THE COMMONWEALTH MORE REALISTIC ATT HIDE TO ASSOCIATION IN BRITAIN?

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30975, 3 February 1966, Page 12

THE COMMONWEALTH MORE REALISTIC ATT HIDE TO ASSOCIATION IN BRITAIN?

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ANTHONY LEWIS

writing io the "New York Times” jrom London I

(Reprinted by arrangement!

The unhappy events in Nigeria have given new urgency to a question that is very much in the minds of informed persons here: What relevance does the institution of the Commonwealth have to Britain or the world in the year 1966?

Whitaker's Almanack, a standard British source, defines the Commonwealth as “a free association of sovereign independent states. The members now are Australia, Canada, Ceylon, Cyprus, Gambia, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Tanzania, Trinidad. Uganda, the United Kingdom, and Zambia. “Its members,” Whitaker’s says, “are bound together by a community of ideals and interests which springs from a common historical background and a common political heritage. . . . They are parliamentary democracies, their laws being made with the consent of a freely elected parliament. . . .” Ironic Situation That paragraph strikes the reader with special irony after the overthrow of the elected Government of the largest African country in the Commonwealth and the institution of military rule. But the Nigerian revolt was

hardly needed to indicate the humbug in what is said about the Commonwealth. Last year, two Commonwealth members, India and Pakistan, demonstrated their “community of interest” by going to war against each other. Neither Britain nor any other Commonwealth member could effectively intervene. The effective mediator, at Tashkent, was the Soviet Union. In the same year Singapore split from Malaysia in racial bitterness. Tanzania and Ghana broke diplomatic relations with Britain over the Rhodesian issue. Even in the oldest independent Commonwealth land, Canada, cultural differences threatened to break up political unity.

All this demonstrates the absurdity of what the “Economist" has called “the oversimplified view of the Commonwealth which prevails in British school syllabuses.” In this view, the “Economist” said, “the other Commonwealth members are seen to be moving toward some common goal, and they are all rather like Britain except that it is sunnier and people wear exotic clothes.” What, then, are the serious arguments to be made for the usefulness of the Commonwealth?

From the point of view of the members aside from Britain, there are advantages in the association with the mother of the Commonwealth. They have tariff preferences, and they benefit from sterling bloc membership and special forms of development aid from Britain. Intangible Gains There are the intangible gains of meetings among lawdyers and scientists and even

cricket players. Most important of all may be the common interest in the English language, which is vital to many faraway members.

The Commonwealth acquired a secretariat in 1965. It can still perform an international role of a kind, as some think it did in the abortive Vietnam peace mission.

For Britain, the Commonwealth represents an avenue to world influence—a moral substitute for empire. A tiny island stripped of these imperial pretensions would just look much less like a world power, even though in fact the Prime Minister does not now dispose of any Ghanaian divisions.

Trade has often been mentioned as another advantage to Britain. Commonwealth trade relations were one large stumbling block to British entry into the Common Market when that failed in 1963, and protection of those interests remains a major condition to future entry in the official position of the Labour Government. In short, the Commonwealth’s share of British trade has dropped by a quarter in the last eight years and is now exceeded, in spite of tariff disadvantages, by trade with the two West European groupings Politicians as well as school syllabuses may go on too long talking about rosy but nonexistent dreams. And in the case of politicians, such deceptions may do real harm by distracting a country from its real interest.

That is the view that proEuropeans in Britain —those who think Britain must get into the Common Marketare increasingly taking about the Commonwealth. They think all the attention and romance devoted to the Commonwealth takes attention

away from Britain's better economic opportunities just across the English Channel. But here again the myth may depart from the reality in talk about the Commonwealth. The actual course of British trade with different parts of the world is starkly shown in the following table, which gives the approximate percentages of total British imports and exports accounted for by trade with the Commonwealth, the six Common Market countries and with the seven members of the European Free Trade Association: — 1956 1964 Commonwealth 40 30 Market .. .. 13 18 E.F.T.A 12 14 Privately, high Government officials agree that behind the. romantic glow there is less and less in the way of practical benefit to Britain in the Commonwealth. If and when the Rhodesian crisis abates, and Britain's attention returns to her own economic problems, this more realistic attitude will become evident.

This does not mean that Mr Wilson or any other conceivable Prime Minister will denounce the Commonwealth ,and move to break it up. There would be no point in that. Communication and other modest functions will always be useful.

What it does mean is that Britain will take the vital decisions about her own future without so much public worrying about “how the Commonwealth will react.” If the economic future looks brighter in Europe—and the signs certainly point that way—then Britain will go into the Market when she can. She will negotiate for Commonwealth interests as a matter of honour, but she will not let kangaroo tails stand in her way. Commonwealth members have already shown that they can make their own bargains with the Common Market.

On the military ide. Britain will make her own hard decisions on how she can best contribute to world stability within her verylimited means. If that suggests new bases in the Indian Ocean and Australia in cooperation with the United States, protests from African or Asian Commonwealth members will not prevail. The real debate will be between America’s desire for a continuing British role in the Far East and the widespread British desire to pull out. As long as there is a Britain, the romance of empire will never fade completely. But the men with the responsibility of power here know that romance is no substitute for the economic regeneration Britain needs today. (Copyright 1966. The “New York Times" News Service.)