Evacuee Property

The Ministry of External Affairs was an instrumental institution in shaping the debate about how these rules ought to be fashioned on the basis of a reciprocity. In this chapter, I look at the various stages of the negotiations—how definitions hardened, and when, and the reasons why this was so. I track the changing ways in which this question was conceptualized, and the extent to which the role played by the foreign ministries and inter-dominion conferences on the question impacted the process. I argue that it was the principle of reciprocity that in the end was the pin that held up the structure of evacuee property legislation. In carrying out this exercise, the ministry was also adhering to a formulation that a more fruitful outcome would be where the question of property appropriation was more closely informed by similar pieces of legislation across the border.