2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 91its policy stance, the New Commonwealth’s monthly organ editorialised
in July 1934 under the heading of ‘Our Purpose’ that a ‘durable peace
can only be founded upon justice and...justice is unattainable with-
out the means of changing the public law and enforcing it,’ although it
should be noted that by 1936, many of the figures associated with the
New Commonwealth were far more concerned with the enforcement of
rather than changes to international law. In fact, for many of the New
Commonwealth’s adherents this had been the case from the beginning.^14
According to Michael Pugh, Churchill viewed the New Common-
wealth as a platform from which to ‘urge preparation for conflict with
Germany’ in the form of rearmament and a reinvigoration of the sys-
tem of collective security.^15 In December of that year, in collaboration
with the LNU, Churchill launched his ‘“Arms and the Covenant” cam-
paign.’^16 However, despite his vital interest in the cause of collective
security, Churchill was not willing to give his blessing to the IPC/RUP
out of a concern, according to Birn, that it would erode his Conservative
support base.^17 More conservative elements in the labour movement also
looked on the IPC with suspicion. Ernest Bevin and Hugh Dalton, for
example, both of whom supported rearmament and thus might seem
to have been ‘logical allies’ of the IPC, were among such elements.^18
Cecil, however, although nominally Conservative, was not particu-
larly concerned by the Communist influence on the IPC/RUP. In his
view, this influence was not significant. In any case, Cecil considered the
work of the IPC far too important to relinquish, especially in light of
its galvanising effect on public opinion on the continent.^19 (It was per-
haps because of the Communist influence on the movement that Cecil’s
(^15) Pugh, ‘Policing the World,’ 111. Michael Pugh observes that Churchill’s ‘late con-
version to international policing could be more accurately described as a move towards
collective security through a “grand alliance” strategy.’ In the late 1930s this would be a
common position among New Commonwealth members.
(^16) Birn, ‘The League of Nations and Collective Security,’ 145–46.
(^17) Ibid., 149.
(^18) Ibid., 151.
(^19) Ibid. See also Mazuy, ‘Le Rassemblement Universal pour la Paix,’ 40. The IPC/RUP’s
congress in September 1936 received much favourable press in France.
(^14) ‘Our Purpose,’ New Commonwealth: Being the Monthly Organ of a Society for the
Promotion of International Law and Order 2, no. 10 (1934): 137. See also David Davies,
‘An International Police Force?’ International Affairs 11, no. 1 (1932): 76–99.