ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Canadian financial aid before considering South African assistance in a comparative context. Canada was the pre-eminent Dominion in terms of wartime financial effort, supporting the UK with over $5bn. The story of Anglo-Dominion wartime financial aid stands apart from the colonial empire and follows more closely a Statute of Westminster narrative of cooperation through increasing partnership and emerging independence. The financial support that the UK actually received from Canada and South Africa involved a complex balancing act, with the Dominions continually weighing the UKs wartime plight against national economic considerations, political conditions and perceived domestic opinion. The strategic crisis of mid-1940 completely transformed the UKs attitude; its reserves of dollars and gold were now committed to any immediate war expenditure deemed necessary. The South African Government was continually courting its support base and trying to undermine the attacks of its political opposition.
