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Documents on Canadian External Relations
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Volume #15 - 790. | |
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CHAPTER X COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS | |
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PART
3 MEETING OF PRIME MINISTERS, LONDON, APRIL 1949 | |
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790. |
PCO/Vol. 107 |
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Memorandum from Secretary of State for External Affairs to Prime Minister | |
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Top SECRET |
Ottawa,
March 1st, 1949 |
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Sir Alexander Clutterbuck called to see me today about the letter to you from Mr. Attlee concerning a possible meeting of Prime Ministers in April or May to discuss the Indian question. I emphasized to him the difficulties that stood in the way of your attendance at a conference in London on this subject at the time suggested. Sir Alexander said that they had already heard from Mr. Chifley, who also regretted the inconvenience that attendance at such a conference would cause him, but added that he thought he could be in London between the middle and end of April. Mr. Fraser can also come at that time, as well as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, though the latter said it would not be very easy for him to leave Karachi. I told Sir Alexander that we would be glad to receive Sir Norman Brook next week, and that no final decision regarding attendance at the London Conference might be possible until we had discussed the question with him. After we had finished our talk on the Conference, I mentioned to Sir Alexander the unfortunate effect that was being caused in this country, and which had been the basis of attacks in our House of Commons against the Government, by statements in England which suggested that U.K. trade with Canada would inevitably decrease unless Canada took more U.K. imports. I felt that the unhappy implication of such statements was that we were in some way at fault in this matter when, as he knew, the reverse was the case and we were doing everything we possibly could to urge the British to send us more goods. I said that I hoped that on an early and suitable occasion someone in London with authority would emphasize that we had removed practically all barriers to U.K. imports, and had made every possible effort to increase such imports; that no fault lay in Ottawa in this matter. Sir Alexander promised to pass this view on to London and said he personally agreed that something along the lines suggested should be done here. L.B. P[EARSON] | |
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