Empire Lost - Andrew Stewart [85]
Jan Smuts gave another speech not many months later to the Empire Parliamentary Association at Westminster. This was perhaps the most noted wartime comment made by any Dominion statesman, with its twin themes of Britain's position in the post-war world and the general position of the British Empire. Titled 'Thoughts on a New World', it was given to about 300 parliamentarians who had gathered in Room 17 of the House of Commons. According to his son, who accompanied him on his wartime visits to London, Smuts, who said he was 'merely thinking aloud' himself, referred to it as his 'Explosive Speech'.52 He spoke from brief notes to an audience who cheered enthusiastically at the end of the address. He told them that Britain would emerge victorious but poor and if it was to play a significant position as a world power it would be necessary to strengthen the Empire and Commonwealth, to look to its inner strength and see to it that it would be safeguarded for the future, his over-riding message being that there should be some way to bring the two closer together. He doubted the prospects of a closer union with the United States. Instead he proposed the forging of new links with some of the smaller European powers, specifically the Scandinavian states. He proposed that some of the colonies might be combined to form more economically viable groups and these might then become self-governing Dominions under white leadership. The Empire and Commonwealth was the best missionary enterprise that had been launched in a thousand years and such a move would help tighten up the whole system. Of some interest also was his conclusion that neither France nor Germany would emerge as significant post-war powers.53 The speech was poorly received in Canada, where it was seen as advocating a single British Commonwealth foreign policy and a return to the centralization of the machinery of government within the Commonwealth and Empire. It was noted, however, that it should have been unusual that the speech should have caused 'so much excitement' when Curtin's not entirely dissimilar proposals had generated relatively little interest.54
The final, and perhaps most controversial of these contributions, was given by Lord Halifax in January 1944 at the Empire Club in Toronto. Essentially this speech argued that the Dominions should fortify their relationship with Britain and with one another so that, as a group, the British Empire could claim a degree of substance and equality with the United States and Russia. In his own words, the speech argued that 'while the Statute of Westminster had given us all equality of status, we had to be thinking quite hard upon the problem of how we were to get real equality of function and responsibility in such fields as Foreign Policy and Defence'.55 Mackenzie King was 'simply dumbfounded' and saw it as an Imperialist conspiracy, a plan worked out with Churchill to push through a 'centralization' in which future policies would again be made in London. He even considered resigning and forcing an election with the question of British interference his main theme. His initial explosion abated as it became clear that the official British response was one of concern that he should be so distressed and renewed expressions that this was not the time to discuss Empire policy.56 The British ambassador was distraught that his 'wretched speech', the giving of which had completely 'bored' him, could have caused 'a slight extra headache' for London.57 Cranborne was quick to respond with soothing words. The speech had not caused