Editing Suez Crisis (section)

=== Commonwealth response ===
Among the "White Dominions" of the [[Commonwealth of Nations|British Commonwealth]], Canada had few ties with the Suez Canal and twice had refused British requests for peacetime military aid in the Middle East. It had little reaction to the seizure before military action. By 1956 the [[Panama Canal]] was much more important than Suez to Australia and New Zealand; the following year two experts would write that it "is not vital to the [[Economy of Australia|Australian economy]]". The memory, however, of the two nations fighting in two world wars to protect a canal which many still called their "lifeline" to Britain or "jugular vein", contributed to Australian Prime Minister [[Robert Menzies]] and New Zealand Prime Minister [[Sidney Holland]] supporting Britain in the early weeks following the seizure. On 7 August Holland hinted to his parliament that New Zealand might send troops to assist Britain, and received support from the opposition. On 13 August, Menzies, who had travelled to London from the United States after hearing of the nationalisation and became an informal member of the [[Cabinet of the United Kingdom|British Cabinet]] discussing the issue, spoke on the BBC in support of the Eden government's position on the canal. He called the dispute over the canal "a crisis more grave than any since the Second World War ended".{{R|eayrs1964}}{{Rp|13–16,56–58,84}} An elder statesman of the Commonwealth who felt that Nasser's actions threatened trading nations like Australia, he argued publicly that Western powers had built the canal but that Egypt was now seeking to exclude them from a role in its ownership or management.<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref name="ReferenceC">Brian Carroll; From Barton to Fraser; Cassell Australia; 1978</ref> South Africa's [[Johannes Strijdom]] stated "it is best to keep our heads out of the beehive". His government saw Nasser as an enemy but would benefit economically and geopolitically from a closed canal, and diplomatically from [[Foreign relations of South Africa during apartheid|not opposing a nation's right to govern its internal affairs]].{{R|eayrs1964}}{{Rp|16–18}}

The "non-white Dominions" saw Egypt's seizing of the canal as an admirable act of [[anti-imperialism]], and Nasser's Arab nationalism as similar to Asian nationalism. Indian Prime Minister [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] was with Nasser when he learned of the Anglo-American withdrawal of aid for the Aswan Dam. As India was a major user of the canal, however, he remained publicly neutral other than warning that any use of force, or threats, could be "disastrous". Suez was also very important to the [[Dominion of Ceylon]]'s economy, and it was renegotiating defence treaties with Britain, so its government was not as vocal in supporting Egypt as it would have likely been otherwise. Pakistan was also cautious about supporting Egypt given their rivalry as leading Islamic nations, but its government did state that Nasser had the right to nationalise.{{R|eayrs1964}}{{Rp|18–24,79}}