845.00/12884/8
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Long) to the Under Secretary of State (Welles)
Mr. Welles: At the Foreign Relations Committee this morning there appeared a serious undercurrent of anti-British feeling, though it was not so labelled and possibly would not be so admitted by the Senators concerned.
The Far East was in the forefront of their thoughts. The manpower of China and of India as sources of military strength were the bases on which the arguments rested. To use them as soldiers it was necessary to get them equipment at great cost of money and of life. But even if they had equipment in their hands and capable American officers to direct them, the Indians would not have the desire to fight just in order to prolong England’s mastery over them. The Chinese should be encouraged by renunciation of extraterritorial privileges on the part of the United States and England.
Concerning India, the argument was that we are participating on such a large scale and had done so much for England in Lend-Lease that we had now arrived at a position of importance to justify our participation in Empire councils and such as to authorize us to require England to make adjustments of a political nature within the framework of her Empire. We should demand that India be given a status of autonomy. The only way to get the people of India to fight was to get them to fight for India. Gandhi’s leadership in India became part of America’s military equipment and it was necessary for the United States to participate in guiding the British Empire in such a way as would result in the realization to the Allied cause of the manpower of India, which could only be obtained by accepting the thesis of Gandhi’s political objective. They ascribed to the authority and position of the United States a power to dictate to England what she should do in arranging her Empire not only in India but in Australia and in New Zealand, coupled with the statements to the effect that otherwise the United States would be just fighting to [Page 607] preserve the British Empire and that the American people would expect this Government to do everything within its power to obtain military participation by India and to the fullest extent by China, as well as from Australia, even though we had to go to the extent of dictating to England what she should do with regards to India and Australia and directing her policies as regards her political rights in China.
This unusual manifestation of submerged opposition to England was not confined to any category or group of members of the Committee. Senators Connally, Vandenberg, Green, White and La Follette were particularly outspoken but other members of the Committee all seemed to be of the same frame of mind. The basis upon which it was all laid was the interest of the United States; its worldwide military and naval participation; the necessity of gathering strength wherever we should. Consequently the basis of it is patriotic. However the immediate consequence of it became a prospective interference in the internal affairs of the British Empire and there were occasional interjections which indicated an anti-British attitude, highly critical in nature and liable to become explosive if the manpower and wealth of the Empire in the Far East was not made tangible and given expression in the form of large-scale military activity.
The unanimity of opinion among the members of the Committee present and the length to which their arguments led them is a matter which might well be taken note of because it looks as if it might flare up and be used by some members of the Committee not as an attack against Great Britain but as an attack against the administration for its alleged failure to take advantage of the position of power in which it finds itself and for having failed to use the force of its authority in arranging for large-scale military support of the manpower which the United States is now putting into the Far East.
On my side, I was very guarded in my remarks and said very little. In response to pointed questions as to the attitude of the Department of State and as to what the Department was doing in conversations with Great Britain to implement the interest the United States had in the coordination of the British colonies to the war effort, I was very reserved. My only response was to point to the newspaper accounts of the meeting in India between Gandhi and Chiang Kai-shek and to the appointment of Sir Stafford Cripps to the British cabinet, and mentioning his reported friendship and personal contact with those two leaders in India and China.
I think the practically unanimous voice of the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in this matter might well be taken note of.