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Britain, under a Labour government, considered ditching (giving up) its nuclear deterrent as a way of making crucial savings to help pave the way for an International Monetary Fund-backed rescue package during the sterling crisis of 1976, according to previously secret documents. The crisis at the highest level of government and the British lobbying of international allies for assistance are revealed in Whitehall papers released to the National Archives, under the 30-year rule, covering the months after James Callaghan became prime minister in April 1976. he succeeded Harold Wilson who made his resignation announcement on March 16 after grappling unsuccessfully for months with an economic crisis. The papers reveal the extent of the panic in 1976 as Britain was forced to go to the IMF to bail out the economy. The crisis was a defining moment, destroying confidence in Labour’s economic competency and paving the way for Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power. The cabinet agreed to request a ￡2.3bn loan, then the biggest the IMF had made, and demanded massive spending cuts. A memo by Sir John Hunt, the cabinet secretary, on December 5 warned there would have to be a review of defence spending. He explained that withdrawing from Germany would be strongly resisted by the US while "abandoning the deterrent or at least scrapping its improvement would cause much less concern to our allies". The threat to ditch the nuclear deterrent came after months of discussions and protracted cabinet haggling over departmental cost-cutting. The severity of the country’s problems was spelt out on April 5, two days after Callaghan took office, in a stark report from Sir John. It said the world had been through the most serious boom and slump and the worst inflation since the war as a result of the oil crisis. "The going is likely to be rough indeed.., we are sailing in an unknown sea.., there is a serious imbalance in our economy.., unless action is taken there will be either a continuation of an unacceptably high level of unemployment or a balance of payments deficit which will be beyond our ability to finance," Sir John warned. The ensuing months saw sterling slide further, forcing the abandonment of the Labour programme of 1974, and the acceptance that the nation could no longer spend its way out of a recession, in spite of strong political resistance. Towards the end of September, Callaghan told the Trades Union Congress conference that things would never be the same again. He then rang Gerald Ford, then US president, whom he regarded as an inevitable broker of an IMF deal. A briefing note prepared for Callaghan ahead of the conversation underlined Britain’s precarious poison as well as the threat to international stability; "This week I have resisted pressure at the party conference... But I cannot be sure of continuing to do this if our policies are undermined by pressure on the pound which we do not have the resources to resist. In that case our value and partner in the western community would be put gravely at risk." In his conversation. Callaghan spelt out further the political tightrope he was walking, trying to fight off the left of his party while reaching an agreement with the international community. In a letter, Callaghan warned Ford that without a solution to the sterling crisis "we would be forced into action which would put at risk this country’s contribution as an ally and a partner in the western alliance and its value as a member of the international trading community". Separately, Callaghan set about lobbying Helmut Schmidt, the German chancellor, asking for a loan facility, led by the US and Germany. In November, he called Schmidt, telling him he was going to go for an IMF deal. This is an extract of the conversation. Callaghan: ’Tm going ahead with this. We either conquer or we die.," Schmidt: "... I have told our mutual friend on the other side that in my view the whole situation comes very near to a Churchillian situation in 1940. I am quite convinced that you would act with the same amount of vigour. I have no doubt about it." While Schmidt was privately sympathetic by the end of 1976 no safety net had been agreed by Germany and the US. A month later, the British government considered Sir John Hunt’s advice to scrap the nuclear deterrent, amid protracted cabinet haggling over cost-cutting. The cuts turned out to be less than forecast, an IMF deal was brokered--and Britain’ remained a nuclear power into a new century. What was the German Chancellor’s attitude toward the 1976 crisis in Britain
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Community courts and community justice prevailed in England at the time of the Norman Conquest (1066). The legal system was ritualistic, dependent upon oaths at most stages of litigation, and permeated by both religious and superstitious notions. The proceedings were oral, very personal, and highly confrontative. Juries were unknown. One party publicly "appealed," or accused, the other before the community meeting at which the presence of both was obligatory. To be absent meant risking fines and outlawry. After the preliminary statements of the parties, the court rendered judgment, not on the merits of the issue nor the question of guilt or innocence, but on the manner by which it should be resolved. Judgment in other words preceded trial because it was a decision on what form the trial should take. It might be by compurgation, by ordeal, or, after the Norman Conquest, by battle. Excepting trial by battle, only one party was tried or, more accurately, was put to his "proof." Proof being regarded as an advantage, it was usually awarded to the accused party; in effect he had the privilege of proving his own case. (2) Trial by compurgation consisted of a sworn statement to the truth of one’s claim or denial, supported by the oaths of a certain number of fellow swearers. Presumably they, no more than the claimant, would endanger their immortal souls by the sacrilege of false swearing. Originally the oath-helpers swore from their own knowledge to the truth of the party’s claim. Later they became little more than character witnesses, swearing only to their belief that his oath was trustworthy. If he rounded up the requisite number of compurgators and the cumbrous swearing in very exact form proceeded without a mistake, he won his case. A mistake "burst" the oath, proving guilt. (3) Ordeals were usually reserved for more serious crimes, for persons of bad reputation, for peasants, or for those caught with stolen goods. As an invocation of immediate divine judgment, ordeals were consecrated by the Church and shrouded with solemn religious mystery. The accused underwent a physical trial in which he called upon God to witness his innocence by putting a miraculous sign upon his body. Cold water, boiling water, and hot iron were the principal ordeals, all of which the clergy administered. In the ordeal of cold water, the accused was trussed up and cast into a pool to see whether he would sink or float. On the theory that water which had been sanctified by a priest would receive an innocent person but reject the guilty, innocence was proved by sinking -- and hopefully a quick retrieval -- guilt by floating. In the other ordeals, one had to plunge his hand into a cauldron of boiling water or carry a red hot piece of iron for a certain distance, in the hope that three days later, when the bandages were removed, the priest would find a "clean" wound, one that was healing free of infection~ How deeply one plunged his arm into the water, how heavy the iron or great the distance it was carried, depended mainly on the. gravity of the charge. (4) The Normans brought to England still another ordeal, trial by battle, paradigm of the adversary system, which gave to the legal concept of "defense" or "defendant" a physical meaning. Trial by battle was a savage yet sacred method of proof which was also thought to involve divine intercession on behalf of the righteous. Rather than let a wrongdoer triumph, God would presumably strengthen the arms of the party who had sworn truly to the justice of his cause. Right, not might, would therefore conquer. Trial by battle was originally available for the settlement of all disputes but eventually was restricted to cases of serious crime. (5) Whether one proved his case by compurgation, ordeal, or battle, the method was accusatory in character. There was always a definite and known accuser, some private person who brought formal suit and openly confronted his antagonist. There was never any secrecy in the proceedings, which were the same for criminal as for civil litigation. The judges, who had no role whatever in the making of the verdict, decided only which party should be put to proof and what its form should be; thereafter the judges merely enforced an observance of the rules. The oaths that saturated the proceedings called upon God to witness to the truth of the respective claims of the parties, or the justice of their cause, or the reliability of their word. No one gave testimonial evidence nor was anyone questioned to test his veracity. According to the passage, an oath was declared "burst" during compurgation if the ______.
Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following questions. Which of the following about the two robbers is NOT true
Discussion of the assimilation of Puerto Ricans in the United States has focused on two factors: social standing and the loss of national culture. In general, excessive stress is placed on one factor or the other, depending on whether the commentator is North American or Puerto Rican. Many North American social scientists, such as Oscar Handlin, Joseph Fitzpatrick, and Oscar Lewis, consider Puerto Ricans the most recent in a long line of ethnic entrants to occupy the lowest rung on the social ladder. Such a "sociodemographic" approach tends to regard assimilation as a benign process, taking for granted increased economic advantage and inevitable cultural integration, in a supposedly egalitarian context. However, this approach fails to take into account the colonial nature of the Puerto Rican case, with this group, unlike their European predecessors, coming from a nation politically subordinated to the United States. Even the "radical" critiques of this mainstream research model, such as the critique developed in Divided Society, attach the issue of ethnic assimilation too mechanically to factors of economic and social mobility and are thus unable to illustrate the cultural subordination if Puerto Ricans as a colonial minority. In contrast, the "colonialist" approach of island-based writers such as Eduardo SedaBonilla, Manuel Maldonado-Denis, and Luis Nieves-Falcon tends to view assimilation as the forced loss of national culture in an unequal contest with imposed foreign values. There is, of course, a strong tradition of cultural accommodation among other Puerto Rican thinkers. The writings of Eugenio Fernandez Mendez clearly exemplify this tradition, and many supporters of Puerto Rico’s commonwealth status share the same universalizing orientation. But the Puerto Rican intellectuals who have written most about the assimilation process in the United States all advance cultural nationalist views, advocating the preservation of minority cultural distinctions and rejecting what they see as the subjugation of colonial nationalities. This cultural and political emphasis is appropriate, but the colonialist thinkers misdirect it, overlooking the class relations at work in both Puerto Rican and North American history. They pose the clash of national culture as an absolute polarity, with each culture understood as static and undifferentiated. Yet both the Puerto Rican and North American traditions have been subject to constant challenge from cultural forces within their own societies, forces that may move toward each other in ways that cannot be written off as mere "assimilation". Consider, for example, the indigenous and AfroCaribbean traditions in Puerto Rican culture and how they influence and are influenced by other Caribbean cultures and Black cultures in the United States. The elements of coercion and inequality, so central to cultural contact according to the colonialist framework, play no role in this kind of convergence of racially and ethnically different elements of the same social class. The author implies that the Puerto Rican writers who have written most about assimilation do NOT do which of the following
Question 10 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question.
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