Rory Miller

The Making of the Grace Contract: British Bondholders and the Peruvian Government, 1885–1890

For most of the Latin American countries the five years between 1885 and 1890 were a period of rapid economic expansion. European investors sank their money there as the trade of the area increased. To take one example, imports to Britain from Argentina expanded from under a million pounds in I880 to over four million in I890, while British exports to Argentina grew from two and a half million to eight and a half million pounds.1 Exports of Chilean nitrate rose from 275,000 tons in I880 to I,ooo,ooo tons in I890, as foreign capitalists invested heavily in the newly-conquered northern territories of Chile.2 Most Latin American countries borrowed increasing amounts of capital on the London market as their trade grew rapidly, and the boom only came to an end with the Baring crisis of 1890. The experience of Peru between I885 and I890 contrasts completely with that of Argentina or Chile. The War of the Pacific with Chile (I879-83) had seen the disappearance of the commercial structure the country had developed in the i86os and i87os on the basis of the wealth of guano.3 The market for the low-quality guano now being exported had disappeared, while Chile had captured the nitrate fields, the new source of wealth developed by Peru in

The Peruvian Government and the Nitrate Trade, 1873–1879

The 1870s were a decade of crisis and change in the Peruvian economy. Guano, the bulk of Perus exports, no longer dominated the republics trade and finance as it had for thirty years. Quantity, quality and markets persistently declined from the peaks of the 1850s and 1860s. Two new growth sectors, however, increasingly diversified Perus commercial pattern. On plantations in the north sugar production quadrupled between 1873 and 1876, overhauling cotton and wool among exports. At the same time, in the southernmost province of Tarapaca nitrate extraction and manufacture steadily increased.

Business history in Latin America : the experience of seven countries

Preface Notes on Contributors Glossary 1. Business History in Latin America: an introduction - RORY MILLER 2. Business History in Argentina - RAUL GARCIA HERAS 3. Business History in Brazil from the mid-nineteenth century to 1945 - COLIN M. LEWIS 4. Business History in Chile - LUIS ORTEGA 5. Business History in Colombia - CARLOS DAVILA 6. Regional Studies and Business History in Mexico since 1975 - MARIO CERUTTI 7. Business History in Peru - RORY MILLER 8. Economic and Business History in Venezuela - RUTH CAPRILES AND MARISOL DE GONZALO 9. Bibliography Index

The Coastal Elite and Peruvian Politics, 1895–1919

For the foreign scholar, especially, an understanding of Peruvian politics between 1895 and 1919, the period of the so-called Repoblica Aristocratica , is difficult to obtain. This quarter-century is considered an era of rapid social and economic change: in the words of one scholar, it completed ‘the disappearance of colonial Peru’. An important element in this transition was the growth on the coast of the ruling group connected with the expanding export economy, known in the literature variously as the ‘oligarchy’, ‘bourgeoisie’, or the ‘plutocracy’, which supposedly obtained control over the meagre resources of the state and directed them to its own ends.

Small Business in the Peruvian Oil Industry: Lobitos Oilfields Limited Before 1934

For much of the twentieth century, the petroleum industry of Peru was dominated by the International Petroleum Company (or IPC), a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Yet IPC never obtained a monopoly. Other firms, such as Lobitos Oilfields Limited, a concern founded by British merchants, produced a significant amount of Perus output. In this article, Professor Miller examines Lobitoss development from the time of the companys founding in 1900 through the pivotal year of 1934. Although the fortunes of Lobitos were closely linked to the pertubations of the international market and the shifting policies of the Peruvian government, corporate management enjoyed an unusual flexibility not only because the firms interests were sometimes identical with those of its powerful rival IPC, but also because its merchant founders had established a vast trading network throughout South America. These additional factors allowed Lobitos to survive as a relatively small, unintegrated independent in an age of giant, fully-integrated multinationals.

More Sinned Against than Sinning ? The Case of the Arab Office Washington, 1945-1948

In 1945, as a final settlement of the Palestine question drew near, the Arab states established the Arab Office, Washington, as part of their unprecedented effort to influence public and elite opinion on this matter in the United States. It was staffed by many of the leading young Arab intellectuals of the era. This article charts the Arab Offices attempt to reduce American support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In particular, it examines the accusations, made at the time, that the Arab Office, in pursuing its anti-Zionist agenda had co-operated with leading American anti-Semites and was under the control of the notorious former Mufti of Jerusalem, who had collaborated with Hitler during the Second World War.

Freya Stark in America: Orientalism, Antisemitism and Political Propaganda

Between November 1943 and May 1944, Freya Stark, the noted writer, Arabian adventurer and wartime propagandist, undertook a publicity tour of the United States on behalf of the British Ministry of Information. The objective of her trip was to defend Britain’s wartime Palestine policy, especially the 1939 White Paper and its severe restriction on Jewish immigration into Palestine. Since its implementation, the White Paper had been subject to criticism and attack from the entire Jewish world, not only the Zionist movement. Indeed, Stark’s trip was initiated, organized and sponsored by Whitehall as an attempt to counter anti-White Paper agitation in the United States which, by this time, was being blamed for strains on the Anglo-American alliance. Stark’s dedication to her task of spreading pro-White Paper propaganda among the general public, the media and political élite highlights her fiercely anti-Zionist position as well as her negative attitude to Jews and Judaism in general. But her trip also clearly shows the determination of the British foreign policy élite to make the fight against Zionism a wartime priority, in stark contrast to its indifference and insensitivity towards the annihilation of Europe’s Jewish populations that was occurring at the same time.

Financing British manufacturing multinationals in Latin America, 1930-65

Most research on British business in Latin America has concentrated on the free-standing companies, such as the railways, which characterised British investment before 1914. Apart from Royal Dutch Shell, the most important new British investments thereafter were manufacturing companies, which steadily increased their presence in the region. Some began to arrive before 1914, but several more made significant investments between the wars, especially in Argentina and Brazil, with a further wave of new investment after 1945. This paper utilises corporate archives, as well as those of the British government and Bank of England, to investigate the financial aspects of their growth. While the provision of finance for fixed investments and working capital was relatively straightforward before World War II, thereafter it became more difficult due to government regulation on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to ingenious solutions to overcome financial challenges.

Troubled Neighbours: The EU and Israel

In the period following the collapse of the Oslo peace process and the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada in late 2000 and until the death of the longstanding Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in November 2004, relations between the European Union (hereafter, EU or Community) and Israel reached an all-time low. During a January 2003 Jerusalem press conference, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon went so far as to lecture the EU that it could only play a future role in peace negotiations if its ‘attitude towards Israel and the Arabs and the Palestinians [is] . . . balanced . . . When it will be balanced you are mostly welcome to participate. But at this moment relations are unbalanced’. That Sharon had the backing of much of the Israeli electorate in making this statement was borne out by a mid-2003 poll which found that 74 percent of Israelis believed the EU unfairly favoured the Palestinian side, thus forcing Israel’s then Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to admit, ‘I find myself challenged to convince the Israeli people that the EU is a partner we can trust’. This article will examine how bilateral EU–Israeli relations reached such a nadir by late 2004. It will then examine how Yasser Arafat’s death in November 2004, Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 and the Hamas election victory the following January impacted on this relationship. It will conclude by assessing the reasons that the bilateral economic relationship between Israel and EU member states has shown great resilience, and has even thrived, despite significant political differences.

The PLO factor in Euro-Israeli relations, 1964–1992

The breakdown of Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations following the Camp David meeting in the summer of 2000 highlighted the fundamental divisions that exist between Israel and the European Union on matters relating to Palestinian rights and Israeli responsibility for the ongoing conflict. This article argues that Europes staunch defence of the Palestinian side at this time has its roots in more than two decades of Euro-PLO relations. As such it examines the nature of European support for the PLO prior to the signing of the Oslo accords in the early 1990s and, in particular, it evaluates the impact that Europes consistent policy of supporting a political role for the PLO in negotiations has had on its political and economic relationship with the Jewish state.