386 J.-A. PEMBERTON
A member of the British group responded to the criticism of the
British prime minister by stating that he thought Churchill ‘was perfectly
genuine’ in stating that ‘the original intention’ was that clause three of
the charter ‘would apply to those nations overrun by the Axis which
already had been fully independent’ and whose independence it was nec-
essary to restore. He then suggested that Churchill although had not ini-
tially declared that as a matter of course the British accepted that clause
three of the charter applied to India and that the British were ‘deter-
mined that India shall have the fullest power of self-determination,’ it
was a declaration that Churchill certainly would want to make now in
light of the mission to India lead by Sir Stafford Cripps in March 1942.
The British member added that there was no doubt in his mind that ‘the
Cripps Mission took to India the absolute promise of self-determination’
and that if any British leader tried to renege on that promise, including
Churchill himself despite his ‘prestige,’ they would not survive in their
role.^138
As to the application of clause three to the colonies, the same British
member agreed that Churchill had hesitated on that question, how-
ever, he added that this was not unreasonable because one ‘cannot apply
self-determination to a people who are not qualified in any of the prin-
ciples of self-government.’^139 He stated that certainly the spirit of the
charter applied to colonies, however, he added that what this meant was
that self-determination would apply as soon as they arrived ‘at a stage
at which they can themselves set up form government consistent with
modern ideas of civilization.’^140 By way of example, the British member
observed that would not be ‘logical to suppose’ that the Atlantic Charter
required that the immediate restoration of ‘the rule of the peoples of the
Malay peninsular to the Malay sultans.’^141
As its members conceded, the tone of the British group during the
discussions of the Atlantic Charter was somewhat defensive. This was in
part because the members of that group felt that the criticisms of British
colonial policy were based on false assumptions and in part because they
felt that the British in particular had been singled out for criticism in
(^138) Ibid., 119, 122.
(^139) Ibid., 119.
(^140) Ibid.
(^141) Ibid.