Empire Lost - Andrew Stewart [16]
Despite the Dominions secretary's instructions and a second meeting with the FO in just the first month of the year, throughout the remainder of 1938 little further progress was actually made towards settling on a policy.11 It has been suggested that this was because of continuing disagreements within Whitehall over the memorandum's content and even its wording, a debate over form that Harding had been so anxious to avoid.12 The issue was certainly a contentious one; further complication came with the Admiralty's interest in the question and what it might mean for the various agreements that granted wartime access to Dominion port facilities. The main barrier to progress though must surely have been international events themselves as Germany pushed its claims more and more forcefully during the course of the year. Following Austria's incorporation into the expanding Nazi Reich in March 1938, MacDonald warned the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, that his department was struggling under the pressure of the work it was handling. His staff found themselves in 'perpetual, non-stop touch with all [of the Dominions] on all international questions', leaving little spare time for other tasks.13 Although the DO had doubled from its initial size, by 1938's conclusion the total available manpower was still fewer than 70 people. Germany's claim to Czechoslovakia's Sudeten areas later that year, and the crisis it provoked, brought still more distraction. The role played by the Dominions in helping shape British policy during this period has been well-explored.14 According to some contemporary commentators this was the nearest they had come since 1919 to sharing a common foreign policy with Britain. Reviewing the evidence as the war drew to an end, the renowned Cambridge Don Professor E. L. Woodward, in preparing the wartime diplomatic history, concluded that the Dominions' attitude had, in fact, rarely proved decisive in helping sway the policy of the London government.15 Certainly at the time the key DO staff concluded that only New Zealand still clung to the idea of the League of Nation's 'collective security' banner and it alone could be counted on for military support. For the others it was a policy based upon the offer of concessions to the German leadership. Australia would probably have fought, but only reluctantly, Canada after some consideration would have decided not to, the Union of South Africa would have almost certainly remained neutral.
In the face of this, Whitehall's lack of enthusiasm for a memorandum that carried with it potentially critical ramifications was quite clear and there continued to be little real progress made in its preparation. The Attorney-General finally gave his approval in late September 1938 for the British high commissioners in their respective capitals to be sent a preliminary summary of the previous year's findings. The first major development in months, even this only outlined a few of the more general thoughts that had been put forward.16 Batterbee was certainly partly to blame. After several months of rumours, in July 1938 it was confirmed that he was being sent to New Zealand to become the first British high commissioner.17 His personal correspondence clearly reveals the degree to which, following the announcement, his attention seems to have often subsequently been preoccupied. There were numerous arrangements to be made for the considerable relocation he and his wife were facing and the work he was required to undertake prior to his departure was significant.18 Making matters worse was Hankey who, with his extensive knowledge of Anglo-Dominion affairs, had been asked to generally help move things forward. He singularly failed in this task and his appointment in fact served only to aggravate an already complicated process.19 Not until the beginning of 1939 was there finally some substantive improvement