The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

124

colonial countries moving towards independence, deterred the influence of
Communism and prevented
other western countries moving in. It could be said
that since the Second World War giving of aid has
become part of international
diplomacy.

It
was in the Sinhalese capital of Colombo that Ernest Bevin had his final
achievement as Foreign Secretary.
It was in this, the first ever meeting of the
Commonwealth Foreign Ministers, that the Colonial
Development Act of 1940
became officially the Commonwealth Development Corporation and the
British
equivalent, for the Commonwealth, of the Marshall Plan – the Colombo Plan –
was established.
The meeting in Colombo had taken place in 1950, and, in the
following year, Bevin stepped down as Foreign
Secretary.

Britain thus managed to maintain her political and financial interests and
prevented the Empire from
a total disintegration, by establishing the Modern
Commonwealth.

The
second half of Britain’s priorities now was defence. Although the
members of the Commonwealth became
responsible for their own defence, they
still remained exposed to Communism’s influence, particularly
in the face of the
split between Russia and the West after the war. Moreover, Britain’s
economic
weakness gave her a handicap in keeping up with military, and especially atomic,
weapon
technology. Thus, Britain had to come into alliance with the Americans
both for economic and defensive
reasons. As Clement Attlee has put it in his book
‘As It Happened’: “While this friction
with Russia increased we naturally grew
closer to the United States. This was helped by a change in the
attitude of the
Administration as they realised what the assumption of responsibility in
world
affairs entailed. Many Americans shed their old isolation and with it some of
their
long-seated prejudice against Britain as a predatory imperialist power. They were
also
disillusioned with Soviet Russia. The two English-speaking countries began
to realise that their close
co-operation was essential to world peace.”42 Thus, the

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213