Showing papers on "Dominion published in 1971"

Canada and the Pacific

Abstract: C ANADA WAS DISCOVERED by mistake. French and British explorers who ventured up the St. Lawrence or across the top of Canada were looking for Asia; the symbol of their disappointment is the Montreal suburb still called, after three hundred years, Lachine. Although the venturers from Europe to Canada had to settle for the considerable resources available on this vast land obstacle on the way to Cathay, the romantic vision westward to the East persisted. Canada, like the United States, thrusts to the Pacific and when dominion was achieved from sea to sea by completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the i88o's, there was a revival in commercial and political quarters of the "gateway to Asia" mystique. When the second transcontinental railway was completed several decades later, the terminus was in the outpost town of Prince Rupert because this was 400 miles closer than Vancouver to Japan. In the early years of this century the Canadian Government was seized with "the myth of the Japanese market" based on a conviction that once the Japanese experienced the high quality of Canadian wheat, they would forsake rice. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister, declared to a cheering throng in Toronto, "Up to the present moment we have markets, chiefly in Europe, but the time has come when we must seek markets in the Orient, in Japan and China. . We are in a position to profit more from this market than any other portion of the civilized globe."' The Japanese did not give up rice, but the vision of Asia as a vast market for Canadian wheat and other produce was never quite lost. It was never realized in very exciting terms either, but in recent years both Japan and China have been buying Canadian grain in amounts sufficient to revive the vision. There are close parallels between Sir Wilfrid's prospectus and that inspired by Mr. Trudeau in the recently issued White Paper on foreign policy.2 The emphasis now being placed in Ottawa on cultivation of Pacific relations was dramatized by the Prime Minister's gesture in making his first extended official voyage not on a European tour but in an arc from New Zealand through Malaysia to Japan, signalling thereby both government intentions and his own predilections.

India and East Africa: Imperial Partnership at the End of the First World War:

Abstract: It may be necessary at the outset to recall, however briefly, the ambiguous international status with which India emerged from the first world war Though neither a sovereign state nor a Dominion nor a self-governing colony, nor even in any definable sense a constituted entity, India was admitted at Britain's request and amidst considerable criticism, as a founding member of the League of Nations, along with the Dominions of Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand We are not concerned here with the details of the juridical and terminological contortions which were needed for this anomaly to come to pass, in spite of the obvious fact that India did not meet any of the requirements for membership1 To be sure, the British Empire was not that monolithic structure it then appeared to most European and American

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

Abstract: ‘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.

New Zealand and the Singapore Base between the Wars

Abstract: New Zealand was one of the first parts of the British Empire to offer Britain help in the building of the Singapore naval base and was the only Dominion to do so. It is true that considerable financial help was given by the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, the Federated Malay States and the Sultan of Johore.1 Australia's naval programme was, also, based on the assumption that the base would be built.2 But the Reform Party Ministry in New Zealand was the only democratically elected government which supported the United Kingdom Government with a vote of funds. Although New Zealand was, in theory, still a 'non-sovereign state\ and one radical Labour Member of Parliament, John A Lee, charged,that New Zealand's participation represented 'Government by Downing Street',3 the New Zealand Prime Minister stressed, in London, that the decision would be 'arrived at in New Zealand'.4 The Singapore contribution was made in the belief that it was in the Dominion's interest. It was, we must assume, supported by the majority of the electorate, although it was opposed by a vocal minority. The intention of this article is to examine the reasons for New Zealand's commitment