SPRING 2006 â¢ NUMBER 130 - Winston Churchill

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G R E AT C O N T E M P O R A R I E SWinston Churchill andMackenzie KingBY TERRY REARDON1948: “He said, ‘You have built a bridge between theU.S. and the U.K.’ I said, ‘God bless you.’ He cameto my bedside and his eyes filled with tears. Heshook my hands very warmly and affectionately.”NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF CANADAWinston Leonard Spencer Churchill.William Lyon Mackenzie King. While thetwo were certainly very different, therewere many similarities.Both were Sagittarians. Churchill was born on 30November 1874 at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. Kingwas born just seventeen days later in Berlin, Ontario,which was renamed “Kitchener” in 1914.Both had famous ancestors, Winston’s father,Lord Randolph Churchill, became Leader of the House ofCommons and Chancellor of the Exchequer; his 18thcentury forebear was John Churchill, First Duke ofMarlborough. King’s Grandfather, William LyonMackenzie, was the first mayor of Toronto in 1834; he ledthe 1837 Rebellion in Upper Canada and went into exilein the United States until amnesty was granted him in1849; in the 18th century two of William LyonMackenzie’s great grandfathers fought with Bonnie PrinceCharlie at the Battle of Culloden.In politics, Churchill strove to follow his father’sfootsteps into Parliament. King first became interested inpolitics at the age of seven, when he heard Canada’s FirstPrime Minister, John A. Macdonald, speak during the1882 election campaign: “Sir John A. was presented withsome flowers by a pretty young lady whom he thankedwith an embrace. I could do nothing but envy him anddecided then that politics had its rewards.”While Churchill’s academic achievements weremodest, King’s were impressive. He entered the Universityof Toronto in 1891 at the age of sixteen and graduatedfour years later with first class honours. He then attendedthe University of Chicago and Harvard on fellowships. In1899 Harvard offered him a year of study abroad and heleft for the London School of Economics and PoliticalScience.In 1900 while still in Europe, King accepted aposition in Ottawa as editor of the Government LabourGazette in Canada’s new Department of Labour and withina few months had advanced to the rank of DeputyMinister of Labour. The job had come about from King’searlier activities against sweated workshops and childlabour. Churchill, as President of the Board of Trade andHome Secretary in 1908-11, brought in many parallelreforms, including a maximum work day for miners, freemedical care for children, and unemployment insurance.King’s conciliatory talents were soon employedand in the next eighteen months he brought to peacefulsettlements eleven out of the fifteen strikes in which hewas asked to intervene. Congruently, Churchill as HomeSecretary worked to resolve strike actions, though he wasmisrepresented for certain of his efforts (see “LeadingChurchill Myths,” FH 128).The first meeting between King and Churchilloccurred in 1900 in Ottawa, during Churchill’s lecturetour of North America. King was less than impressed withChurchill’s drinking champagne in mid-morning. Later,when they met in London in 1908, Churchill said “Ithink I did make a frightful ass of myself on that trip, didn’tI?” King gave him a hard look and said, “Well Mr.Churchill, there were many Canadians who thought so. Iwas one of them.”King’s opinion of Churchill certainly improvedover the eight year period, as shown in an extract from hisdiary:One cannot talk with him without being impressedat the nimbleness of his mind, his quickness of perceptionand his undoubted ability. He seems to havelost a good deal of the egotism, at least as far as hismanner is concerned, though one feels that even yetit is Churchill rather than the movement with >>FINEST HOUR 130 / 24
which he is identified that is the mainspring of hisconduct.”The same year, 1908, when Churchill, in the firstof many terms as MP for Dundee, became President ofthe Board of Trade, King stood for Canada’s Parliament asa Liberal, won North Waterloo, and was appointed to theposition of Minister of Labour. But in 1911 the Liberalswere defeated and King lost his seat.In 1919 Sir Wilfred Laurier died; King was electedleader of the Liberal Party and returned to Parliamentin a by-election. This made him Leader of theOpposition; in December 1921, the Liberals returned topower and Mackenzie King became his country’s PrimeMinister—nineteen years ahead of Churchill, who wasundoubtedly thinking about that high office at the verysame time.Just ten months after King became PrimeMinister rose the crisis over Chanak, the port of entry toPAGE OPPOSITE: WSC welcoming King to London, 1941.Below: The young statesmen. Churchill in 1908, King in 1910.FINEST HOUR 130 / 25the Dardanelles,which so deleteriouslyhad affectedChurchill’s career afew years before.Turkey had foughtwith the CentralPowers in the GreatWar and had signeda peace treaty in1920. But a newTurkish governmentled by MustaphaKemal (“Ataturk”)repudiated it and inSeptember 1922massed troops atChanak, where an Allied garrison of just a few thousandwatched over the Dardanelles.British Prime Minister Lloyd George asked theDominions to send troops, but unfortunately delayed hiscommuniqué until after the newspapers had reported thecrisis. New Zealand and Newfoundland agreed to help; asdid Australia after a protest. But King complained toLloyd George for asking for help after the crisis had beenreported.Churchill, now Colonial Secretary in the LloydGeorge government, remonstrated with King, who held aCabinet meeting to decide Canada’s role. The Cabinetdeferred to Parliament for approval, and Churchill askedKing for at least a “contingent” of Canadian troops as a“quiet but decisive demonstration that the British Empireis not to be threatened or bluffed.” The Turks eventuallybacked away from Chanak and King did not need to summonParliament, but the incident reinforced King’s viewthat Canada must be in charge of her own foreign affairs.At the Imperial Conference of 1923, BritishForeign Secretary Lord Curzon suggested that Britain’sforeign minister, when he speaks, may speak “for thewhole Empire.” King took issue: on any important issues,he replied, Canadian decisions would be made byCanadians. Curzon wrote later that King was “obstinate,tiresome and stupid and is afraid of being turned out ofhis own Parliament when he gets back.” South Africa’sPremier Jan Smuts told King, “You ought to be satisfied.Canada has had her way in everything.”At the next Imperial Conference in 1926, Kingproposed that Governor Generals should no longer be thechannels of diplomatic communication between Londonand the Dominions. He won this argument too, whichled to the eventual posting of High Commissioners in thevarious Commonwealth capitals. A statement was issuedthat the Dominionswere autonomous,equal communitieswithin the BritishEmpire. The sameyear, Canada senther first ambassadorto Washington.C h u r c h i l l ’sWilderness Yearsbegan in the springof 1929, when hisConservatives lostthe election; inCanada in 1930,King’s Liberals lostto the Conservativesunder R.B. Bennett. This had the beneficial effect of leavingtheir opponents, Ramsay MacDonald and Bennettrespectively, to face the economic depression.In 1935, the outs became the ins: King was againCanada’s premier, and Stanley Baldwin was Britain’s. ButChurchill was now waging his lonely fight against theBritish government’s appeasement of Nazi Germany, andKing by his very nature favoured conciliation. He wastherefore supportive of Baldwin and his successor, NevilleChamberlain.By 1937, Britain was slowly rearming, yetMackenzie King at that year’s Imperial Conference resistedefforts to pledge Canada’s aid in case of war. With theblessing of Chamberlain, King visited Hitler, and King’ssubsequent comments suggested that he like Chamberlainand others had been hoodwinked: “I do believe thatit will be found that Hitler is for peace, unless unduly >>
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Page 27 and 28: cannot take away what I have done.
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Page 31 and 32: Gilbert lecture; and session 4, on
Page 33 and 34: Thanks and a Tip of the Hat to our
Page 35 and 36: worries to Churchill about RAF figh
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Page 39 and 40: champagne and brandy than most hist
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SPRING 2006 â¢ NUMBER 130 - Winston Churchill