This article attempts to place the Canadian contribution to the
collapse of the sanctions
front against Italy in 1935 in perspective. It argues that Canadian
policy on the question was powerfully conditioned by, and conditioned
in turn, imperial policy taken as a whole. There is no attempt
to assess blame, but rather, an effort at a modest redistribution of
responsibility from the shoulders
of British statesmen, over-burdened, onto those of Canadian leaders,
the contribution of whom to the
formation of general imperial policy has largely escaped notice. The
Canadian contribution is
instructive in an examination of the Ethiopian crisis, in particular,
because Canada alone amongst
the dominions invariably opposed a ‘forward’ policy
against Italy and alone amongst its fellow
dominions consistently failed to support a common front against fascism.
It is not without significance
that this policy – or lack of policy, perhaps more properly
– also became Britain's own.