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he arrived that the South African was to be allowed to view any documents of interest as there was nothing seen by the British prime minister that could not be seen by the field marshal. It was stressed that, in this respect he was to be 'treated on an entirely different footing' from his counterparts. As a result, every morning and afternoon a pile of sensitive documents were despatched to South Africa House in Trafalgar Square; included among these were copies of Churchill's personal telegrams, Heads of State telegrams in their special locked boxes, along with any other papers he wished to see connected with military operations. Whenever the South African leader had visited London he had been allowed such apparently unrestricted access to Whitehall's documents; the other Dominion leaders had been given much less.56 The younger Smuts had once again accompanied his father and noted in his diary at the Conference's conclusion: 'The Conference has been largely exploratory and no real resolutions have been thrashed out, but it does indicate for the future that we can at least get together and discuss contentious subjects in a friendly mood. The range of subjects covered was very comprehensive and most of the delegates will leave with a sound background to current world affairs ... There has been much mutual patting on the back. So we are all happy and beaming.'57 While his counterparts went home, Smuts stayed on and took great pleasure in accompanying Churchill on visits to the coalition forces who were preparing for the imminent invasion of Normandy.

As for Fraser, he had repeated Savage's pledge that 'where Britain goes, we go; where she stands, we stand'. He had also made himself and his country heard about how the Empire should approach the question of a future international security organization. He left London to visit New Zealand troops fighting in Italy and stood at the ruined site of the monastery at Monte Cassino, before going on to Egypt and then home via the United States. On his return to New Zealand he had travelled over 8,000 miles and once again demonstrated that he had a gift for oratory that could, on occasion, rival that of Churchill himself. As he told the House of Representatives in a fitting example of this talent, 'here is a paradox the world outside the British Commonwealth finds it difficult to understand -the paradox that, the freer we become, the closer we draw together; the more our constitutional bonds are relaxed, the more closely we are held in bonds of friendship ... the more truly we are one in sentiment, in heart, and spirit, one in peace, as well as in war'.58 This in many respects was an entirely fitting epitaph for the Conference, far better than the flowery final statement that each of the leaders had signed at its conclusion.59

Speaking in the House of Lords in the first days of January 1945, Cranborne was still finding reason to praise the meeting that had taken place the previous year. Those pessimists who had prophesied that the Statute of Westminster would mean the beginning of the dissolution of the Empire had been proven visibly wrong. He could claim that there was a different reality in which material and spiritual ties were actually stronger than ever before. He also proposed that the Dominions could build on this in peacetime by having an annual prime minister's meeting.60 To British writers at the time the Conference had been a 'milestone in history'.61 More intriguingly, the largely American readership of Time was told that Churchill 'had neither qualified nor abandoned Britain's belief that she must have the Commonwealth and Empire behind her in order to remain a Great Power'.62 The idea that the Dominions might form a bloc had been—at least temporarily—abandoned. Instead, those assembled had publicly agreed that there should be a world organization which would allow them to 'gather around Britain as closely or as loosely as they pleased'. Despite the apparent success of the London meeting and the renewed vows of loyalty and unity of Empire that had spewed forth, the process