Letter [CANBERRA], 10 January 1944
Relative to the proposed Agreement between Canada and Australia in
connection with the furnishing of Mutual Aid by Canada to
Australia, under our Mutual Aid policy, I was instructed on
January 6th to deliver a message to you from my Prime Minister.
I found upon inquiry that you were in Western Australia and would
not return until the 17th and that therefore it would be
impossible for me to deliver this message to you personally before
that date. I communicated this information to Ottawa and have now
been instructed to deliver the message to you immediately. The
message from the Prime Minister of Canada to you is as follows:
‘Your High Commissioner in Ottawa has informed me that the
Australian Cabinet is unable to accept the proposed Article X of
the Mutual Aid Agreement between our two countries. [1] I greatly
regret this decision and hope you will find it possible to
reconsider the position. We have considered the suggestion, that
there might be substituted for this Article, a reference in the
preamble to the effect that Australia and Canada have accepted in
principle the general objectives set forth in the Atlantic Charter
and in Article VII of the master Lend-Lease Agreement. We feel
however, that we cannot agree to this alternative, as the question
appears to us of greater importance than would be implied by a
mere general reference of this character.
It seems to us logical and indeed essential that the Mutual Aid
Agreements should contain a re-affirmation of the main points of
general international economic policy which we are all pledged to
pursue after the war by our acceptance of the Atlantic Charter and
by the formal undertakings into which we have entered with the
Government of the United States. Our Mutual Aid policy and Act
were deliberately formulated to fit into post-war economic inter
national relations of this character and to make them more
workable by eliminating the accumulation of large war debts among
the United Nations. The Canadian Parliament and people have
accepted the heavy financial burden of Mutual Aid with this
expectation in view.
It is for this reason that we believe it is essential that all our
Mutual Aid Agreements should contain an assurance that the nations
receiving this assistance also look forward to international
economic relations of this character. We had naturally believed
that Australia and the other countries participating in Mutual Aid
subscribed to the principles in question because they had so
declared in their agreements with the United States. [2] If under
these circumstances the Government of Australia should not find it
possible to reconsider their decision not to re-affirm their
support of these principles we would be obliged to consider that
the Government of Australia is out of sympathy with the general
philosophy behind the Mutual Aid policy and therefore that its
requirements from Canada would have to be obtained on some other
basis.
We have, of course, no desire or intention that the flow of
essential war supplies to Australia from Canada should be
interrupted. If, however, your Government is not ready to sign the
agreement, we consider we must make new arrangements for the
financing of these supplies. The only alternative appears to be
that we should provide essential supplies under a credit to be
repaid within an appropriate period after the war.
Under any such arrangement it would be necessary, as you will
realize, to make a public explanation of the reasons which have
prevented us from fulfilling our intention of providing essential
supplies to Australia out of the Mutual Aid vote without cost to
the Australian Government.’
T. C. DAVIS
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1 See Documents on Australian Foreign Policy 1937-49, vol. VI,
Document 352.
2 See ibid., Document 39.
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[AA:A989, 43/125/5/6/1, i]
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