Abstract
Continuity of British foreign policy has become a commonplace in political speeches and writings. On November 10, 1945, at a dinner at the White House to welcome Clement R. Attlee and W. L. Mackenzie King, President Truman is reported to have said: “One of the great things of the British Empire is that when they have a foreign policy—and they always have one—the British people are behind that foreign policy no matter which government is in power.“ Mr. Hugh Gibson in his book, The Road to Foreign Policy (p. 10), states that after the formation of a new British government, “other countries know what to expect—that as regards fundamentals there will be no change.” Certainly, the recent change of foreign secretaries in London has not produced any very noticeable deviation from the established pattern. Mr. Ernest Bevin has stated his intention of following the lines already laid down. Yet the principle of continuity in foreign policy is of fairly recent origin and has not been invariably observed since its adoption in the eighteen-eighties. Before that decade foreign policy was often a partisan question that not infrequently determined election results; it became so again after the close of World War I. A historical survey, however brief, will illustrate this conclusion.
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