During the first decade after the Great War, the relationship between Great Britain and Canada underwent profound changes: these years were significant in the transition of the British Empire to Commonwealth. One of these changes included Canada's severance from formal imperial diplomatic unity. From 1919 to 1928, Canada established the same complete control over its external affairs which it already enjoyed in its domestic affairs. Canada's break from imperial foreign policy was a major factor in Canada's evolution from subordinate status with respect to Britain to one of equality. As the senior Dominion, the action Canada took against Britain, by confronting Britain repeatedly in matters of foreign policy, made Canada a leader in the transition to Commonwealth. Events leading to Canada's legal disassociation from imperial foreign policy began with Resolution IX of the Imperial War Conference of 1917. Although recognition of changes in the imperial relationship came with the Balfour Declaration of 1926, it was the appointment of the first British High Commissioner to Ottawa in 1928 which confirmed Britain's participation in a new relationship with Canada. Resolution IX acknowledged that circumstances had changed in British-Dominion relations. The struggles over imperial foreign policy between 1919 and 1928 assisted in establishing the principle of equal status between Britain and the Dominions. These conflicts contributed to defining the evolution of the Anglo-Canadian relationship in its formal, legal sense. The Canadian involvement in these encounters has received a great deal of attention whereas the same cannot be said of the British side. Most historical writings have assumed that the reactions of Britain were consistently conservative and passive. The common supposition was that Britain reacted only when pressured by Canada. By reviewing these confrontations from the British perspective, this study will examine the attitudes of and the interaction among the British Cabinet, the Foreign and Colonial Offices in formulating a policy toward Canada in this era, and demonstrate that the transition to Commonwealth was neither inevitable nor smooth.

The end of imperial diplomatic unity, 1919-1928: Anglo-Canadian relations from the British perspective.

The British Empire entered the twentieth century in a state of crisis, with many in the legal establishment fearing that the British constitution could no longer cope with the complexity of imperial institutions. At the same time, the military establishment feared the empire was becoming impossible to defend from multiplying threats. In this innovative study, Jesse Tumblin shows how Britain and its largest colonies, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, were swept up in a collective effort to secure the Empire in the early twentieth century. The hierarchy of colonial politics created powerful incentives for colonies to militarize before World War I, reshaping their constitutional and racial relationships toward a dream beyond colonial status. The colonial backstory of a century of war and violence shows how these dreams made 'security' the dominating feature of contemporary politics.

The Quest for Security: Sovereignty, Race, and the Defense of the British Empire, 1898–1931

‘Let the past bury its dead, but for God's sake let us get down to earnest endeavour and hold this line until … the end.’ No other words can more adequately express, after four years of war, the sheer agony of the Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Robert L. Borden. These words also suggest both his attitude to the war in general and his intense frustration with die supreme direction. Like Lloyd George, Borden was an exponent of total war and of victory. His proclamation that Canada was ‘fighting not for a truce but victory’, was strikingly similar to Lloyd George's own declaration that ‘the fight must be to a finish—to a knockout’. The objective, proclaimed at die conclusion of the Somme battles, seemed no less remote in the middle of 1918. Over the last two, and most critical, years of the First World War there was constant contention within Britain over how the objective was to be secured. One aspect of the contention was the direct involvement of Dominion leaders, especially Sir Robert Borden.

VIII. Sir Robert Borden, Lloyd George and British Military Policy, 1917–1918

The Collapse of Consensus and Control, 1910–1914

Security, Race, and Dominion Status, 1907–1909

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F. H. Soward

Papers

Sir Robert Borden and Canada’s External Policy, 1911-1920