by Greg Malone
Perhaps the British plans for a generous reconstruction would have surprised the Newfoundland commissioners less if they had been privy to the plans Lord Beaverbrook had prepared for Churchill’s War Cabinet to restore dominion status to Newfoundland. Beaverbrook, the Canadian champion of empire, was born William Maxwell Aitken, the son of a Presbyterian minister in Newcastle, New Brunswick. He became a self-made millionaire and, later, a press baron in England. For fifty years he was part of the British political establishment: in the First World War he was a minister in Lloyd George’s War Cabinet and, during the Second World War, he was Lord Privy Seal and the minister of aviation supply in Churchill’s War Cabinet. A close friend of Churchill and a celebrity in his own right, he possessed a larger than life personality and an original mind with very definite opinions. His report stands in complete opposition to Attlee’s views. This controversial and highly sensitive document was released by the UK government only in the winter of 2010, and it demonstrates a dramatic split in the War Cabinet over policy in Newfoundland. Beaverbrook presents a far more explicit and striking appraisal of the actual situation in Newfoundland, along with the imperial determination to maintain the Island within the strictly British sphere. Most startling, the report contains a blunt warning to Churchill and the War Cabinet that the UK government’s position in Newfoundland was not only unconstitutional but illegal.
At this time—the autumn of 1943—the War Cabinet was meeting in underground bunkers, bombs were falling overhead and the outcome of the war was still uncertain. Nevertheless, Beaverbrook was uncompromising in his condemnation of the Commission of Government in Newfoundland. His report is also fascinating for what it implies about the reasons for the British takeover of Newfoundland in 1933. It is a powerful indictment of British policy in the Island and is reproduced here in full:
[Secret] Memorandum from Lord Privy Seal to War Cabinet of Great Britain, London, Nov 18, 1943
1. Newfoundland should be offered the right to resume Dominion status at any time during the war or after it.
2. The claim is put forward that the present Commission of Government is unconstitutional, and its acts will inevitably be challenged. This contention is based on Clause 1 of the Newfoundland Act, 1933, which makes it clear that the suspension of the Constitution was limited by the terms of the Address to His Majesty by the Legislative Council and House of Assembly of Newfoundland to a period until such time as the island may become self-supporting again. But Newfoundland is now self-supporting, so it is argued. It has a surplus of 11 million dollars. Therefore the legal basis of Commission Government has been destroyed. Now, if we neglect to give self-government to Newfoundland, we must be prepared to meet and destroy this argument. It is my view that we will fail in convincing the people of Newfoundland.
3. Newfoundland has lent us 8 million dollars, most of it interest-free. It has given 500,000 dollars to the Spitfire Fund for the purchase of aircraft and, by voluntary subscription among the public, has provided another 150,000 dollars to that Fund.
4. The agitation in Newfoundland for the restoration of self-government is widespread. Practically all the newspapers participate in the campaign. Among them may be mentioned the Daily News of St. John’s, the Grand Falls Advertiser, the Fishermen-Workers’ Tribune, the Observer’s Weekly, the Evening Telegram, the Newfoundland Trade Review, and the Western Star.
5. The Newfoundland public is entirely dissatisfied with the Commission and the unpopularity of that body grows steadily.
6. Six Trade Union leaders met at St. John’s on the 13th April and passed a resolution for the restoration of self-government.
7. The Newfoundland Board of Trade, meeting on the 29th March, passed a resolution asking that representative government be set up, as a matter of urgent need.
8. There is resistance in newspapers, amounting to claims of repudiation of the transactions relating to the bases.
9. The claim that the Newfoundland Government fell through corruption is not now accepted. It is believed that the measure was taken to benefit bond-holders and supply Canadian banks with repayment of their overdraft. In fact, it is believed that Canadian banks helped to precipitate the financial crisis.…
10. The advantages of a restored Dominion status are manifold. It would be a protection against Canada’s unjust claim over Goose Bay and the pretensions which the United States will advance to civil air bases in Newfoundland.
11. With Dominion status, Newfoundland will safeguard our Imperial interests in the Western Atlantic against any “ganging up” by Canada and the United States, always a possibility under a different government.20
It is hard not to notice the urgency in the tone of this memorandum in expressing the fear of losing Newfoundland to either the Americans or the Canadians. When the Imperial Conference of 1931, via the Statute of Westminster, confirmed dominion status for Newfoundland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and three other countries, there was some criticism that, in the case of Newfoundland, the Dominions Office was putting the trappings of an elephant on the back of a mouse. Beaverbrook’s reasons for restoring that status in 1943 suggest what had motivated the British to bestow this status on Newfoundland in the first place. In 1931 the British already had significant investments in Newfoundland. They were keenly aware of the Island’s strategic importance to them and had plans for larger investments in aviation at Gander. Conferring dominion status on Newfoundland allowed Whitehall to keep the Americans and the Canadians out while securing their own investment in the Island and their position in the North Atlantic. The financial crisis of 1933 had only occasioned a change in strategy to one of direct control. Dominion status was therefore as much about protecting British interests in the North Atlantic as was the establishment of the Commission of Government.
The 1939 memo from J.W. Herbertson at the Air Ministry to Sir Charles Dixon at the Dominions Office had already revealed that Newfoundland was the key to British air supremacy. Indeed, it had always been British policy to keep the Americans and the Canadians out and to preserve the Island as a British bastion. By 1943, however, Beaverbrook’s confrontational stance was out of step with the interdependent agreements forged by the Allies during and after the war, and in particular with Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s understanding about Newfoundland. Perhaps even more to the point, Beaverbrook’s uncompromising view of the contract between Great Britain and Newfoundland in the Newfoundland Act of 1933 could only make the UK government uncomfortable as it prepared to manoeuvre around it with the establishment of a controlled National Convention at war’s end. Ultimately, the only “ganging up” in the North Atlantic would be by Britain and Canada against Newfoundland.
In St. John’s, Governor Walwyn was dubious about the value of any sort of National Convention or, more particularly, about his ability to control it. In a long telegram to Attlee on February 12, 1944, he reported that public reaction to the rumours of such a convention was not positive.
We observe that you also feel that some sort of referendum to the people as a whole may be unavoidable.…
… A dozen or so letters … have appeared in the Press, and without exception they have condemned the proposal to set up conventions or other machinery on the ground that the simple issue which has to be decided is the retention of Commission Government or the return to full Responsible Government.
… the new proposals represent a serious departure from the simple terms of the Amulree recommendations [and] there is no power in anyone in Newfoundland to agree to a variation of these terms except … a responsible government.21
With his plan of establishing a National Convention in Newfoundland, Attlee was indeed straying from the terms of reference of the original contract of 1933 in an effort to control the constitutional outcome. But this variation is exactly what he had claimed only fifteen months earlier to Walwyn as “not open to us.”
In this debate the government of Newfoundland stood with Beaverbrook. Walwyn clearly disapproved of the “departure from t
he simple terms,” just as he disapproved of the novel constitutional process now envisaged by the Dominions Office. He reminded Attlee:
It is by no means certain that the Newfoundland Legislature in 1933 would have consented to the suspension of the Letters Patent if the door were left wide open to permit any other form of government to succeed Government by Commission than the one relinquished.… There was no thought in 1933 of any change in the permanent form of government.
The clear and inescapable implication in the new proposals is that Newfoundland’s financial troubles were in large measure bound up with her form of government and may possibly be avoided in the future if another form is substituted. This implication has been seen by several writers in the press during the past year or two and strongly resented by them.22
Walwyn was clearly correct in his view of the last Newfoundland government’s understanding of the Newfoundland Act. That was certainly Prime Minister Alderdice’s understanding when he wrote, “a full measure of Responsible Government will be restored to the Island when we have again been placed upon a self-supporting basis.”23 Moreover, it was also Churchill’s understanding of the Newfoundland Act when he reassured Cordell Hull, the American ambassador to London, that the Leased Bases Agreement between Britain and America would remain unaltered “upon the resumption by Newfoundland of the Constitutional status held by it prior to the 16th of February 1934.”24
In case Attlee, the dominions secretary, was in any doubt about Walwyn’s own views, the governor of Newfoundland declared:
We ourselves are firmly convinced that for all practical purposes there will only be two possible alternatives open to the country, either to return to Responsible Government or to continue with the same or substantially the same system of Government as that now in force.… In the long run it will be much better for Newfoundland to have Responsible Government restored immediately.25
This was forceful language from the Newfoundland governor. Walwyn went as far as he could in stating his disapproval of the UK government’s constitutional schemes. He was, however, an appointed leader, not an elected one. Well aware of the way his views would be received by his superiors in Whitehall, he added dutifully: “We submit this statement of our views to you with sincere regret that we should seem to doubt the wisdom of a course of action to which you are already committed by a statement to the British Parliament and with an assurance that we shall do our utmost to implement successfully whatever decision you may reach.”26
Clearly, Walwyn would have to go. Despite official assurance, he was not the man for the job Attlee had in mind in Newfoundland. Rather, Attlee would require a willing and aggressive partner in the final push to put Newfoundland into Confederation—a governor who owed his position to Attlee and who would not be averse to using that position to promote the prime minister’s personal agenda on the Island.
Shortly after the return of the Goodwill Mission, a bitter controversy erupted in the Newfoundland press over Canada’s new base in Goose Bay. The St. John’s Board of Trade protested that the Goose Bay deal was an unacceptable giveaway by Great Britain of assets vital to Newfoundland’s future and that the extension of the ninety-nine-year lease to Canada was totally unnecessary. The Canadians, they charged, were seeking to establish postwar civil aviation rights on Newfoundland soil. The British resisted signing the lease until the summer of 1944. However on June 27 of that year, Norman Robertson, under-secretary of state for external affairs, wrote to the British deputy high commissioner that if Canada did not get Goose Bay, then Britain would not get the financial package of war aid promised to John Maynard Keynes.27 The British got the message, and the Canadians got Goose Bay.
Having won the fight over Goose Bay, and aware that London would be announcing constitutional changes for Newfoundland in early 1944, Canada’s Department of External Affairs formulated its own policy paper on Newfoundland. It included a long list of the advantages and disadvantages of “the incorporation of Newfoundland as a tenth province of Canada.” The advantages were cautiously, even reluctantly, calculated as:
a) Greater freedom in any crisis in the Atlantic.
b) Probable enhancement of our position as a world power if we maintained defence … commitments.
c) Possibly a better bargaining position in the matter of civil aviation.
d) Possibly more effective control … in export fish markets.
e) Control of iron ore deposits [Labrador] may conceivably be of future importance politically and economically.
The Canadians were more definite—even enthusiastic—about the perceived disadvantages:
a) Newfoundland would certainly be a considerable financial liability …
b) Newfoundland would probably be a political liability … We might expect constant agitation for “better terms” …
(c) It would be extremely difficult to fit Newfoundland into the existing pattern of Dominion–Provincial relations …
(d) Canada’s defence establishment would have to be considerably larger in order to maintain effective defence of her greatly extended Atlantic frontier.28
Nevertheless, in spite of myriad objections, in January 1944 Canadian policy makers came to the conclusion that “the United Kingdom Government should be informed that Canada is prepared to consider seriously the incorporation of Newfoundland as a tenth province if and when it should become clear that there was very general agreement among Newfoundland people to join Canada.”29
Having declared themselves, the Canadians were at last emboldened to nudge the British with a request that they be included in the coming constitutional proposals for the Island. This request resulted in a flurry of top-secret telegrams and memos, the first on November 17, 1944, from Malcolm MacDonald, the British high commissioner in Ottawa, to his superior, Lord Cranborne, the dominions secretary:
Secret. Mr. Norman Robertson has asked me in course of conversation whether I know anything about an early proposed statement of the United Kingdom Government’s future policy in Newfoundland. He said there were rumours of this here. If there is to be such a statement, he suggested that it would be an excellent thing if its contents could be communicated to the authorities here [Ottawa] before publication. I think he was thinking of this more as a matter of courtesy than as an opportunity for consultation. Is there any news on this subject that I can give them?30
Lord Cranborne replied: “Secret.… We had already intended to discuss this matter with [the Canadian] High Commissioner on his arrival and arrangements are in hand for this.”31
Alexander Clutterbuck at the Dominions Office in London followed through with the details:
Top Secret. My dear High Commissioner,
With reference to our discussion with you about Newfoundland, I now enclose for your personal information a copy of a note outlining our ideas.…
The moment for consulting the Canadians will come as soon as we have got Cabinet approval in principle for our scheme.…
I enclose also a copy of the note which I wrote on “The Approach to Canada,” for the purpose of our discussions with the Treasury. This you saw when you were here.…
P.S. I enclose also a copy of a further short note given to the Treasury to-day with a view to knocking down some of their arguments on the dollar difficulty.32
This exchange put an end to the guessing games, and from that point forward the British and Canadians began working together on the Newfoundland agenda—without the knowledge of the Newfoundlanders.
“The Approach to Canada” was a long and comprehensive document. In it, Alexander Clutterbuck outlined with far-ranging, blunt opinions, and just a hint of exasperation, both the British government’s position and Canada’s chances in Newfoundland. The writing is Clutterbuck at his best, and it gives us a fascinating glimpse of the British perspective on Canada and a vivid a picture of the political and social position of Canada in Newfoundland near the end of the war.
The Approach to Canada
The general position in
relation to Canada is as follows.
Although Newfoundlanders as individuals get along well with Canadians, and large numbers of them have settled in Canada, relations between the two countries have been marred by a long background of mutual suspicion and distrust.… The traditional Canadian attitude towards Newfoundland has been one of detachment, condescension and even contempt. In the background there has been the conviction that Newfoundland was too small and too poor to be able to stand by herself in the modern world, and that one day, when it had tired of its struggle, the Island would fall into the Canadian lap; in the meantime, however, Canadians were in no hurry to add to their burdens by taking over the Island, with every prospect that it would prove more of a liability than an asset. Newfoundlanders on their side were well aware that this was the Canadian attitude, and the result over the years was merely to increase the jealousy and suspicion with which all Canada’s actions in relation to the Island were regarded and to strengthen the determination of Newfoundlanders to hold on at all costs to their precious independence. Thus in turn a traditional attitude grew up in Newfoundland that whatever fate might hold in store for the Island, nothing could be so disastrous for Newfoundland as entry into the cold and comfortless Canadian fold.
The war has seen a marked change in the attitude of Canada; there has however been no change in the attitude of Newfoundlanders. Under the stress of war, Canadian official opinion has at last grasped what has always been evident for all to see, namely, that Newfoundland, situated as she is at the mouth of the St. Lawrence and commanding the gateway to Canada, is essential to Canada’s defence, and that her full partnership is necessary not only for Canadian security but also for the proper rounding off of the Confederation, which would otherwise be incomplete. What has served to drive home this lesson has been the American entry into the Island, as a result of the grant to the U.S. Government of military, naval and air bases for 99 years. The Canadians have also been granted similar influence in Newfoundland, but they fully realise the Americans, if they wish to extend their influence in Newfoundland, can very readily outbid them. Even without any such intention on the part of the Americans the very fact that they are established in the Island will inevitably lead to closer and permanent links, commercial and otherwise, between Newfoundland and the U.S., and the lavish scale on which Americans habitually conduct their affairs coupled with the plain fact that assured entry to the huge and profitable U.S. market would revitalise Newfoundland’s industries, may cause an increasing number of Newfoundlanders, notwithstanding their strong attachment to the Crown, to look upon union with the U.S. as their eventual destiny. The Canadians now realize that had they adopted a less parochial attitude towards Newfoundland in the past, there need never have been cause for the Americans to establish themselves in the Island. Now that the Americans are there, they must make the best of it; but it is not lost upon them that if the Island is not to swing into the U.S. orbit, Canadian policy must now become active instead of passive, and consciously designed to break down the old barriers of mistrust, to conciliate Newfoundland opinion and gradually to build up an atmosphere of comradeship and practical co-operation in which the union of the two countries could be seen to be in the common interest.
