When war came.(... Australia followed Britain's lead in 1939 without debate)(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: May I add an observer's footnote to Kenneth Minogue's "Does Australia Have an Identity Problem?" (November 2003)?

Professor Minogue discussed the problem of policy faced by the Menzies government in 1939 when Britain declared war on Germany. At the time I was the junior member of Mr Menzies' Melbourne office. There were only seven of us, this being before the coming of big government.

There was in fact little or no debate about whether Australia should go to war against Germany. In the thirties we were still very much a British colony despite nominal dominion status. We described ourselves as British. Our aristocracy and squattocracy routinely went "home" to the "mother country" for education or holidays. Our then PM was later to describe himself as "British to the bootstraps". In my Melbourne primary and high schools I can remember only one boy not of Anglo-Celtic origin.

So ...