“PARLIAMENT WILL DECIDE”: MACKENZIE KING AND THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE OF 1923 MELISSA OUIMETTE SUBMITTTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY NIPISSING UNIVERSIRTY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES NORTH BAY, ONTARIO © Melissa Ouimette January 2011 iv Abstract: This paper focuses on William Lyon Mackenzie King’s attitudes towards the subject of foreign affairs at the Imperial Conference of 1923. His perspective on foreign affairs was predicated on the belief that the Parliament of each Dominion should have the right to determine the degree to which its country participated in the foreign ventures of the British Empire. For Mackenzie King, this position was largely pragmatic because he strongly believed that participation in imperial ventures threatened Canadian national unity, upon which continued growth and prosperity depended. Mackenzie King also felt that the British government’s pursuit of greater centralization in imperial affairs posed a direct threat to Canada’s powers of self- government. He feared that greater centralization in foreign affairs would tie the Dominions to the foreign policies and imperial ventures of the British government, effectively removing the Dominions from the decision-making process. Accordingly, he believed that in order to be an autonomous country, Canada had to be in control of its relations with the rest of the world. v Table of Contents Introduction…………………………… 1 National Unity……………….............. 17 Self-Government............................... 25 Cultural Connection........................... 36 Conclusion…………………………….. 51 Bibliography……………………………. 54 1 Introduction: William Lyon Mackenzie King became the Prime Minister of Canada on December 29, 1921. The longest serving Prime Minister in British Commonwealth history, Mackenzie King was responsible for several developments in Canadian autonomy.1 As the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and as the Prime Minister, Mackenzie King had a particular vision for the country. He envisioned in particular a Canada that was unified and autonomous yet still committed to maintaining cultural ties with Britain. Under the leadership of Conservative Prime Ministers Sir Robert Borden and Arthur Meighen, Canada had contributed to the making of imperial foreign policy, though it remained largely dominated by the British government. In effect, the Conservative approach to imperial relations after 1919 was to maintain and continue to support the inter-imperial cooperation established during the First World War. In contrast, Mackenzie King wanted Canada to pursue greater decentralization so that it was no longer entangled in the imperialist ambitions of the British government. In essence Mackenzie King felt that Canada’s position within the British Empire was inadequate for his vision and needed to evolve. Nonetheless, despite his pursuit of greater autonomy for Canada, Mackenzie King was a firm advocate of Canada’s British connections and wanted to maintain ties with the Mother Country by creating a sustainable relationship between Britain and its 1Mackenzie King was the Prime Minister of Canada during the Imperial Conference of 1926. It was at this Conference that discussions were continued about granting full political autonomy to Canada and the other Dominions. The result of the efforts of Dominion leaders, including Mackenzie King, was the Balfour Declaration which stated that the Dominions were autonomous communities within the British Empire. This declaration became official in Canada with the ratification of the Statute of Westminster in 1931. Mackenzie King was also the Prime Minister during the Second World War and decided that Canada would declare war on Germany independently from Britain. 2 Dominions. Fundamentally, Mackenzie King believed that in order for the British Empire to remain intact and to continue to prosper the British government had to allow the Dominions to exert full responsibility for their own affairs, both internally and externally. This paper focuses on Mackenzie King’s attitudes towards the subject of foreign affairs at the Imperial Conference of 1923. Unimpressed by the status quo, as established by the previous Conservative governments, Mackenzie King adopted a position of non-commitment to the foreign policies of the British government and the British Empire. His perspective on foreign affairs was predicated on the belief that the Parliaments of each Dominion should have the right to determine the degree to which its country participated in the foreign ventures of the British government, if at all. For Mackenzie King, this position was largely pragmatic because he strongly believed that participation in imperial ventures threatened Canadian national unity and that the restoration and preservation of harmony between the French and English populations was the only way to ensure that the country could continue to grow and prosper. He remained dedicated to the idea of national unity throughout his political career, believing that national unity was intimately tied to complete control of foreign affairs.2 Mackenzie King also felt that the British government’s pursuit of greater centralization in imperial affairs posed a direct threat to Canada’s powers of self- government. He feared that British officials were attempting to concentrate 2Mackenzie King felt that the Military Service Act of 1917, an act that legally conscripted Canadian men between the ages of 20 and 35 for military service on the Western Front, had divided the country along linguistic lines. The majority of French Canadians viewed the war as an imperial conflict in which Canada had no part to play. Oppositely, an overwhelming number of English Canadians felt that it was Canada’s duty to help Britain and the Allies win the war. This conflict had lasting effects on the national unity of Canada and Mackenzie King dedicated his political career to its restoration. 3 control over foreign affairs in order to benefit Britain with little or no concern for the well-being of Canada and the other Dominions. Essentially, greater centralization in foreign affairs would tie the Dominions to the foreign policies and imperial ventures of the British government, effectively removing the Dominions from the decision-making process. In Mackenzie King’s view, in order to be autonomous a country had to be in control of its own destiny and in control of its relations with the rest of the world. The Canadian government could no longer rely on the British government to make foreign policy decisions for Canada. Despite Mackenzie King’s concerns for national unity and a perceived threat to the powers of self-government, Mackenzie King remained dedicated to the idea of the British Empire. He wanted to preserve the cultural connection that had long since been established throughout Canada as well as the rest of the British Empire. Motivated by national aspirations and the desire to protect Canada from the menacing and centralizing tendencies of the British government, Mackenzie King refused to commit the people of Canada to future imperial ventures without the consent of the Canadian Parliament, effectively responding to what he believed to be a serious threat to the autonomous aspirations of Canadians. For this reason, the Imperial Conference of 1923 can be seen as a decisive moment in the establishment of Mackenzie King’s position on foreign affairs. The conference marked the beginning of a period of change, when Canada’s powers of self-government came to fuller fruition. Indisputably, under the leadership of Mackenzie King, Canada became a part of the international world by gaining control over its domestic and foreign affairs. 4 On the whole, the literature on the Imperial Conference of 1923 examines the following themes: the focus of several generations of scholars on the extent to which greater autonomy for Canada and the other Dominions from Britain was desirable, the significance of the Imperial Conference of 1923 in the history of inter-imperial relations, and the impact of culture as a category of analysis in Canadian history. These issues, among others, occupied the minds of Canadian nationalist historians writing from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. However, only a few scholars have examined these topics in the past decade. As a result, there is a compelling need to re-examine both the subject and the sources in order to determine the extent to which the arguments made and/or the themes and questions pursued by previous generations of historians remain valid. When it comes to Mackenzie King’s achievements with respect to the development of Canadian autonomy, a debate exists among nationalist historians which can be broken down into two schools. The first group, the Liberal school, praised Mackenzie King and his efforts to distance Canada from the stronghold of imperial policies.3 In view of their predisposition, Liberal historians have seen the outcome of the Imperial Conference of 1923 as being desirable. For example, Robert MacGregor Dawson, Mackenzie King’s official biographer, posits that the events of 1923 were a great success for Mackenzie King as well as for Canada. Dawson’s 1958 publication entitled William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography volume I: 1874-1923 concluded that the Conference was a decisive one in imperial relations. Mackenzie King was 3B.J.C McKercher, “A Greater and Higher Ideal: Esme Howard, Imperial Unity and Canadian Autonomy in Foreign Policy, 1924-27”. in Power, Personalities and Policies: