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By Root 843 0

both for them individually and for the alliance.43 This distance was in large part because the United States preferred to deal just with one set of negotiators, but there was also a desire by the British government to retain ultimate control of the distribution of loaned materials.44 Although arrangements ultimately improved, the minimal access initially given to the newly available equipment left the Dominions angry at the DO for 'not pressing their case hard enough'.45 As Cranborne had campaigned especially hard for them to be included, such criticism was unfair.46 It is however clear that the lack of involvement in the first instance ensured that there was a subsequent reluctance to demonstrate any great enthusiasm for the Lend-Lease scheme. The view took hold that this economic entanglement would quite likely have potentially onerous consequences for post-war economic policy, most obviously because of an almost inevitable attack by the American government on the system of Imperial Preference.47 As Cranborne argued, in a note written to the Chancellor in August 1941, 'it is plain that for some of the Dominions ... the abandonment of [this system], without compensating advantages which are not yet in sight, would at their present stage of development spell economic disaster'.48 Despite subsequent criticisms of the degree to which he sought to encourage the relationship, even Churchill was not entirely blind to this danger and what it would mean for the future of the British Empire. But there was little else he felt could be done by this stage of the war.49

A considerable amount of squabbling followed over the exact provisions of the agreement and what they meant for each of the Dominions. The ordering and distribution of essential supplies for the Anglo-Dominion alliance had been handled in a variety of ways. Canada had, from the outset, been an exception to the rules as it was a dollar country and had its own arrangements with the United States, a provision which proved of great value not just for it but also for Britain who took full advantage of this route of purchase. The remainder of the Dominions—and indeed India and the Colonies—placed all orders for warlike stores, meaning weapons and munitions for fighting forces, through the British Purchasing Commission. The WO, in turn, was responsible for distributing these purchases based upon the appreciations of strategic necessity supplied by the General Staff. This arrangement had been put to the Dominions at the start of the war and they had agreed; for the first few years it proved a working solution but with occasional distresses. Up until April 1941 all non-warlike stores bought in the United States were again handled by Britain as the provider of dollar exchange or gold required to pay for them and at every opportunity it remained keen to limit spending. Lend-Lease brought with it a request from Washington that a similar system be maintained with all Empire needs being coordinated before submission into a single channel. Global requirements were accumulated and processed in London and Dominion supply representatives joined the Purchasing Commission. This system worked for the first few months but it soon became known in London that Casey, the Australian representative in Washington, was agitating that each Dominion should have direct dealings. The American authorities, perhaps pleased at what they saw as signs of growing agitation, seemed only too pleased to assist. According to Arthur Purvis, the head of the British mission, the degree to which the Dominions wished to make themselves involved was 'making the waters rather muddy' in Washington. His view was that the Dominions could not hope to gain either the same access to goods or the same repayment terms because the American public held no 'emotional sympathy' for them.50 This led the DO to comment that it would be 'intolerable' if 'Dominion machinations' were found to be to blame for the trouble.51 And by December 1941 it was now being made quite clear by the Americans themselves that the Dominions' belief that