The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, May 3, 1949. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMMONWEALTH

Grey River Argus, 3 May 1949, Page 4

The Grey River Argus TUESDAY, May 3, 1949. RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMMONWEALTH

DID not problems of world-wide scope, incidental to a new, if as yet indefinite, era of international relationships, preoccupy public attention at present, the latest adaptation of autonomous countries to the Commonwealth would focus much greater interest. Legislate commentators may be at a loss to reconcile a republican status with Commonwealth members]]ip, although few have so far said that India has cut the painter. Indeed those in India who seek absolute independence are reported to be very critical of the actual position. The old notion of rigidity in obligations, with a hint that force could be employed to impose constitutional concepts has been vanishing gradually for a. couple of generations. It has been the awkward task of a Labour Administration in .Britain to give effective recognition to this fact. In the first instance, when the Stuart dynasty saw the expansion of British territory on the North American Continent, pure exploitation of flic additions, in the interest of the occupiers, was the inspiration. In that quarter the idea in clue time had perforce to be abandoned when the colonists put their own interests first. In the four generations since that time, the same process, if not the same means, has been evident in half a dozen directions. To attempt at this late stage to thwart the course of development might only lead to the collapse of what, as things remain, is still the world’s finest example of a league of autonomous peoples voluntarily uniting for their common welfare. As a Commonwealth their weight is .vastly greater in the councils of the nations than if separated. The things concerting them are reciprocity in culture and commerce and political traditions springing from British influence. In the coming decades these are destined for a greater test, for there is opposed to those traditions a spreading movement which makes light of personal liberty, and does away with individual responsibility. The stand against it is one which will call for a voluntary attitude, ? one which . a practical experience of autonomy is the way best calculated to inspire in peoples and nations. It is not simply parliamentarism, but rather the safeguarding of the rights of the

family and of the spiritual freedom of the person-which must be made synonymous with the Commonwealth henceforth to an extent even greater than heretofore. With that ideal given actual realisation, it must continue, no matter how legal forms vary, to stand as a focus and a bastion of freedom. No longer can the taunt of predatory imperialism be levelled in its direction, whereas there is elsewhere the dawn of a more merciless imperialism than any recorded in the history of fifteen centuries. The cohesion of th#* Commonwealth is not being risked by allowing its autonomous components to choose their ways of maintaining it. Far more im--1 portant than reliance on force is a determination to remove,- injustice and to make the goal one of higher moral, social, economic and political standards. The experience of the association in a common citizenship at the dawn of the Christian era was -a pillar of order, and in modern times the experience of at least as great a degree of unity as that in the Commonwealth must serve as an example for the rest of Hie world, not only to-day, but in future . years when it may be still more

exemplary. It must be recognised that in India's case there is beginning an experiment, a free if ancient Asiatic realm co-operat-ing with one which, for all of its vagaries, is still the product and to a great extent the illustration of Christian civilisation. Sight of the origins of that liberty still .contrasting so markedly with universal pre-Christian slavery, may often be lost in the face of modern vicissitudes. The sentiments of justice and freedom are universal, even if their sanctions are for many only conjectural, but their vindication in the past has been the peculiar characteristic of Christian civilisation. The Commonwealth, equally with other peoples commonly denominated democratic, has to be a witness for justice and right; as well as an exemplar of the duty which those concepts imply. In the form of its latest adaptation, the Commonwealth does signify this duty as well as that right, and its adherents may -be expected, whatever else they may do, to regard their membership in that light. ’ |