Letter CHUNGKING, 29 July 1942
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
I want to write you a letter somewhat more informal than the
private and Confidential letters you have had from me. I want to
place before you some of the unsatisfactory Conditions which exist
in our relations with the External Affairs Department but I do not
wish to complain as the defects which exist may be due to lack of
staff or other war exigencies or to your disagreement with my
ideas of what is necessary. All I want you to know is that the
present conditions are a serious hindrance to our efficiency. I
have watched the working of the British Embassy in its relations
with the Foreign Office and other services and I would not rate
the efficiency of the Foreign Office as more than sixty to seventy
per cent but the External Affairs Department must be rated as
lower than this. The defects may be summed up under two headings:-
(a) Absence of an efficient administrative system directed to
supplying the needs of the Legation.
(b) Lack of imagination to realise what the needs of a legation
are.
1. Information
Our greatest lack is information of what is going on in Australia
and generally of news behind the news. Our news is scanty enough
but of confidential information we receive nothing. Some letters
may have been miscarried but I have had no letters whatever about
our work though many of my letters asked for answers. (I shall
deal later with answers to cables.) This means that:-
(a) We have only a shadowy idea of Government policy.
(b) We receive little or no information of Government decisions or
agreements made by it.
(c) When negotiations go on with the Chinese Minister in Australia
[1] nothing is disclosed to us. As the Chinese insist on
negotiations at both ends this is most embarrassing to us. It is
the A.B.C. of diplomatic practice to keep ministers informed of
these communications.
(d) We receive no confidential information as to operations in the
Pacific Zone or as to war production. As to (b), we received in
the last mail a table showing the arrangement for General
MacArthur’s command. I believe you will see that information on
these points is necessary to us. It is recognised that we should
receive much of this information and for some weeks a News
Bulletin was sent but this comes very irregularly now, about three
times in seven weeks and contains little besides what can be read
in the newspapers. Frankly, Mr. Gollan’s ‘Austral News’ in India,
compiled from information given by the Commerce Department, is far
more valuable to us than anything we have received from our own
Department. He could obtain his information at a time when we were
receiving nothing because of the non-arrival of bags.
2. Diplomatic bags
As you probably know, for four months we received absolutely
nothing from Australia by bag. I gather that three bags have been
lost. Now eight bags have arrived and we are busy digesting them.
I have no doubt that the delay in the arrival of the bags was due
to slackness on the part of the naval authorities at various
points along the journey. When we first cabled the Department,
they got in touch with the Navy who informed the Department that
enquiries were being made for them at various points in the Indian
Ocean (see Telegrams Nos. 95, 126, 133 [2]). In fact, the bags had
never left Australia and bags from the end of January to the end
of May were despatched about the first week in June.
These facts seem to me to entirely displace the suggestion now
made that the bags were held for safe despatch and to indicate
that they were probably overlooked. There was another hold-up
after they reached India and we did not receive them until 21st
July. After we had made enquiries through the King’s Messenger
they were suddenly released. I know that the responsibility for
the bags is the Navy’s but I suggest that the Department is
responsible for ensuring that our wants are attended to. A system
of receipts should be installed to prevent this sort of thing. I
am also of the opinion that the naval officers responsible should
be called on to explain and disciplinary action taken if they are
at fault. I was in the Australian Headquarters during the last war
and there was no slackness of this kind.
3. Answers to telegrams
I have sent a list of queries made by us which have not been
answered [3], and have received explanations [4], the chief burden
of which is that the queries were passed on to the departments
concerned and no reply was received. I would point out that here
also administrative methods exist for pursuing enquiries and also
that it is often necessary for us to know if a query is likely to
be answered. If, for instance, we receive a request from the
British Ambassador or a Chinese Department for information, it
makes us look ridiculous to have to confess after weeks that no
notice has been taken of our request. We could save some ‘face’ if
we could say that the information was not available.
There is another matter on which I wish to speak. I have sent you
a number of despatches containing my views on the issues which
arise in this part of the field and the method by which the war
has been conducted as shown by the evidence I have seen. [5] I
have been very definite but I am not dogmatic in my opinions for I
realise how cut off I am here. My views on most of these matters
have been written without any information from outside or any
knowledge of opinions expressed by members of the Government.
After a close study of press articles contained in our bags which
arrived last week, I feel that my views, or rather the views I was
recording, have been remarkably in accord with your own. For
instance, in the ‘Sydney Bulletin’ of March 4th appears your
criticism of coordination between London, Washington and
Australia. Shortly after this, my friend Major-General van Temmen
[6] was in India hearing from General Wavell a similar criticism
of the same system. This I was able to cable to you when you were
in New York [7] and you appeared to appreciate it. [8] For these
reasons, I would very much appreciate something from you as to
whether after your trip you believe the points I have been
hammering at are still important. [9] I have no doubt that a great
many of the defects we have encountered have been cleared up in
the new arrangements that have been made.
I have followed up the question of Imperial co-ordination for
defence for over thirty years and it seems to me that defects in
practice grow out of two main causes-from organisation and
personal considerations-and the two overlap. An organisation can
always be a facade and provide cover for powerful personalities to
achieve their policies. Therefore, when we join war cabinets and
other like organisations we must remember that we become
minorities in organs dominated by others. The remedy for this is
to strengthen the operative parts and, therefore, professional
officers whom you send in liaison to the Chiefs-of-Staff should be
of the highest possible calibre in character and mind, not
juniors. They must make themselves listened to and report to the
Australian Government if they are not. I have seen the names of
some of the appointees and notice that this has been in your mind.
I believe you will find that the Chiefs-of-Staff often differ from
political heads and would like some reinforcement of their
position but they will not take it from junior officers. Moreover,
one of the difficulties is the pre-occupation with other theatres
of war. I am strongly of the opinion, from what I have heard here,
that no proper appreciations of the position in the Far East were
made, at any rate, after the Japanese occupied Indo-China. The
excuse was ‘too busy elsewhere’ but if our men were there they
could make these appreciations and force them on the attention of
the staffs.
Another thing to be considered is that Roosevelt is very
autocratic and even more inclined to take matters into his own
hands than Churchill. This is evident by the number of people who
report to him direct. Here there are at least six about whose
advice the Ambassador knows nothing. There are also numerous cases
where he takes decisions and the department concerned does not
know of them until they appear in the press.
The Washington Pacific War Council will, therefore, be dominated
by Roosevelt and he will be guided by public opinion. American
opinion is difficult to handle. I believe it is far more
capricious than in Britain. The American collective mind is
dispersed, capable of holding strongly opposed opinions at the
same time and it is not inherently friendly, however effusive it
may be, and is likely to be alienated by any signs of criticism on
the one hand and of fear and panic on the other. So far as I
understand it, the arrangement you have made with the United
States in regard to MacArthur and his command is an excellent
example of the right principles to apply but of course this cannot
cover supply.
I hope you will not consider these observations out of place. I
feel so intensely interested in these matters and have so much
time for thought that I cannot help forming opinions.
On the personal side I have thought it my duty to say many things
simply because I formed the opinion that so far as this part of
the world was concerned, the British authorities were not showing
the qualities necessary to win the war or handle the problems. It
goes against the grain to do this because I am a devotee of the
British way of life and have done as much as any private citizen
of Australia to promote British and Australian collaboration,
especially for defence. But I realise their position. The
responsibility thrust on them in the present war has been
stupendous and few nations who criticise them would have stood up
to the strain. We in Australia have not been asked to take on such
a strain and so we do not know how we would have got on.
Personally I think we have the intensity and adaptability to play
an effective part. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the
British have developed a powerful system in their public life
which is never really defined and understood but is acknowledged
by everyone as paramount; which must not be questioned and will
not be explained. Men are transferred into it from various strata
of society and if, being able, they try to change it, they
experience frustration and disappointment. The justification for
this system is that by it the British Empire was built up but it
seems to have crystallised and when world conditions have changed
there is no power of adaptation.
There is evidence, too, that such a system is not effectively
integrated; that it cannot focus effectively on the needs of the
situation. When the Germans attacked the Russians the British had
twelve months to formulate their re-actions to the world
situation, decide on their strategic positions and make
dispositions accordingly. This was never done. I find no evidence
of any intensive brainwork on the problems of Hongkong, Malaya and
Burma or the Far East generally, or any clear theory as to how to
tackle the problems which would arise in these places when the war
broke out. The tendency to say ‘Singapore will do the trick’ was
universal. As you know, there were many in Australia who had a
much more correct appreciation than that. The worst feature about
the position was that the British authorities always declared to
us that the preparations in the Far East were adequate and
afterwards said it was impossible to hold their strong points. If
you have made an effective impression on the system and given
Australia a safe position within it, you will have earned all our
gratitude.
I have spent the last few days in reading the Australian press and
I must say it fills me with pessimism. I do deeply sympathise with
the Government in having to put up with this. Few pressmen have
constructive minds and some seem psychopathic. One would gather
that Australia was in a state of panic and demoralisation. It is a
very dangerous mood to create with America looking on in a
critical frame of mind. Governments have immense responsibilities
today and it is not fair that they should be increased by an
irresponsible press.
We have had a month’s intense heat here and are all feeling rather
prostrated by it. Mr. Waller has been in bed the last week with
either malaria or some kidney trouble. He is a tower of strength
to me and I rely on him very much.
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[AA:A4144, 608 (1942-43)]
1 Dr Hsu Mo.
2, 3 & 4 These cablegrams have not been found.
5 See AA:A4231, Nanking, dispatches 1-57.
6 Head of Netherlands military mission to China.
7 See cablegram 1 of 20 April on file AA:A981, War 33, i and
Eggleston’s letter of 21 April to Evatt on file AA: A4144, 400
(1941-42).
8 See Eggleston’s letter of 4 May to Evatt on file AA:A4144, 400
(1941-42).
9 On 22 September Evatt dispatched a cablegram to Eggleston
expressing his appreciation of the latter’s work in Chungking and
of his views on the higher direction of the war, which were close
to those of Curtin and Evatt himself; for this reason it had been
decided to keep Eggleston in China rather than appoint him as
Minister to the Soviet Union. Evatt also undertook to improve mail
and information services to the Legation and pointed out that the
External Affairs Dept had had no recent contacts of political
importance with the Chinese Legation in Australia. See cablegram
SC19 on file AA:A4764, 1.
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[F. W. EGGLESTON]
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