Professor A. V. Hill, the Conservative candidate for Cambridge University,
has many strong claims to election, but a sentence I notice in his election address is not among them. Speaking of the post-war settlement he says " I regard the British Commonwealth of free peoples as a notable example of the advantages of federation." This is a co mon, but, I suggest, a fundamental fallacy. The Britt Commonwealth is an admirable example of internatio co-operation. None better exists. But it possesses single one of the characteristics of federation, and attempt to federate it would split it permanently. The is no surrender of powers. There is no central governmen There is no common foreign policy, except by free ad h agreement. One member can stay out of a war in whit the others are engaged, as Ireland has and South Afn nearly has. There is no Commonwealth military fo There is no Commonwealth customs union. There is common currency. The right of secession is at least tacid recognised. Could any relationship more fundamen antithetical to federation be imagined?
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