Steering Clear of Great Britain: Canada's Debate over Collective Security in the Far Eastern Crisis of 1937

Abstract

THE early morning of 30 August 1937, the prime minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, awoke from a strange dream in which the main characters were himself, as usual, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a few unruly soldiers, and a young pig. Declining offers of help from the others, King caught and bagged the squealing piglet on his own. As he confided to his diary, the dream's meaning was obvious: it symbolized the Far Eastern situation 'as viewed by the Br[itish] Gov[ernmen]t or as it should be viewed'. The 'animal instincts' let loose since the outbreak of Sino-Japanese hostilities in July were too dangerous to be restrained by collective efforts; unpredictable eastern questions were 'best left to work themselves out'. The army and police, while ready to serve, 'should not be employed' so as 'not to deal with a pig in a poke'. Ever preoccupied with the meaning of his dreams, King concluded that involvement in the admittedly 'appalling' situation in China was 'not worth the lives of white men for "Business Interests'".1