CEMENTING THE COMMONWEALTH SIR,—The sound common sense of Mr. Grimond's
article on the future development of the Commonwealth must be obvious to almost all your readers. The refusal to face up to the challenge and opportunity that the Empire presented has disgraced successive British Governments since the First World War. In 1916 the following sentence occurred in the editorial of the Boys' Own Paper:
'Do you not think that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa, who have given so much of their blood in the common cause, will expect to have a louder voice in the councils of the Empire?'
It would seem that now, forty years on, they have no voice at all.
Mr. Grimond's appeal that we, with the White Dominions at least, with our common racial, historical and religious background, should show that this generation will not similarly be found wanting, urgently calls for answer. The creation of precise machinery so that in matters both of Commonwealth and foreign policy the approach is one springing from our common morality must be demanded from the governments concerned. Within the limited family background envisaged it should be possible to speak and to understand the same language. Sir Hartley Shawcross this last weekend has underlined the need to put our own House in order forthwith.—Yours faithfully,
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