Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T02:46:06.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

British Policy in the Far East 1933–1936: Treasury and Foreign Office1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Extract

The nature of British interests in the Far East in the 1930s meant that both the Treasury and the Board of Trade were necessarily closely involved with the making of foreign policy. While Foreign Office officials resented this intrusion into their domain, they were themselves disdainful of so-called ‘technical’ considerations connected with tariffs or currency reform, and were willing to leave them to the specialists. Under the dynamic impetus of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, and the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Warren Fisher, the Treasury, encouraged by the apparent abnegation of the Foreign Office, made a bold and aggressive foray between 1933 and 1936 into realms of foreign policy-making hitherto regarded as the exclusive sphere of the professional diplomat.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Feuerwerker, Albert, ‘The Foreign Presence in China’, in Cambridge History of China, vol. 12, part I (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar

3 For the London Naval Conference, December 1935–March 1936, see Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939 (hereafter DBFP), 2nd Series, vol. XIII (HMSO, 1973).Google Scholar

4 DBFP, 2nd Series, vol. XX (HMSO, 1984), no. 23.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., no. 25.

6 Ibid., no. 25, note 2.

7 CID 258th meeting, 6 April 1933 (CAB 2/5).Google Scholar

8 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 35.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., no. 39.

10 Private papers of Neville Chamberlain, University of Birmingham, quoted by kind permission of the Librarian: NC 18/1/851 (hereafter Chamberlain papers).Google Scholar

11 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 45, note 6.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., no. 63.

13 Ibid., no. 68.

14 Ibid., no. 4.

15 On the activities of A. H. F. Edwardes and the broader issues of British Far Eastern policy see Trotter, Ann, Britain and East Asia (Cambridge, 1975). I am grateful to Dr Trotter for putting me on to papers concerning Edwardes held in the SOAS Library.Google Scholar

16 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 97.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., no. 77, note 2.

18 Ibid., no. 97.

19 DBFP, 2nd Series, vol. XIII, Appendix I.Google Scholar

20 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 100.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., no. 105.

22 Ibid., no. 133.

23 Ibid., no. 97.

24 Ibid., no. 139.

25 Chamberlain papers, NC 18/1/874.Google Scholar

26 DBFP, vol. XX, nos 149–50.Google Scholar

27 Chamberlain papers, NC 18/1/885.Google Scholar

28 Chamberlain papers, NC 18/1/890.Google Scholar

29 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 164.Google Scholar

30 Chamberlain papers, NC 18/1/890.Google Scholar

31 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 168.Google Scholar

32 DBFP, vol. XIII, no. 29.Google Scholar

33 Chamberlain papers, NC 18/1/891.Google Scholar

34 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 169.Google Scholar

35 Ibid.,

36 Chamberlain papers, NC 18/1/892.Google Scholar

37 Chamberlain papers, NC 18/1/893.Google Scholar

38 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 125.Google Scholar

39 T 172/1831 (Chancellor of the Exchequer's papers, PRO).Google Scholar

40 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 170.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., no. 174.

42 T 172/1831 (Chancellor of the Exchequer's papers, PRO).Google Scholar

43 FO 371/18116: F 7461/164/10.Google Scholar

44 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 202, note 1.Google Scholar

45 Ibid., no. 188.

46 Ibid., no. 202.

47 Ibid., no. 216.

48 Ibid., no. 219.

49 Ibid., no. 220.

50 Ibid., no. 206.

51 Ibid., no. 230.

52 Ibid., no. 236.

53 Ibid., no. 255.

54 Ibid., no. 262.

55 Ibid., no. 267.

56 See DBFP, vol. XX, chs IV–VI and Appendix I.Google Scholar

57 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 374, note 2.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., no. 349, note 4.

59 Ibid., no. 329, note 5.

60 Ibid., no. 321, note 1.

61 Ibid., no. 325, note 7.

62 Chamberlain papers, Birmingham: NC 18/1/923.Google Scholar

63 DBFP, vol. XX, no. 325.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., no. 479, note 3.

65 Chamberlain papers, Birmingham: NC 18/1/910.Google Scholar