Empire Lost - Andrew Stewart [82]
The debate extended to the Empire Review which was full of stories that same year on a broadly similar theme, what would be the fate of the British Empire. Aside from Richard Law's speech, which was apparently considered to be sufficiently important to be repeated, Lord Elton, Lord Hailey and Sir Charles Petrie, 3rd Baronet, each of whom was an established commentator on imperial matters, produced polemics which were published with great prominence.32 Elton was full of praise for 'the only League of Nations which has ever worked'. The Dominions had banished the idea of war yet they had gone to the rescue of victims of aggression. If the post-war world was to work it would do so only because it had its core the British Commonwealth and other like-minded states which had 'gravitated towards it'. Both of the other writers were content, meanwhile, to develop upon popular, emotive themes typical of which was the claim that 'if it had not been for the British Empire the swastika would be triumphant in the world at the present time'.
In the background and pervading much of this discussion and debate, the United States was as a sometimes malevolent presence that had many in London almost looking over their shoulders while creating tensions for the Anglo-Dominion alliance. The sense of anti-American prejudice which Dalton detected within the FO and Treasury was accounted for by one of his sources as 'the jealousy of the old British governing classes at "the passing of power"'.33 It was perhaps an intrinsically and peculiar American vice, certainly in the eyes of those living in the shadow of the British imperial sun, to question British imperial motives. Lord Swinton, the Resident Minister in West Africa, reported back to London that he was having considerable problems in the Gold Coast with the Americans. The Headmaster of the National School in Accra wrote to the Governor-General to complain about 'the most reprehensible conduct and hooliganism' being displayed by many of the visitors.34 This did not at all 'reflect any credit on the Americans as cultured people' and there was a widespread rumour that they 'had come to be lords of the Africans, to exploit them and treat them as "hewers of wood and drawers of water"'. As the writer warned, there was a danger 'that the rude and bratish behaviour of the American may have a tendency to impair the whole structure and fabric of amity and goodwill which have been built up with so much tact and patience by many generations of British men and women on the Gold Coast'. Of greater concern for the British authorities in London, however, would undoubtedly have been reference to 'some stupid loose talk by irresponsible Americans to African about the desirability of Americans taking over the country'.35 Such 'anti-colonial whispering' and the message it contained had fortunately been quickly rejected out of hand by the African audience.
There were other more serious examples of American indiscretions and these directly affected the Dominions. Perhaps foremost amongst these was the alleged case of Colonel Frank Knox, the United States Navy Minister, news of which reached London through a tortuous route involving the interception of a letter sent back to Britain from the French Cameroons. During a tour of the Pacific area in 1943 he had apparently given an impromptu speech to a group of Australians and New Zealanders during which he had expressed the view that they would no doubt want to 'quit the British Empire and join us after this war'. The audience's response was less than complimentary, leaving the minister 'with a very red face'. As the correspondent concluded, aside