NEWS OF THE WEEK
PERHAPS the most notable sentence in the impressive state- ment published on Thursday after the close of the Prime Ministers' Conference is that in which the leaders of the Govern- ments of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa declare that " our system of free association has enabled us each and all to claim a full share of the common burden. Although spread across the globe, we have stood together through the stresses of two world wars and have been welded the stronger thereby," and go on to register their confidence that in their unity the members of the British Commonwealth will be able in peace to render further, if different, service to mankind. On that note, with no announcement of concrete decisions, not even regarding the insti- tution of a permanent secretariat, the family conclave doses. Little though the peoples represented have been told about the discus- sions—there is good reason for that—it is clear that the conference has been abundantly worth while. The British Commonwealth has for a generation been, and still remains, the happiest and most effective association of free nations in the world. The maintenance of its essential unity has shattered the hopes of its enemies and gives perpetually new assurances to its friends. The basis of that unity is not that its component members make formal agreement to act alike, but- that they instinctively and spontaneously think alike. The foundations of their policy, so long as that continues, are and must be the same. Such renewals of contact as have just taken place in London are valuable and necessary, not for the compo- sition of differences, for there are none worth mentioning to com- pose, but for what may be termed co-operative political thought and a pooling of political experience garnered in many different geographical fields. Prime Ministers are democratic leaders, not dictators. They will take back to their Dominions not decisions, nor any suggestions of decisions, but a new clarity and resolution to impart to the Parliaments and peoples they represent, and a new inspiration coming from a new experience of comradeship and kin- ship in a world-wide community.
