The Course of Empire

Last week the balance of power and responsibility within the British Commonwealth of Nations shifted. The Dominions loomed a little larger, London a little smaller. It was a slight shift; the bulk of the power to make war decisions and nearly all the responsibility remained in London; but any change at all foretold greater ones to come.

Jack Unjaded. In Australia, before John Curtin became Prime Minister last year, his people used to call him "Jaded Jack." Behind his gold spectacles and his mild, professorial mug he was meek enough. His best friends said that for all his wondrous vocabulary, his skill at political infighting, his long labors for Australian labor, he lacked the guts and drive of a first-class leader. He was to Australian politics what William Edgar Borah, the late Thaddeus H. Caraway and other Senate gadflies were to the U.S.: a born oppositionist who talked a great government, but seemed to shy from the job of running one.

Last October, the short-lived Government of Prime Minister Arthur William ("Artie the Artful") Fadden fell. Australia's jumbled internal affairs, plus the growing pressures of World War II, left John Curtin little choice but to take the job or forever discredit himself. He took it.

He also changed. No timid jade, once the job was his, he pushed Australian industry and manpower toward all-out effort. And he began to bellow at London.

The theme of his bellowing was simple, understandable and dear to Aussie hearts. Australia had poured half of its effective Army (about 170,000 men), an increasing flow of airmen, Bren guns, shells and other munitions into Greece, Crete, Libya, Malaya. Australia now demanded a place and a say in the British War Cabinet.

Dominions' Dilemma. The War Cabinet sits in London; it is primarily responsible to the British Parliament; and up to now it has consisted largely of Winston Churchill (with whom eight other members of the full British Cabinet make up the War Cabinet). A keystone of the Commonwealth system is that the four Dominions-Australia, Canada, New Zealand. South Africa--are not responsible to the British Parliament. Yet under the present system the War Cabinet must, and does, bear the Empire's burden of decision in World War II.

This system is partly of the Dominions' making. For, in the British Empire's evolution from a collection of colonies into an association of nations, the Dominions sought a maximum of independence, a minimum of responsibility to London and the Empire as a whole. Even in the midst of World War II the Dominions put autonomy first, a share in Empire affairs second. South Africa's Jan Christiaan Smuts raised not a whisper to aid Prime Minister Curtin; New Zealand's Peter Fraser tended to go along with London and Winston Churchill, did as little as a near neighbor could do to support Australia. Of all the Dominions, Canada had long been the most aggressive in her demands for autonomy within the Commonwealth. Her Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King stoutly stood with Churchill, content to let London run the Empire's war.

London Yields. Malaya's tragically disclosed defense deficiencies were so much fuel for Mr. Curtin's fire. So was the approach of the Japanese to Australia through the Indies, the Japanese invasion of Australian soil in New Britain and the Solomon Islands. Up from Australia rose a renewed demand for War Cabinet representation--from people & press as well as from Prime Minister Curtin--a cry for Australian posts in the United Nations' High Command, for a joint Pacific War Council.

On the eve of Winston Churchill's report to Parliament last week (see col.3), John Curtin loosed his hottest blast: "No single nation can afford to risk its future on the infallibility of one man, and no nation can afford to submerge its right to speak for itself because of assumed omniscience of another." Such Aussie violence overlooked Great Britain's (and Winston Churchill's) frightful strategic problems. But it was effective. Mr. Churchill offered a Pacific Council--to sit in London. Mr.Curtin said: "Washington," and seemed to have won his point. Mr. Churchill offered Australia and New Zealand seats, but not votes, in the London War Cabinet. Chiefly because there was nothing else to do, New Zealand accepted. Mr. Curtin hemmed & hawed, then took his quarter-loaf.

Canada and South Africa still remained aloof (Canada even rejected a place in the joint councils to allocate shipping, raw materials and munitions). But they cannot forever ignore so portentous a change in their Empire system, in due time will probably take their War Cabinet seats. In effect, and in the persons of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the U.S. and Britain already have seats in each other's war cabinets. If the Empire is changing, even more is the English-speaking world.

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