Family Affairs

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 799, 12 November 1954, Page 26

Family Affairs

HE British Commonwealth is no longer a white man’s community. The Asian and African peoples in it outnumber Europeans overwhelmingly, and in resources and political power also the emphasis is swinging away from European leadership towards Asia. This change has been going on at a time when the Commonwealth is more than ever entangled in world issues, while neither any member of the Commonwealth nor the Commonwealth as a whole can wield the power that Britain held only 50 years ago. These startling changes in the Commonwealth of today are noted by Professor F. L. W. Wood, Professor of History at Victoria University College, in the first of seven talks on Problems of the Commonwealth, which are to start next week from 2YA and later will be heard from other National stations. Professor Wood points out that as a result | of the changes the older members of the Commonwealth have "a kind of family link" with one of the major movements of world history-the emergence of Asia. A second and "more explosive" result of the changes is that our Asian associates wish to remain in the Commonwealth and of the West, but not fully committed in the cold war. At a time when the world is splitting into a two-party system and the gulf between the two sometimes looks unbridgeable, they have refused to accept the absolutes of either Washington or Moscow, and insist on exploring the possibilities of remaining. at peace with everyone. Professor Wood erds with a note on the place of moderates in general at a time when passions run high. This introductory talk. wi'l be followed by two phout the new Dominions. The first. by E. K. Braybrooke. a LecI turer in Law at Victoria TIriversity College, discusses the constitutional and organisational problems raised when

non-British countries were granted Dominion status-or, as Mr. Braybrooke puts it, it tries to say "what kind of association the Commonwealth is now and what it is that keeps it together." In the second, K. Bieda, Lecturer in Economics at Auckland University College, examines the political problemssuch as Indias quarrel with South Africa about the treatment of Indians thereposed by the emergence of the new Asian Dominions. Problems of the Commonwealth will continue with two ta'ks by J. C. Dakin, an adult education officer in Otago. He discusses first the advance towards nationhood of the peoples of West Africa and the Sudan and goes on to examine the development of trusteeship in Africa into a new policy of inter-racial partnership.

Economic problems of the Commonwealth will be outlined by F. W. "Holmes, Lecturer in Economics at Victoria University College, in the sixth talk. He will discuss such questions as the dollar shortage, the Commonwealth and the sterling area, the outlook for Imperial preference, and the Colombo Plan. The well-known Lookout speaker R. M. Hutton-Potts will bring the series to an end with a talk on the Commonwealth and the world. This will include an examination of strategic questions and of possible lines of future development open to the Commonwealth. Problems of the Commonwealth will be heard from 2YA at 7.15 p.m. on Thursdays, starting on November 18, repeating from 2YC on Wednesdays, starting on November 24.