Research guides: Economics Resources at the UTM Library: U.K. Government Records

Confidential Print

The Confidential Print series, issued by the British Government between c.1820 and 1970, contains the most important papers generated by Foreign and Colonial Offices. The range from single-page letters or telegrams to comprehensive dispatches, investigate reports and texts of treaties. All items marked 'Confidential Print' were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad.

Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Period Covered: 1834-1966
The documents in Confidential Print: Africa begin with coastal trading in the early nineteenth century and the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa. They then follow the abuses of the Congo Free State, fights against tropical disease, Italy’s defeat by the Abyssinians, World War II, apartheid in South Africa and colonial moves towards independence. Together they cover the whole of the modern period of European colonisation of the continent from the British Government’s perspective.
Confidential Print: Latin America, 1833-1969
Period Covered: 1833-1969
This collection consists of the Confidential Print for Central and South America and the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Topics covered include slavery and the slave trade, immigration, relations with indigenous peoples, wars and territorial disputes, the fall of the Brazilian monarchy, British business and financial interests, industrial development, the building of the Panama Canal, and the rise to power of populist rulers such as Perón in Argentina and Vargas in Brazil.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan. Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Confidential Print: North America, 1824-1961
Period covered: 1824-1961
This collection consists of the Confidential Print for the United States, Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean, with some coverage of Central and South America, and covers such topics as slavery, Prohibition, the First and Second World Wars, racial segregation, territorial disputes, the League of Nations, McCarthyism and the nuclear bomb. The bulk of the material covers the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
Topics covered include: the Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs; the Hudson Bay Company; McCarthyism; prohibition; racial desegregation; trade, economy, and agriculture; the USA and World War II; and US policy towards China.

Foreign Office Files

Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980
The six parts of the Foreign Files collection make available all British Foreigh Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980:
- 1919-1929: Kuomintang, CCP, and the Third International
- 1930-1937: The Long March, civil war in China, and the Manchurian Crisis
- 1938-1948: Open Door, Japanese war, and the seeds of communist victory
- 1949-1956: The Communist revolution
- 1957-1966: The Great Leap Forward
- 1967-1980: The Cultural Revolution