Empire Lost - Andrew Stewart [10]
From the date of its establishment the DO operated out of the 'Government Offices, Whitehall, North Block', a building of five floors, one below ground level, located at the corner of Whitehall and Downing Street which was the CO's home.33 Known affectionately by those who worked within it as 'the Office', the DO remained here for the whole of its short existence. The building had originally been erected between 1862 and 1875; the famous architect Sir George Gilbert Scott presiding over a controversial project which initially suffered repeated delays from the interventions of the then foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston. In order that a self-contained area might be found for its new, junior colleague, the CO was reorganized and the DO took rooms in the basement, ground and first floors on the Whitehall front of the building. In the first-floor corridor a partition was erected, largely for the benefit of outsiders, although it was said to be difficult to point to an actual boundary between the two departments.34 The majority of the department's staff was actually located in a cluster of rooms on the ground and first floors.35 Some of these overlooked Whitehall and the Cenotaph, the remainder the prime minister's residence at No. 10 Downing Street.36 Above these rooms there was the library and below the Telegraph Section, both of which were common to the two departments. Although Amery thought it would not create 'the slightest difficulty or possibility of friction', for many years to come some of those moved would 'look with envious eyes at the comparatively few rooms [the DO] occupied'.37 Conditions were often difficult as space was at a premium and there were few luxuries. During the original construction period the CO's staff had petitioned about the unsatisfactory working conditions they faced. The greatest complaint was that 'the sky was visible through a large hole in the roof with rain and snow running down into one room'.38 As for the room for the secretary of state for Dominion affairs, on the Whitehall front, it was said to 'lack the splendour of the Colonial Secretary's room and was apt to be noisy'. But despite expenditure on the interior being kept to a bare minimum, a report prepared just before the outbreak of the Second World War nevertheless proved quite complimentary about the building's structure and its well-built, thick, solid walls and high ceilings.39
From the outset the department faced considerable challenges. Perhaps the most immediate was the fact that, according to one of the DO's own people, not everybody in Whitehall was willing 'to accept the full implications of equal partnership'.40 Put in another fashion, this meant that for the majority of the 22 years it existed, with only limited resources and manpower, the department's often difficult job was to try and reconcile the agendas of seven different governments, its own being one of them. Indeed the DO often found itself having 'to act as the conscience of the British government to ensure that they lived up to their part of the bargain'. It was widely derided by other civil servants and even the Dominions themselves were not always entirely sure as to its role.41 Even one of its own could only conclude that there were no grounds to claim 'that the DO ever loomed large on the stage in Britain itself or that it made any dramatic impact on Parliament, the Press or public opinion. Indeed to a wider public it remained largely unknown ... In Parliament, the fixed opinion died hard that [it] was nothing but a Post Office'.42 Meanwhile its senior cousin strode like a colossus. The Canadian diplomat Lester Pearson offered his assessment from his many years spent watching from Canada House: