Sir,
I have the honour to refer to your despatch No. 169 of January 29th,† with which you transmitted a copy of a letter from the United Kingdom High Commissioner's Office informing you of the answer given by Mr. Attlee to a question concerning consultation with the Dominions on policy in Egypt and the Sudan,† along with a secret memorandum reviewing the discussions which had already taken place on this subject.† In this despatch you asked me to keep you informed of any developments in this connection which seem likely to bring into greater prominence the broad issue of how understandings are to be arrived at between the United Kingdom and other nations of the Commonwealth on the handling of questions of foreign policy closely affecting Commonwealth interests.

2. It is not impossible, particularly in view of the very difficult situations in which this country is finding itself, that the kind of argument for consultation and agreement with the Dominions used by Mr. Churchill last spring might he revived. The criticism about the alleged failure to consult the Dominions over the withdrawal of troops from Egypt still appears occasionally in Conservative comment on the new crisis in Anglo-Egyptian relations. There is a tendency to expect an assurance from the Government, whenever an important decision on foreign policy is taken, that "the Dominions have been consulted". Just what is meant by such consultation is very imprecise in the minds of those who think of it. It is only on such rare occasions as a decision to withdraw troops from Egypt that the issue is raised in a concrete form. It might not have occurred at that time if representatives of the Commonwealth had not been sitting in London and the minds of various persons had not recently been focussed on the problem of Commonwealth relations. The criticism virtually disappeared within a short time after Mr. Attlee's very correct statement on consultation. There is good reason to believe that many members of his own Party, including Mr. Eden, were anxious that. Mr. Churchill should drop an argument in which he stood on bad ground.

The fact of the matter is, I think, that the realities of Commonwealth foreign policy are gradually becoming apparent to the people of this country. The British people have become accustomed to reading of the active and independent roles played by Australia, South Africa and Canada in United Nations conferences, and in the Paris Conference. They may welcome or regret such independent activities, but they have come to take them for granted, for the most part without thinking very much about their implications. Few of them have worked out the logic of this behaviour in theories of Commonwealth consultation or joint responsibility, but as their minds become adjusted to a Commonwealth which behaves in this way the old conceptions of Empire do not occur to them so readily.

It is perhaps significant that at the time of the recent announcement of the intention to proceed with an Anglo-French Alliance the question as to whether the Dominions had been consulted, or had given their consent, was never raised (except in Canada) or at least not raised sufficiently prominently to attract any attention. Nor has it been raised in connection with the discussions of a revivified Anglo-Soviet Alliance.

It does not seem to me a problem which should worry us very seriously. The present Government in this country showed at the time of the Egyptian excitement that its conception of Commonwealth consultation was, in our view, correct. It has shown the customary anxiety to inform us of the steps it proposes to take on such crucial matters as Palestine, or relations with the Soviet Union, but it has shown no disposition, even in the case of Palestine, to ask us to share the burden or responsibility. It would be perfectly natural for the United Kingdom Government to wish to share these responsibilities. There are, however, two sound reasons why it is not disposed to try. In the first place, it realizes the unlikeliness of receiving affirmative replies, and in the second place it is increasingly aware of the limits which would thus be placed on its freedom of action. If Canada has been most responsible for teaching the former lesson, I think we can thank the Australians for hammering home the latter.

I have etc.
N.A. ROBERTSON

¹Anthony Eden, ancien secrétaire d'État aux Affaires étrangères du Royaume-Uni.
Anthony Eden, former Secretary of Stale for Foreign Affairs of United Kingdom.