A Common Wealth of Peoples

Extract

Provided we do not blind ourselves to its present defects, nor leave its undeveloped potentialities unexplored, our British Commonwealth system of regulating-international affairs can justly be regarded as an object lesson for those who will shape the peace. General Smuts has described it as ‘this greatest experiment in political organisation, this proudest political structure of time, this precedent and anticipation of what one hopes may be in store for human society in the years to come.’ On the other hand, Lionel Curtis, who shared with Smuts and others the task of creating the Union of South Africa, makes the following criticism in ‘Decision and Action ‘(Oxford University Press) :—

‘In 1914 the British Commonwealth had failed to prevent the outbreak of world war. In 1919 a League was constructed on the model of the British Commonwealth, into which that Commonwealth was incorporated. By 1939 the two together had completely failed to prevent the outbreak of an even more terrible world war.’

If we are wise, we shall study, with equal impartiality, these apparently conflicting but really complementary points of view. Curtis divides political systems into two kinds; organic (states such as Great Britain, federations such as the U.S.A.) and inorganic (confederations, alliances, leagues). The British Commonwealth he regards as a mixture of both, and cites Mr. Menzies of Australia to prove that its effective functioning is primarily due to some degree of hegemony exercised by the Mother country. His book demonstrates that inorganic systems are unstable and that as regards international coalitions for war purposes ‘history, when it comes to be written, always shows how the inorganic bond of alliance hastened defeat or delayed victory.’