Book Review: Commonwealth of Nations: Bruce of Melbourne
| Author | Norman Robertson |
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200138 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
127
reconciliation
[between
Afrikaners
and
those
of
English
speech]
was
paid
by
the
non-White peoples"
(p. 215).
To
have
lived
in
South
Africa
for
some
years with
occasional
trips
to
Rhodesia
is
to know
that
in
both
countries
the
social
and
political
attitudes
of
"those
of
English
speech"
toward
the
non-White
may
be
less
harsh
than
that
of
the
Afrikaner
but
that
they
are
essentially
the
same.
This
is
what
the
author
set
out
to
show,
not
without
a
large
measure
of success.
Ottawa
J.
M.
B9LANGER
BRUCE
OF
MsLsOURNIE.
Man
of
Two
Worlds.
By
Cecil
Edwards.
1965.
(London:
Toronto: Hememann.
475pp.
$13.75)
The
life
of
Stanley
Bruce-Bruce
of
Melbourne-by
Cecil
Edwards
is
a thoroughly
competent
job,
with
a
good
deal
of
material
in
it
which
will
be
of
interest
to
English
and
Canadian
readers
as
well
as
to
Australians.
The
author
has
had
access
to
Bruce's
papers
and
the
con-
tinuing
opportunity
of
talking
things
over
with his subject.
The
result
is
a
solid, well-documented
and
not
uncritical
account
of
a
long
public
career
divided
almost
equally
between
years spent
in
Australia
and
years
spent
in
England
in
most
of
which
the
subject
was
pretty
close
to
the
centres
of
power.
Bruce's
entry
into
politics
had
something
fortuitous
about
it
and
his
quick
rise
to
leadership
which
made
him
Prime
Minister
before
he was
40
confirmed
a
habit
of
authority
which
never
left
him. When
he
gave
up,
after
defeat
in
1929,
leadership
of
his
Party
he
was
barely
50
and
the
last
35
years
of
his life have
been lived
in
England
where
he
represented
Australia as
Minister
Resident
and
as
High
Commissioner
for
nearly
15
years.
His
abilities
and
independence
of
character
and
fortune
enabled
him
to
retain
the
confidence
of
successive
Australian
governments,
both
Liberal
and
Labour.
His
experience in
Australia
and
his
position in
London
during
a
period
in
which
the
countries
of
the
Commonwealth were
shaping
their
separate
foreign
policies
and
their
separate
foreign
services
give
an
edge
and
interest
to
his observations
on
the
differing
ways
in
which
Canadian
and
Australian
policies developed.
He
takes
a
natural
proprietary interest
in
the
especially
close
association
with
the
United
Kingdom
service
in
which
the
nascent
Australian
foreign
service
was
nurtured;
he
claims
that
the
cultivation
of
this
special
relationship
gave
Australian
ministers
better
access
to
and
closer
understanding
of
the
main
problems
of
foreign
policy
than
Canadian
governments got from
their
pioneering efforts to
build
up
a
separate
and
independent foreign
service
in
the
1930's
and
the
1940's.
His
conclusion
is
worth
quoting
in
his
own
words:
"From
the
time
Casey
went
to
London
as
my liaison
officer
[in
1922]
until
I
ceased
to
be
High
Commissioner
in
1945,
Aus-
tralia
was
invariably
better
informed
on
international
affairs,
and
had
far
more
influence on
the
U.K.
Government
and
its
policy
than
all
the
rest
of
the
Empire
put
together.
Carleton
University
NORMAN
ROBERTSON
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