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By Root 854 0

leaders. During the inter-war years Australia had been alone in arguing that greater cooperation was needed, and by the late 1930s it was being said in Canberra that the level of consultation was insufficient to meet the requirements of the worsening European situation. Following the 1938 Munich Crisis, Menzies, the then Australian Attorney General, placed himself at the head of a campaign for a united British Empire foreign policy, but his proposals for a 'permanent Imperial Secretariat' were rejected by a majority of the other senior figures in Dominion political circles.8 His appointment as the country's leader following Joe Lyons's death in March 1939 only strengthened the fervour of this self-avowed imperialist. Despite a precarious domestic political position, he had been the one Dominion leader constantly prepared to visit London during France's slow and painful collapse.9 A telegram he sent to London in mid-June talked of the great comfort he would gain if there could be a Dominion prime ministers' conference to discuss 'empire defence'. Churchill politely declined the request but it did little to deter his counterpart in Canberra.10

The Dakar incident seems to have been taken by Menzies as the perfect excuse to push for improvements to be made.11 From the war's outset he had complained that the supply of information was very meagre and that there were events happening which 'vitally concerned Australia but about which nothing was known until afterwards'.12 Now a year later, although he was apparently dismissive of the need for an actual, enlarged Imperial War Cabinet, he still wanted a formal meeting. At this he wanted to know why Britain was 'keeping the Dominions a bit at arm's length' when it came to the war's progress.13 His position at home looked tenuous; as one of his colleagues bemoaned to a friend in London, most of Menzies' colleagues were now 'eager for his blood'. A meeting demonstrating his statesmanlike qualities at the heart of the Empire would have been attractive; the problem that he faced was finding supporters.14 Even the DO believed that a London conference was unfeasible and had done since earlier in the year. Half-hearted plans had been made for something, probably in July or early August 1940, but these were curtailed by the German Blitzkrieg.15 A detailed summary of the various proposals that had been put forward had been prepared within the DO and, following Chamberlain's resignation, a copy had been submitted to Churchill that same month.16 Both then and now it was felt there was no possibility of Smuts or Mackenzie King being willing to attend, but discouraging Menzies outright would have 'a chilling effect'; the War Cabinet was told that the idea might be welcomed but not the proposed timing.17

There were a number of political considerations to be borne in mind in Whitehall. A recent warning given to Churchill by an old political colleague had spoken of the growing parliamentary campaign to get a Dominion representative into the War Cabinet.18 That this proposal had its backers had been made abundantly clear in the House of Lords. Gideon Oliphant-Murray, the 2nd Viscount Elibank, was a Scottish aristocrat and staunch imperialist and he was certainly the most vocal proponent of the creation of an Imperial War Cabinet. Variations on a similar theme had been referred to earlier in the summer of 1940 in both Houses but his would be the most sustained. He had told his peers that the Dominions were playing a sizeable role and asked that a 'greater unification of war direction on the part of the Empire' be considered. He proposed that the Dominions be included in the Cabinet and suggested that Bruce could prove an excellent addition. As the former Liberal chief whip reassured the prime minister, his appeal was in fact an attempt 'to induce the Dominions [to] do more'.19 Aside from this irritation there was also the British leader's desire to demonstrate that there remained a continued resolve amongst the Allied combatants to continue the war against Germany. U-boat attacks against British