Commonwealth propagandists

Press, 25 September 1978, Page 13

Commonwealth propagandists

If the Commonwealth was to have continued vitality it needed people who would speak up positively for it and who would do so on the basis of up-to-date and informed knowledge, said the British High Commissioner (Sir Harold Smedley) yesterday. He was in Christchurch to open the inaugural meeting of the National Council of the Royal Commonwealth Society.

The council was formed in April after the Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury branches of the society decided that it would be useful to have a national body able to speak on behalf of all branches. Sir Harold told the council that in its role as a propagandist for the Commonwealth the society had to be numerically strong.. In Britain, two develop?

ments had weakened the appeal of the Commonwealth, he said. These were the entry of Britain into the E.E.C., which some Commonwealth countries opposed and when the demand for decolonisation became involved with the criticism of racism in Africa, particularly South Africa. He said that the Commonwealth as an institution probably reached its lowest ebb in Britain in the late sixties and early ' seventies when there were many who felt that some of the new Commonwealth countries were quite unfairly trying to force actions on Britain whilst refusing to acknowledge any obligation. He now believed this trend had changed.

Branch representatives from the North Island and Australia were at the inaugural meeting.