The Continuity of British Foreign Policy

' '• THE CONTINUITY OF- BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY GooFREV DAVJEs coNTINUITY ~f Eritish foreign policy has become a commonplace in political speeches and writings. On November 10) 1945, at a dinner at the_White House to welcome Clement R. Attlee and W. L. Mackenzie King1 Pres1dent Truman is reported to have said: "One of the gn~at things of the British Empire is that when they have a foreign policy-and they always have one-the British people are behind that foreign policy no matter which government is in power." Mr. Hugh Gibson in his l;>ook, The Road tn Foreign Policy (p. 10), states that after the formation of a new British government) "other countries know what to expect-that as regards fundamentals there will be no change." Certainly, the recent change of foreign secretar)es in London has not produced any very noticeable deviation from the established pattern. Mr~. Ernest Bevin has stated his intention of following the lines already laid· down. Yet the principle of continuity in foreign policy is of fa_irly recent origin and has not been invariably observed since its adoptio~ in the eighteen-eighties. Before that decade foreign policy was often a partisan question that not infrequently determined election results; it became so again after the close of vVorld War I. A h~storical survey, however brief, will illustrate this conclusion.· English p~litical par-ties date from the reign of Charles II. The names "Whig... and "Tory" were bestowed during the fruitless effort to exc.lude James, Duke of York, from the throne--primarily a domestic issue. The Revolution of 1688 was to Englishmen a vindication of their consti.tutional _ -·rights, but few events have had greater influence on foreign policy. Pro- -fessor Seeley remarked in his Expansion of England that from 1688 to 1815 "the great events are all of one sort, they are foreign wars." The histoiia~ th'en demonstrated that the seven wars he enumerated had a common·· factor-colonial rivalry with France and, usually, w1th ~pain. But, in spite of this arid other constant features in the second Hundred Years' W~r 1 which might seem to imply an unusual continuity in foreign policy, there were actually bitter partisan struggles at every stage-and these led to ·many sudden reversals of policy. . The dividing line between parties in the reigns of William HI and Anne was support of, or opposition to, continuation of the war. Although both parties favoured the·declarations of war, the Tories-were forced out of office in each reign when they resisted continued English participation on more than a limited scale. In each case there was a violent reaction when the Tories returned to power. A(ter their triumph in 1710 they dismjssed the ever victorious Marlborough and made a pea_ ce which reversed in important particulars the declared aims of the war. 1Defence ~f Belgium and maintenance of the balance of power were aJso ~sually,- but not in variably, invo(ved_ 242 'r \ BRITiSH FOREIGN POLICY- · 243 The downfall of Sir Robert Walpole's long administration was brought about by two wars--those of-Jenkins' Ear and the Austrian Succession~ Every schoolboy k-nows,.a's Macaulay used to say, how William Pitt de- , nounced the alleged pro-Hanoverian policy of Walpo.le's successors .with all· the invectives at his command. The period of the Seven Years' War is often cited as a .time of national unity, and the lines of Cowper are approvingly quoted: Pr11ise enough To fill th' ambition of a private man,· That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own . . Yet it is well to remem her· that relative unanimity lasted for four years only, from- 1757 to 1761, and that the glorious Newcastle-Pitt adminis"' tration. ~as gradually dissolved by differences about for.eign policy-war with Spain and terms of peace. The American Revolutionary War was fought to its conclusion during a bitter civil war of opinion in England. Even after North had been compeHed to resign, the Whig party Ilromptly . split into -the Fox and Shelburne factions over the negotiation of peace. Party spirit was virulent during the long struggles...