CO-OPERATION IN BRITISH COMMONWEALTH DEFENCE

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of 14th July advising me that
paragraphs 9 and 10 of my letter of 28th May relating to Machinery
for Co-operation in British Commonwealth Defence are not
acceptable.

2. The Australian Government fully appreciates that it is a matter
for the Government of each part of the Empire to decide the nature
and type of any machinery in which it is prepared to participate
for Co-operation in British Commonwealth Defence.

3. It is understood from Field Marshal Montgomery as the result of
his discussions in New Zealand, that the New Zealand Government
would prefer an arrangement as follows:-

'Each country should maintain a Liaison Staff with the other
countries, accredited to their Chiefs of Staff organisation.

The functions of the Liaison Staff should be:-

(a) To report to its own Chiefs of Staff the strategic ideas under
consideration by the Chiefs of Staff of the country to which it is
assigned.

(b) To act as a channel for the exchange of views and information
on the military level. To this end, the heads of the Liaison
Staffs should attend Chiefs of Staff meetings as necessary.'

This corresponds to the United Kingdom proposal to the Prime
Ministers' Conference. While this arrangement is less
comprehensive than that proposed in the Australian Government's
Memorandum on Co-operation in British Commonwealth Defence, the
Government is quite agreeable to the Australian - New Zealand
machinery being limited to Service Liaison Staffs, provided that
the New Zealand representation in Australia is a Joint Services
Representative and Staff as outlined in sub-paragraph 12 (ii) of
the Australian memorandum. The Australian Service representation
in New Zealand will also be similar. The Australian Government is
also willing to accredit the New Zealand representative to the
Defence Department which, as indicated in the Australian
memorandum, includes not only the Chiefs of Staff Committee, but
also the Defence Committee, which is the advisory body on Defence
Policy. The functions of the Chiefs of Staff Committee are largely
limited, in peace, to strategic matters.

4. While expressing ready agreement to fall in with your wishes, I
must point out that the view expressed by you that the Australian
proposals do not provide for cooperation 'on the basis of
equality' is not in accord with the following information in the
Australian memorandum:-

(i) At the Prime Ministers' Conference in 1946, it was agreed:-

(a) That the system for co-ordination should be based upon the
national defence organisations to be maintained in the United
Kingdom and in each Dominion. (Sub-paragraph 8(b)).

(b) That any system devised must, amongst, other conditions,
fulfil the following one:-

Provide the maximum degree of co-ordination on defence matters
which the sovereign status of the members of the Commonwealth
allows. (Sub-paragraph 8(ii)).

(ii) In paragraph 12 it is stated that the use of the Australian
Defence Machinery for matters of Co-operation in British
Commonwealth Defence will be in accordance with (i) (a) and (b)
above, and, in dealing with procedure relating to Government
representation on the Australian Council of Defence, the following
passage occurs:-

'As the sovereign control of its Policy is retained by each member
of the British Commonwealth, and as the Council of Defence is a
statutory advisory body to the Australian Government, any
recommendations which it may make on subjects of a British
Commonwealth relation, are matters for consideration by the
Governments concerned.' (Sub-paragraph 12 (i)).

5. It will be clear from the foregoing that all decisions are the
absolute responsibility of the Governments concerned, and that New
Zealand participation in the Australian Machinery and Australian
participation in the New Zealand Machinery cannot detract in any
manner from the basic equality of the sovereign Governments of the
two countries. The same principle applies equally to reciprocal
representation between Australia and any other part of the British
Commonwealth.

6. Confirmation of this view is to be found in the pre-war
practice of the Australian (and no doubt the New Zealand) High
Commissioner attending meetings of the Committee of Imperial
Defence, which was part of the United Kingdom Defence Machinery.

Also, during the war, the Australian Resident Minister in London
was the accredited representative to the United Kingdom War
Cabinet which constitutionally was part of the United Kingdom
Machinery of Government. The procedure in these cases in no way
infringed the sovereign equality of the United Kingdom and
Australian Governments to whom all decisions on matters of mutual
interest were reserved.

7. It is also stated in your letter, 'in any scheme of co-
operation, it is an essential condition that we should have an
effective voice and vote in matters of policy on administration
and control, as well as in the determination of general policy. It
would, I am sure, not be impracticable to devise some method of
effective partnership and joint machinery for the control of
British Commonwealth Defence projects on the level of
administrative policy.'
8. Again I would refer to the precise terms of the Australian
Memorandum:-

(1) At the Prime Ministers' Conference in 1946, the following
proposals were submitted by the United Kingdom Government:-

(a) Each member of the Commonwealth should:-

(i) Accept responsibility for the development and defence of their
Main Support Area and the strategic zone around it.

(ii) Accept the principle of joint responsibility between members
of the Commonwealth concerned for the protection of lines of
communication between Main Support Areas.

(iii) Agree that it is in their strategic interest to assist both
politically and militarily in maintaining our position in those
protective areas which directly affect the security of their
territory and communications. (Paragraph 1).

(b) The following definitions are given in the United Kingdom
document:-

(i) Main Support Areas are the United Kingdom, the American
Continent, Southern Africa, and Australia and New Zealand.

(ii) Strategic Zones are the areas of which each main support area
is the heart.

(iii) Areas of Strategic Importance other than Main Support Areas
are stated to be, Western Europe; the Iberian Peninsula and North
West Africa; the Middle East; and South East Asia. (Paragraph 2).

(2) In regard to development and defence of Main Support Areas,
the Australian Government observed that this is the responsibility
of each part of the Empire in accordance with the principle of
responsibility for Local Defence accepted by the Self-Governing
Dominions at the Imperial Conference of 1923. (Paragraph 4).

(3) In the case of the development and defence of Regions of
Strategic Responsibility, which are the areas of which each Main
Support Area is the heart, the Australian Government stated that
it was willing to make a larger contribution towards the defence
of the British Commonwealth in the Pacific, that the acceptance of
additional commitments is a matter for consideration by the
Australian Government in relation to the priority and importance
of other Defence proposals and commitments, and to the amount that
can be provided for Defence, but that the responsibility for any
commitments accepted must be assigned to the Australian Government
Machinery. (Sub-paragraph 5(iii)).

9. New Zealand, as well as Australia, is designated a Main Support
Area and the heart of a strategic zone. As stated in sub-paragraph
4(i) above, it was agreed at the London Conference that 'the
system for co-ordination should be based upon the national defence
organisation to be maintained in the United Kingdom and in each
Dominion'. It assumed that the New Zealand Government would
similarly want to exercise control through its own machinery of
responsibilities accepted by it. The Australian Government's
proposal is that liaison between the two countries should be
effected on the Government and official levels by mutual
representation on each other's machinery as outlined in paragraph
12 of its memorandum. By this means, the sovereign control of each
Government's own policy and administrative machinery is retained
on a basis of equality while, at the same time, there exists at
the Governmental and official levels, the fullest opportunity for
the expression of views. The principle of these proposals is also
essentially in line with the working of the Combined Chiefs of
Staff System in Washington. It is also understood that the Canada
- United States Joint Defence Board operates on a similar basis of
fullest consultation with sovereign control of policy by each
Government.

10. As indicated in the memorandum on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in
Australia, the Australian Government is absolutely opposed to the
continuation or extension of a Joint Body of this nature
responsible to more than one Government. To exercise control in
war through a Committee of this kind would invite disaster. In
contrast with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Australia, the
Australian Government has proved the efficacy of the assignment to
its own machinery of the responsibility of carrying out the
extensive commitments which it accepted during the war in respect
of the United States Forces and British Pacific Fleet for which
Australia was the main base. in both cases the United States
Forces and Royal Navy worked through the Australian Government
Machinery in the manner now proposed for Co-operation in British
Commonwealth Defence.

11. In the light of the experience of these two types of
machinery, the Australian Government, as stated at the Prime
Ministers' Conference, has laid it down as fundamental that
commitments accepted by it of a British Commonwealth nature shall
be undertaken by the Australian Government Machinery. To give
effect to my statement that Australia would make a greater
contribution to British Commonwealth Defence in the Pacific,
provision has been made by the Government in its Five Years'
Defence Programme of an amount of 33,500,000 for Research and
Development and 2,129,000 for a Joint Intelligence Organisation.

These projects are an integral part of Australian Defence Policy,
for which the Government is responsible to Parliament. Australian
Policy on Research and Development is under the control of the
Minister for Defence and its execution under the Minister for
Munitions through the machinery of their respective Departments.

Provision has been made for United Kingdom representation on the
machinery of the Department of Munitions, but it is essentially
Australian machinery responsible to the Minister for Munitions.

Under the Australian Government's proposals for Machinery for
Empire Co-operation, the United Kingdom Government would also have
representation on the Defence Machinery controlling Policy and on
the Council of Defence on matters dealt with at that level. In the
case of the Joint Intelligence Organisation, the New Zealand
Government has been informed that it is contemplated in regard to
matters of intelligence policy affecting New Zealand that New
Zealand should be represented on the joint Intelligence Committee,
which controls Intelligence Policy. The Joint Intelligence
Committee and the administrative and executive machinery which is
being established are part of the Defence Machinery, which is
responsible to the Minister for Defence. In addition to its voice
on the Joint Intelligence Committee, the New Zealand Government,
of course, has absolute administrative control of any intelligence
activities undertaken by New Zealand and will be a recipient of
the information produced by the Australian organisation. [1]