The Commonwealth

r . - . I · - . ...·,, J. ~ I I . . r·.- '- . ' . . : .: .· -·- ~I : .. ,I I . .~Y._ . i'. I· . .-:.o:.- . j r,· I , t'l . I . 1 i ' I , . I ·• I '· !' I .. I -I ;I ,, . .-~ ..· I , . . THE .COMMONWEALTH ', ALEXANDER BRADYTHE British Empire," .remarked the lnter-Impe~ial Rehitions Com- - - mittee of the Imperial Confer~nce in 1926, ''is not foun.ded upon negations~ It' depends essentially, if not. formally,~ on pos1t1ve ideals.,, . The remark wa{> no 'idle apology with respect to the self-governing portions · 1 of the Empire. The ideological foundations of dominion life have rested in parliamentary democracy, gradual reform, liberal nationalism, and economic . progress .in the Western tradition, although: each- community -has been peculiarly shaped by physical environment as -well as by intellectual in- ..heritance. The concept of liberal nationalism in particular has been· emphasized by the miscellaneous forces -which made the Dominions distinct· communities. ·The idea ·of economic progress has been dynamic because .these countries have originally been extensions of the British economic system, quickened in growth by the presence.of abundant natural resources . and by a singular security which made development of their resou.rces possible. · THE GENESIS oF THE CoMMONWEALTH In its simplest terms the British Common·wealth is a.free association ·of the .-Dominions and Great Britain, fashioned by their common ideas of democracy, nationality, and economic liberalism. It expresses externally the forces which. have 'inspired the inner life of the Dominions, parti,cularly - · those concepts of'free discussion an,d voluntary co-eperation·dominant in. their democracy. It is the product of a century's growth under the influence .oflike-mindedness. Lionel Curtis has aptly related how he and his colleague~ of the Round Table movement ·-popularized the term "Commonwealth.'"· He concluded, after years of study, that the Empire did not now primarily stand for "dominion over palm and pine, in the Kiplingian sense. On the .contrary its ethos was that of promoting the government ofnien by themselves like ari ethical commonwealth of the classic type, a11d its true charac.:. ter could be better expressed by making all its people directly responsibl~ ­ for the issues of peace and war.1 It resulted fr.om the triumph of responsible government in the Canadian and Australian colonies during the last ce.ntury and the subsequent maturing of a liberal nationalism, expressed in a restless impulse to demolish the slender fence between matters domestic and impe .rial, carefully erected bythe early exponents of responsible government, : includin·g Lord Durham. Such nationalism transformed the dependent . colonies of the nineteenth century into the national states of the modern ' I J • . tW. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs (London, 1937), I, 54. Some writers have con6ned the term "Commonwealth" to the Dominions and Great Britain, but it is more logical, as Professor Hancock argues, to take the Commonwealth as synonymous with the Empire. 148 . / \ .. ' ' ' I · . I ~· .. ,: . -,, 'r I , I ~ ' i· " run·s the preamble to'the-5tatute of Westminster, "is· the symbol of the free association of the members of the ~ritish Commonwealth of Nations, and they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown." This common·allegiance, nowvirtually rejected by Eire, has hitherto survived in the overseas Dominions. ' · lri the mid..:nineteenth century few political thinkers in Great Britain and. overseas foresaw the modern ·Commonwealth. Those who.speculated I , about the imperial future were usually convinced that the colonies must bow to an inescapable law ofevolution and become separate nations. They could ·See no logical alternative between dependence and separation. . They observed that .the goal of liberal nationalism in contemporary -Europe, ' ' · notably among the,Poles, Italians, and southern Slavs, was the destruction -of empire~ and the creati~n of independent nationalities , and colonial nationalism, whatever might he .the first generous impulses of its y~~th,· would presumably pursue .a ~ike course. Such views concerning colonial .independence prevailed, not merely in the official circles of Lond~n,2 where . . . I . they were reinforced by the Austinian doctrine of sovereignty and the antiimp_ erial bias of the Manchester School, but were cogently presented by some colonial publicists, among whom the most persistent and controversial was the Scottish-born, ecclesiastical politician of New South Wales, John Dunmore Lang. For more than a generation Lang...