No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Modern Commonwealth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Extract
Since the outbreak of the Second World War the Commonwealth has passed through profound and rapid changes and does not cease to change. Its nature may seem more difficult than ever to define and classify with precision, its conscious purpose as a group of states more elusive, and its role in the world more mysterious and imponderable. To some unfriendly observers its positive influence in matters that count now appears nebulous, almost to the point of non-existence. To those keenly interested and deeply devoted, it presents difficulties. It has no formal constitution, few political organs of its own except of an ad hoc and inchoate kind, and little on paper that explains aims and prescribes procedures. Polished generalities from the Balfour Report, which before 1939 passed muster in describing its ethos, may not be irrelevant, but need careful scrutiny to determine whether under contemporary circumstances they retain much meaning.
When all this is said, the fact remains that the Commonwealth continues to live as an active, global, free association. Its members at any rate recognize its existence and the Queen as its head; they are confident of being attached, not to a phantom or mirage, but to an association unique in character, which to an indefinable degree influences their formulations of policy. For them Commonwealth relations are a part of foreign or external relations, but a special part, governed by attitudes and procedures peculiar to itself. In political ideas and traditions, moreover, the Commonwealth has substance. This fact is really fundamental to everything else, for in history and logic it is prior to everything else, and determines everything else. With it this paper must begin.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , February 1960 , pp. 62 - 73
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1960
References
1 Rossiter, Clinton, The First American Revolution (New York, 1956), 91.Google Scholar Becker, Carl also illustrates Locke's influence in The Declaration of Independence (New York, 1958), chap. ii.Google Scholar
2 A discerning account on the basis of this platonic analogy is Woodruff's, Philip The Men Who Ruled India, esp. vol. II (London, 1954).Google Scholar
3 As colonists throughout the globe the British have often exhibited two vulgar faults: an indifference to or even contempt for the culture of the people among whom they settled and a colour prejudice potent if not always disclosed. The leading modern Indian civil servants rose above these failings. Among them were some profoundly interested students of Indian life, religion, and thought.
4 See Commonwealth Trade, 1950 to 1957 (H.M.S.O., 1959).Google Scholar
5 See Grondona, L. St. Clare, Commonwealth Stocktaking (London, 1953), chap. XVI.Google Scholar
6 See Report of the Commonwealth Trade and Economic Conference (1958), esp. section iii.
7 A brief, judicious, and recent discussion of consultation is contained in Miller, J. D. B., The Commonwealth in the World (London, 1958), 65–75.Google Scholar
8 In the critical period of the Suez incident the representatives of Britain in India suffered from a “four-day blackout” of information from London and consequently the British case, whether right or wrong, was not adequately given to the Indian public. Third Report from the Select Committee on Estimates, sess. 1958–9 (H.M.S.O., 1959), XIV.Google Scholar