842.20 Defense/1½
The Minister in Canada (Moffat) to the Acting Secretary of State (Welles)1
Dear Sumner: Ever since I have been here, but more particularly in the last two or three weeks, there has been growing a public demand throughout Canada for the conclusion of some form of joint defence understanding with the United States. Even elements which in the past have been least well disposed toward us, such as the Toronto public and the English-speaking sections of Montreal, are now outspoken in its favor. The principal newspapers, such as the Montreal Gazette, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Vancouver Sun and such periodicals as MacLeans and Saturday Night are committed to the idea. Questions have been asked in Parliament and some of the political leaders are putting pressure on the Government behind the scenes. As a matter of practical politics the Prime Minister may ultimately be forced to recognize the existence of this popular demand; if Great Britain should suffer serious reverses the demand would immediately become very acute.
To Canadians such a joint defense understanding,—whether it took the form of a treaty or merely of publicly announced staff talks,—seems a reasonable reinsurance policy. The old fear that cooperation with the United States would tend to weaken Canada’s ties with Great Britain has almost entirely disappeared. Instead, Canada believes that such cooperation would tend to bring Britain and the United States closer together, rather than to force Britain and Canada apart.
The press is increasingly pointing out that Canada has two lines of defense: the first in Great Britain, the second in a coordinated plan for the protection of North America. A few Canadians, but still relatively [Page 145] few, would add a coordinated plan for the protection of the Western Hemisphere.
That an understanding between Canada and the United States must necessarily be limited to the defense of North America is everywhere accepted here. Any suggestion that it would obligate the United States, even morally, to become involved overseas is recognized as outside the realm of practical possibilities. But conversely, the average Canadian fails to see why the United States, which unanimously supported the President’s Kingston pledge,2 should hesitate to work out ways and means of implementing the pledge. The argument that this would be difficult while Canada is a belligerent and the United States a neutral is generally brushed aside as a technical one, which ignores the basic fact that an understanding would only become operative in the event of a physical attack on Canada or the United States.
The recent advocacy by the Chicago Tribune and the New York Herald Tribune (which in political philosophies are as the poles apart) of a defensive alliance between Canada and the United States has made a deep impression on the average Canadian. He has jumped to the conclusion that the United States is ready for an understanding, and that it is the Canadian Government that is holding back.
Mr. Mackenzie King,3 who knows us well, appreciates that any initiative on Canada’s part toward a more formal understanding would cause embarrassment or at best controversy in the United States, which he wants at all costs to avoid. He believes that if an emergency should arise, the United States would act and act quickly, and that the recent secret talks between American and Canadian military and naval officers, although without commitment, have at least had the result that American aid would be effective.
On the other hand, dependent on future events, Mr. Mackenzie King may well be subjected to very heavy political pressure to make some approach to us either (a) to formalize the Kingston pledge or (b) to make a public admission that “staff talks” have in fact taken place. In a war situation where the picture changes overnight, I could not hope to prophesy when the pressure on Mr. Mackenzie King might be expected to reach its maximum intensity.
The purpose of this letter, Sumner, is merely to give you a feeling of the way Canadian opinion is growing, so that you in turn may be able to consider it in relation to the development of political opinion (pro or con) at home.
With every good wish
As ever yours