British Perception III

Abstract

In the process of imperial restoration in the territories occupied during the war by Japan, no principle difference could be discerned between the colonial policy adopted by the new Labour government and that carried out earlier on by the Churchill governments. As early as 20 August 1945 Bevin promised the House of Commons that the government would assure all British subjects who had been liberated in the Far East of its ‘watchful care for their interests, for the re-creation of their industries and the restoration of their normal life throughout all those terri-tories’.¹ A similar line was taken by another prominent Labour leader, Sir Stafford Cripps, the President of the Board of Trade. Cripps spoke specifically of measures to restore British trade in China, of opening general consulates there, and of returning representatives of British firms to their commercial bases. He expressed his desire that negotiations with the Chinese for a commercial treaty would be opened at an early date.² Being aware of Britain’s alarming situation in the field of economics, where, in his words, she had suffered ‘a very severe blitz’, he had stressed earlier on the peacetime problems that would face the nation,