'Mr Secretary Dowdeswell's Report on the General State of the Police of Bengal, 29th September 1809' in W. K. Firminger (ed.), The Fifth Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company, 3 vols (Calcutta, R. Cambray & Co., 1917-18), vol. 2, pp. 710-33. British Library, shelfmark 05318.h.5.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
John Marriott ◽  
Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay ◽  
Partha Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
East India Company ◽  
British Library ◽  
General State ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee

scholarly journals Identity inferences: Implicatures, implications and extended interpretations

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 424-445
Author(s):  
Billy Clark
Keyword(s):  
Impression Management ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
And Performance

This article considers how ideas from relevance-theoretic pragmatics can be applied in understanding the construction of identity in interaction, while presupposing that consideration of ideas about identity can make a significant contribution to pragmatic theories. While previous work on pragmatics has focused on the construction and performance of identity, this has not been much discussed in work from a relevance-theoretic perspective. For illustration, the article refers mainly to a video recording of a UK House of Commons Select Committee session on drug addiction. While the video provides considerable relevant data about identity construction, the article does not develop a detailed analysis of the video or the extracts it focuses on. Instead, it uses them to argue for the usefulness of relevance-theoretic ideas in understanding identity and impression management. The ideas focused on are that communication can be stronger or weaker (i.e. it can be more or less clear that particular assumptions are being intentionally communicated), that there is no clear cut-off point between very weakly communicated implicatures and non-communicated implications, that interpretation generally involves going beyond what the communicator intended to derive the addressee’s own conclusions, that the effects of communicative interaction include more than the derivation of new assumptions and that adjustments to ‘cognitive environments’ (the sets of assumptions which are accessible to individuals at particular times) can continue after interactions take place. These ideas can be useful in a number of areas including in understanding identity in general, literary identities, attitudes to language varieties, the production of communicative acts and the teaching of spoken and written communication.

Decimal Numeration and Decimal Coinage

1854 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 216-236
Author(s):  
William Thomas Thomson
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Decimal Numeration

The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the subject of “Decimal Coinage,” of 1st August 1853, sets entirely at rest any doubt or question as to the great advantages and facilities which would be afforded by the adoption of a system of decimal numeration and decimal coinage.That the change will accordingly be made, I feel confident; and as the basis of the new arrangement, as well as the method of carrying it out, are of vast importance to the public at large, and in business generally, I have considered it a fit subject of deliberation for this Institute. It may be said that we should have taken an earlier and more prominent part in originating and promoting a change of system, of the importance of which we had individually, I may safely assume, been long convinced; but I am inclined to think that we have wisely reserved our opinions, and that they will be more valuable in the present stage of the discussion (now that the Report of the Select Committee, and the evidence taken before them, has been published), than they would have been earlier in the day.

scholarly journals Constraining the temperature history of the past millennium using early instrumental observations

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1653-1685 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Brohan ◽  
R. Allan ◽  
E. Freeman ◽  
D. Wheeler ◽  
C. Wilkinson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temperature Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Ice Cores ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Temperature History ◽  
British Library ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Climate Model Simulations ◽  
Proxy Reconstructions

Abstract. The current assessment that twentieth-century global temperature change is unusual in the context of the last thousand years relies on estimates of temperature changes from natural proxies (tree-rings, ice-cores etc.) and climate model simulations. Confidence in such estimates is limited by difficulties in calibrating the proxies and systematic differences between proxy reconstructions and model simulations. As the difference between the estimates extends into the relatively recent period of the early nineteenth century it is possible to compare them with a reliable instrumental estimate of the temperature change over that period, provided that enough early thermometer observations, covering a wide enough expanse of the world, can be collected. One organisation which systematically made observations and collected the results was the English East-India Company (EEIC), and their archives have been preserved in the British Library. Inspection of those archives revealed 900 log-books of EEIC ships containing daily instrumental measurements of temperature and pressure, and subjective estimates of wind speed and direction, from voyages across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans between 1789 and 1834. Those records have been extracted and digitised, providing 273 000 new weather records offering an unprecedentedly detailed view of the weather and climate of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The new thermometer observations demonstrate that the large-scale temperature response to the Tambora eruption and the 1809 eruption was modest (perhaps 0.5 °C). This provides a powerful out-of-sample validation for the proxy reconstructions – supporting their use for longer-term climate reconstructions. However, some of the climate model simulations in the CMIP5 ensemble show much larger volcanic effects than this – such simulations are unlikely to be accurate in this respect.

Remarks on Trawling

1895 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
M'Intosh
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
Blue Book

Fully ten years having elapsed since the Report on Trawling on the eastern shores was presented to the Trawling Commission (composed of the late Earl of Dalhousie, chairman; Right Hon. Edward Marjoribanks, M.P., now Lord Tweedmouth; Prof. Huxley; Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P.; and Mr., now Sir, T. F. Brady), it appears to be desirable to review the statements contained therein in the light of the information which the impetus given by the Commission has produced. Moreover this examination of results is all the more nececssary, since last year another important body—viz. the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Fisheries, presided over by Mr. Majoribanks, M.P.—issued a new blue-book containing the finding of the Committee, and a mass of evidence.

Select Committees: Understanding and Regulating the Emergence of the ‘Topical Inquiry’

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-902
Author(s):  
Craig Prescott
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Procedural Fairness ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Select Committee ◽  
Opportunity To Respond ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Private Corporations ◽  
Accountability Gap

Abstract Reforms to departmental select committees have enhanced their authority and independence within the House of Commons. Some committees have used this enhanced profile to investigate the actions of specific individuals or private corporations or organisations. Typically, this is in response to media reports that allege some form of wrongdoing. As the standing orders of the House of Commons empower committees to scrutinise government departments and agencies, this is a departure from established practices. This article examines the emergence of these ‘topical inquiries’, determining the features that indicate their value. In particular, topical inquiries that fill an ‘accountability gap’ are the most valuable. An accountability gap arises when other forms of scrutiny or accountability are merely performative or have failed. When conducting a topical inquiry, committees are underpinned by parliamentary privilege, meaning that those subject to criticism have little opportunity to respond regardless of any reputational, commercial or other damage caused. Consequently, if thought a desirable function of Parliament, then topical inquiries require enhanced processes to ensure procedural fairness and to address potential human rights concerns. This would require amending the standing orders specifying topical inquiries as a type of inquiry that a select committee could pursue, complying with this enhanced process.

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