of the Persian nationalists prevented Britain and Russia from trying to establish a strong hold over the government. The Potsdam agreement removed Germany as a political threat in Persia until the world war. The Shuster crisis eliminated the ma lie. Britain was willing to Co as far as helping to remove Shuster, but would not co-operate to restore Muhammad 'Ali. The removal of the Germans and the nationalists from the Persian scene laid bare the Anglo-Russian conflict.The failure of a further attempt to establish a pro-Russian influence at Tehran late in 1912, led to the breakdown of co-operation in Persia. ttussian activity in 191) was concentrated on supporting pro-Russian local authorities, having failed in Tehran. After the ! +alkan wars, attention was again directed to Persia in 1914, because of the urgent need to strengthen the entente and solve disputes between the two powers. The . sritish in ! larch 1915 were finally forced to accept a change of policy which would concentrate the attention of the two powers on their respective spheres of influence, and not on co-operating to support the central Persian government.

Prisoners of Peace provides an analysis of British responses to the post-war European refugee problem. The study commences by examining the British Government's agreement to the compulsory repatriation of Soviet citizens in 1945. In this way it is established at the outset that political calculations provided the fundamental determinant of British refugee policy. And this focus is offered in deliberate contrast to the cosily restricted 'humanitarian' interpretations which have characterised much prior writing on refugee problems. The present study is not concerned with everyday reality of refugee life. Instead it seeks both to interpret refugee responses by reference to the changing pattern of international relations at this time and to examine the impact which the refugee problem exerted upon wider British policy concerns. Hence, the second chapter incorporates an assessment of the continuous influx of German 'expellees' into the British zone of Germany between 1945 and 1947. These 'expellees' greatly complicated the British occupation by perpetually intensifying the strain upon decimated housing stocks and scarce supplies of food. At the same time the British were obliged to maintain substantial popUlations of Eastern European refugees who stubbornly refused to be pressured into repatriation. These groupings were segregated from the expanding German population in order to reduce the likelihood of ethnic-nationalistic friction. It was quickly discovered that British concerns in these matters could not be made compatible with those of the Soviets. Similarly, British prescriptions in regard to Jewish refugees conflicted with those advanced by the United States. This conflict is the subject of the third chapter. Chapter four describes how the Attlee Government came to perceive able-bodied refugees as a labour resource and how the United States also elected to champion this perspective during discussions which ultimately led to the creation of the International Refugee Organization in 1947-48. The final chapter examines the various political motivations which determined the character of UNHCR and also focuses upon the problems which were engendered for the emergent West German state by the residue populations of 'UN refugees' and the vast numbers of expelled 'Germans from the East' .

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