Based on archival work in England, Scotland, the United States, Canada and Australia, my dissertation expands the traditional purview of diplomatic history into the international dimensions of the social and cultural realms. My study treats doomed attempts to reconstruct previously-held notions of hierarchy and deference as encapsulated in the Empire Settlement Act (ESA) in the wake of the dramatic changes to the world order resulting from World War I. To counter the emergence of Japan as a world power, under the auspices of the ESA, British Columbia and Western Australia, the two most distant outposts of the “white” British Empire in the Pacific, imported poor Celtic farmers and militiamen from northern Scotland in an attempt to retain their “British” identity, which they felt was threatened by Japan on the one hand, the Japanese in their midst on another, and local “nationalisms” on a third. This dissertation argues that such schemes were undermined by the conflicting priorities of Britain and the Dominions, the tensions between laissez-faire and excessive centralized control, the disconnect between government, capital and labor, the valuations of self-help within highly circumscribed situations, the conflict between the themes of rejuvenation and permanent regression, the fight between an idiosyncratic rural ideal and the reality of the urbanized and industrialized world of the twentieth century, and the inconsistent application of supposedly inviolable Social Darwinist ideals. The birth and death of plans to recruit Hebridean crofters to British Columbia and Western Australia in the 1920s reveals a great deal about the fluidity surrounding concepts of identity and security in a very unstable time. The debates surrounding the status of the Hebridean Scots, especially vis-à-vis their British compatriots and the Japanese, are an extreme window through which the much wider dialogues taking place regarding the status of the British Empire both internally and on the global stage, on the changing role of race as the final determinant of one’s identity and status, and the clashes between the Victorian and the modern ways of defining and conceiving of Empire, can be viewed and debated. / text

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This thesis is an attempt to examine Anglo-American relations at the end of World War One, when Great Britain was no longer preeminent in world affairs and the United States was as yet unwilling to continue the responsibilities that it had taken during the war. Lloyd George who sought to keep the threads of power in his hands appointed Auckland Geddes as Ambassador to the United States, a man who was personally loyal to him, thus seeking to bypass Lord Curzon's authority as Foreign Secretary. Matters were complicated by the declining influence of President Wilson and the growth of isolationist sentiment in the United States. The advent of the Harding administration created further difficulties as Harding felt compelled to yield to the influence of public opinion which rejected the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. / Various issues had to be resolved, the future of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the war debt, differences over the mandate of Yap, and the question of oil from the Middle East. Here the dealings of Anglo-American relations during Curzon's tenure at the Foreign Office are examined. Curzon took a conventional approach to Anglo-American negotiations. While Great Britain struggled to improve conditions with the United States, the outcome was nothing like the special relationship that manifested itself after 1945. Curzon's conventional view of foreign policy clashed with Lloyd George's essentially personal approach to foreign affairs. Geddes who was intended to be the Prime Minister's confidential agent proved, except on the question of the war debt, inadequate to the task.

Basil Hall Chamberlain and Lafcadio Hearn were two of the best known western interpreters of Meiji Japan. In their correspondence as well as published writings, they commented on the conclusion of the Aoki-Kimberley treaty of 1894 and the subsequent end of the "unequal treaties" and the treaty port system in Japan. Chamberlain, a resident in Tokyo for over two decades, was most concerned with the fate of foreigners in Japan who would be adversely affected by the end of extraterritoriality and the favourable commercial privileges which they had enjoyed since 1858. He was critical of the jingoism of the nationalistic reaction which developed during the course of treaty negotiations. Hearn, in contrast, praised this national or "racial" spirit and credited it with Japan's success at the negotiation table. Partial to ideas of racial difference and conflict, Hearn viewed the new treaty as evidence of the resurgence of an oriental race against the forces of western imperialism.

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This thesis examines how the newly-born Anglo-Italian alliance operated during World War I, and how it influenced each of Britain's and Italy's strategies. It argues that Britain was Italy's main partner in the conflict: Rome sought to make Britain the guarantor of the London treaty, which had brought Italy into the war on the side of the Allies, as well as its main naval and financial partner within the Entente. London, for its part, used its special partnership with Italy to reach three main objectives. The first was to have Rome increasingly involved in the Entente's global war, thus going beyond the national dimension of the 'fourth war of independence' against Austria-Hungary. Britain aimed in particular to complete the blockade of the Central Powers by securing the Mediterranean. This result was achieved slowly - Italy declared war on Turkey in autumn 1915 and on Germany in summer 1916 - and not without contradictions, such as Italy's persistently self-reliant trade policy. The second British goal was to keep Italy in the war when the Caporetto crisis hit: British financial, commercial and military support was crucial to restore Italian forces and morale, and allow Rome to pursue to fight. Finally, in a wider geo-political sense, Britain took advantage of its good relations with Italy to balance French influence in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. London acted as a mediator in the controversies between Rome, Petrograd and Paris, taking upon it the task of keeping the alliance together. Anglo-Italian relations worsened in 1918. Britain's leadership within the Entente declined and was gradually replaced by American leadership. President Wilson's 'politics of nationalities' produced a significant revision of the London pact: Italy felt betrayed by its main partner, Britain, and this caused a long-lasting resentment towards London which had far-reaching consequences in the post-war period.