LONDON, 19 September 1938

SECRET

I had a talk with Mr Bruce following the meeting with the High
Commissioners this afternoon. I said that I recognized that none
of the Dominions-not even Australia-were likely to bind themselves
beforehand to support us if circumstances required that we should
carry out our guarantee to a reconstituted Czechoslovakia. Even if
Mr Lyons [1] were inclined to do this, I suppose the Labour
Opposition in Australia would arouse such an agitation that the
country was badly split on the issue, and more harm than good
would be done. In the next General Election the Labour Party might
well become the Government and repudiate the obligation.

Mr Bruce agreed that this was the position, though he repeated
what he had said at the meeting with the High Commissioners, that
he would like to see the Dominions join with the United Kingdom in
accepting the obligation.

I said that I thought there was something which Mr Lyons and other
Prime Ministers might do, short of getting their Governments to
assume an obligation, which would support us in the present
situation. Could Mr Lyons make a speech immediately after the
publication of our guarantee saying that the United Kingdom had
done the right thing in all the circumstances and that what we had
done had the warm approval of Australia? I thought Mr Savage [2]
might possibly say the same sort of thing. If the Prime Ministers
of Australia and New Zealand made declarations like this, it would
avoid any suggestion of Commonwealth disapproval of our taking on
an obligation in Central Europe and positively add to the force of
what we were doing. It was hopeless to expect that the Prime
Ministers of Canada [3] and South Africa [4] would go so far as
this. I would be more hopeful of Mr De Valera [5], and thought it
might be possible to get him to say something helpful.

Mr Bruce replied that he thought Mr Lyons might well make a
statement of this nature. He agreed that it would be very useful.

I observed that it would be unwise for any hint in this direction
to be given to Mr Lyons in a telegram from the United Kingdom. If
he was to make any such statement, he must be free to say that he
had made it on his own initiative, without any suggestion from the
United Kingdom Government.

Mr Bruce agreed, and I have no doubt that he himself will make the
suggestion to Mr Lyons.

M. M[ACDONALD]