Rogue Tory by Denis Smith

Author:Denis Smith [Smith Denis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55199-636-3
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 1996-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

That would mean a Commonwealth without South Africa. Diefenbaker might reach that point, but his first object was to preserve the Commonwealth association as a whole and to avoid any open confrontation between white and non-white leaders on the South African issue. A confrontation would, in effect, mean a shift to decisions by majority vote, and the prospect prompted Diefenbaker to repeat to cabinet his fear about migration policy in another form. “If Commonwealth Conferences should once adopt the majority vote as a means of reaching its [sic] decisions, the non-white majority at the next conference would probably support free migration of peoples. Such an immigration policy was clearly unacceptable to the Canadian people.”108 Privately, Diefenbaker had turned the issue into something more complex than South Africa’s continuing membership in the Commonwealth. How could the subject be dealt with in a way that would not divide the Commonwealth along racial lines and open the white countries to justified accusations of racism and hypocrisy?

South Africa scheduled its constitutional referendum for October 1960. In early August, Verwoerd announced that if the vote favoured a republic, his government would request continuing membership in the Commonwealth. Macmillan wrote to Diefenbaker and other leaders predicting that “very difficult issues may arise for us all.” He suggested “that it would be in the general Commonwealth interest if we could all say as little as possible at this stage.” In a covering note to Diefenbaker, he asked for advice on how to respond to a republican vote in October. “It will need,” he warned, “very careful handling.”109

The whites-only referendum, as anticipated, delivered a narrow verdict in favour of republican status. Diefenbaker worried that, because “public opinion in Canada was so strong … he could not possibly afford to adopt at the next meeting an attitude as tolerant of South Africa as he had before and during the last meeting.”110 That view disturbed the UK high commissioner to Canada, Joe Garner, and Macmillan, who noted on a letter from Diefenbaker in mid-November: “John Diefenbaker is going to be troublesome about South Africa. He is taking a ‘holier than thou’ attitude, which may cause us infinite trouble. For if the ‘Whites’ take an anti-South African line, how can we expect the Browns and the Blacks to be more tolerant?”111

Macmillan cabled Diefenbaker at length, appealing to him not to commit himself against South African membership before the next Commonwealth conference, which had been arranged for March 1961. Diefenbaker was annoyed by a sense that Macmillan was ignoring Canadian advice on the issue in favour of Menzies, and that he was badgering Canada. But Diefenbaker’s indecision was as marked as that of Macmillan. He “fretted about how to play his cards, his political instincts telling him to keep his own counsel until the moment for decision was at hand.”112 And he was getting no help from External Affairs. A long memo from Howard Green in late December offered no clear recommendations, while another one in mid-January tried to square the circle.

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