Nineteenth Grand Council

Governor-General Douglas Watson.

The Nineteenth Grand Council of the Confederation of North America was elected to a five-year term on 16 February 1933. The partisan makeup of the Nineteenth Grand Council was 104 Liberal Party and 46 People's Coalition.

The Nineteenth Grand Council's Liberal majority re-elected Douglas Watson to the office of Governor-General on the first ballot. The Liberals chose Herbert Lee as Majority Leader, and the Coalitionists chose Bruce Hogg of Northern Vandalia as Minority Leader.

A month after his victory, the greatest in the C.N.A.'s history, Watson announced his plan to embark on a European tour, "so as to better understand the peoples and leaders of these nations, which, in turn, will enable our country to more effectively play its proper role in international affairs." This represented the first time a North American governor-general would leave the nation's soil while still in office. Although Watson wished to fly to Europe in order to dramatize the closeness of the two continents in terms of travel time, he was disuaded by his Cabinet, who feared that the airmobile was not yet safe enough for the voyage. However, once in Europe, Watson was able to fly between the national capitals he visited, from Berlin to Paris to Amsterdam to London.

Majority Leader Herbert Lee.

Watson's "grand tour" lasted a month, during which time he was in constant communication with Burgoyne, while Minister of Home Affairs Emery Collins presided over Cabinet meetings. In London, Watson had a private meeting with the King, and addressed Parliament. Introducing Watson, Prime Minister George Bolingbroke called him "the leader of a great nation, a man of extraordinary vision, and a most welcome visitor to our shores." Bolingbroke called the close relations between Great Britain and the C.N.A. "a model for all mankind," and said, "We are brothers because men wiser than we saw the need for self-government in North America, and we shall stand united no matter what the foe, no matter what the problem." Watson responded by saying, "Our loyalty to the Crown remains undiminished, and our relations with the Empire continue to be that of brothers." The tour was a success, as Watson charmed his hosts and won greater popularity in the C.N.A.

Watson reported on his tour in a vitavised address to the Grand Council on 7 May. In his address, he stressed the bonds between Britain and the C.N.A., spending relatively little time on his activities in the Germanic Confederation, France, and the Netherlands. It seemed to his audience that the tour had created much good will, but accomplished nothing concrete.

The next day, Watson held a special Cabinet meeting in which he revealed a more serious side to his tour. For the past decade, the Germans had been expanding into British spheres of influence in Asia and Africa, with German businessmen receiving oil concessions in the Ottoman Empire which might lead to German control over Middle Eastern oil supplies. This would force the C.N.A. to depend on the United States of Mexico for its oil, a situation that every governor-general since Hemingway had worked to avoid. In addition, the Germans were expanding their military strength, and Watson told his Cabinet that "we must enlarge our military and naval forces, and create an air arm second to none."

Minister of Agriculture Henry Evans thought that Watson was exaggerating the threat posed by the Germans, and insisted that it would be cheaper to buy their oil from the U.S.M. than to commit to defending the Turks from the Germans. Watson responded by bringing in the North American ambassador to Mexico, Marshall Gipson, who revealed that the Mexicans and Germans were negotiating an alliance. Minister for Foreign Affairs Courtney Judd then explained the geopolitical situation: Japan had already clashed with Germany and Mexico in China, while the United Empire was weaker than it appeared, with member states Australia and India indicating that they would not allow themselves to be drawn into a war that did not affect their vital interests. Judd stated that war might break out within a year in China or the Ottoman Empire, and if it did, the British would be defeated. Watson concluded the meeting by saying, "In the face of this, we must draw closer to the Empire and re-arm. There is no alternative. If Britain falls, North America will be next."

Minority Leader Bruce Hogg.

In spite of Evans' objections, the Cabinet voted to support Watson. Three weeks later, negotiations began in London for an Anglo-North American alliance, and on 1 August Watson requested an increase in military spending from the Grand Council. Hogg claimed that Watson was "taking us to the edge of the chasm," and Evans resigned from the Cabinet in September. Twenty-nine Liberal Councilmen sent Watson a petition asking him to "reconsider the appropriations bill."

Watson remained resolute. He told Hogg and his other critics, "If you are correct, we shall have spent several tens of millions of pounds unnecessarily; if war comes, the replenished armed forces will save the nation. An army is like an insurance policy. You hope you will not need it, but if you do, then its value is difficult to measure."

The Grand Council appeared ready to pass Watson's appropriations bill by the summer of 1934. However, on 1 July 1934, Owen Galloway, the President of North American Motors and the most popular public figure in the C.N.A., spoke out on the issue during his weekly Galloway Playhouse address. He strongly opposed Watson's arms program, calling it "unwise, unnecessary, and more likely to bring us to war than to prevent a conflict." He urged councilmen of both parties to reject the appropriations bill, and devote their time to "more pressing internal problems that face us today."

Majority Leader Charles Dorsey.

Public opinion turned against Watson overnight. A citizens' committee was formed to support Galloway for governor-general, and a protest march on Burgoyne against the arms program attracted over two million people. On 24 July Majority Leader Herbert Lee was deposed by the Liberal caucus and replaced by Charles Dorsey, an opponent of rearmament. A week later, three members of Watsons' cabinet resigned. On 10 January 1935, Hogg introduced a bill of impeachment against Watson.

Watson refused to back down. He continued to spend earlier military appropriations, and diverted funds from discretionary accounts to build up an air arm. He told his son, Douglas Watson, Jr., "It is strange. If I am right and our arms program prevents war, no one will know it, and I will be destroyed. Should I be wrong, and war does come, then I will be destroyed anyway. It seems my destiny is already determined, but we shall never know how or why."

International events worked in Watson's favor. The Germans and Mexicans did indeed sign a military alliance in 1934, leading to an Anglo-French alliance and the start of an international arms race. The Japanese Navy was ordered on the alert in March 1935, and tensions continued to increase in Europe and Asia. This allowed Watson to survive Hogg's impeachment hearings, as a majority of the Grand Council came to believe that "Douglas Watson's insurance policy is worth having." By the beginning of 1936, even Hogg was talking about the possibility of war in Europe or the Near East, though he still believed the C.N.A. should remain neutral. Although the Grand Council continued to reject Watson's arms appropriations bills, he was able to find funds elsewhere to continue his military buildup. By the end of 1935, the North American army numbered two million men; the navy, 590,000; and the air arm had 600 airmobiles of the latest design. Watson told Minister of Finance Ezra Clarkson, "Our forces may not be sufficient to win a war, but they should do to prevent one."

The international arms race ended abruptly in February 1936, when the Mexican supercorporation Kramer Associates announced that it was moving its headquarters from San Francisco, California to Luzon, Philippines. This caused a global financial panic that brought about the bankruptcy of the confederation-level branches of the National Financial Administration, the quasi-government agency that had boosted the C.N.A.'s economy since the 1890s. The result was an economic crisis that left the nation's business paralyzed for weeks, a blow that North American financial institutions would not recover from for years.

1936 also saw passage of the Reform Bill of 1936, which amended the Second Britannic Design to create the office of Council President. The Reform Bill was a response to the constitutional crisis that had occurred after the unexpected death of Watson's predecessor, Henderson Dewey. Under the terms of the Reform Bill, if the governor-general died or was incapacitated, the Council President would succeed him. Sobel does not say who the Grand Council chose to serve as the first Council President, although it is possible that Watson would seek to rehabilitate his ally Herbert Lee by pressing for his appointment.

The North American economy remained depressed as the campaign for the 1938 Grand Council elections began. Watson was able to win the Liberal Party's nomination at the national convention in January 1938, and he vowed to make the election a plebiscite on war or peace. In his acceptance speech at the convention on 9 January 1938, Watson said, "Only a strong nation can be free and peaceful. If you vote for me, you are voting for the arms program. A vote for my opponent is a mandate for weakness, which would invite aggression and perhaps destroy not only Europe and us with it, but the world." Watson also noted the Dewey government's role in assisting the Galloway Plan in the 1920s. "If the truth were to be told, the Dewey government was more instrumental in aiding emigration than the Trust."

The People's Coalition nominated Hogg, who continued to oppose Watson's arms program, and also attacked Watson's failure to return the C.N.A. to prosperity nearly two years after the Panic. In his acceptance address on 17 January, Hogg said, "We have sufficient problems at home not to have to worry about the rest of the world. This February, the people will choose between the bankrupt candidate of a bankrupt party who would engage us in a war which we neither want nor need, from which we gain nothing; and the party of peace and recovery, one that is concerned with the Confederation of North America, and not the globe."

Along with his attacks on Watson's policies, Hogg also pledged to name James Billington of the Northern Confederation to the office of Council President. Billington was one of ten Negroes in the Grand Council, and if the Coalition won, he would occupy the highest office in the national government ever held by a member of his race.

The election was close, with the Liberals doing well in urban areas while the Coalition swept the suburbs and rural areas. This was a reversal of the pattern that was established during Dewey's administration in the 1920s, when the Liberals benefitted from the population diffusion of the Galloway Plan. Most political analysts credited Hogg's endorsement of Billington with swinging Southern Vandalia into the Coalition ranks, and giving Hogg a two-seat margin of victory in the Grand Council.

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