ABSTRACT

Ever since Richard Jebb discussed the nature of dominion nationalism and the imperial attachment as a developing alliance, historians have been at pains to explore the local and regional differences which gave rise to distinctive attitudes and policies in the developing nation states of the British Empire.1 The test of the alliance in war clearly changed as well as strengthened the definition of common interests in foreign policy, defence and international trade. Whether wartime consultation, separate signatures to the peace treaties and the acquisition of colonial responsibilities moved the dominions very far towards distinctive formulation of their interests between 1919 and 1939 is open to question. In Australia, it has been argued, security was sought in a territorial buffer zone to the north in New Guinea, rather than foreign treaty systems and international organizations.2 Much the same might be said of South Africa in the inter-war period, when the western flank of the Union was extended by the Mandate over South West Africa, and attention was turned inwards on the problems of political control in a developing multi-racial society. For both dominions foreign policy was defensive in style and heavily weighted towards the preservation of the high levels of internal investment and external trade that were part of the legacy of the First World War.