HEAD OF THE COMMONWEALTH
Sue,—Surely, an important late of action has been made open to the Queen by the fairly recent develop- ment of an elasticity in the British Commonwealth. A country can now remain within the Commonwealth without recognising her directly as its Queen; and, as your correspondents have pointed out, sir, nobody when this arrangement was devised thought of tying her down with any duty to take constitutional advice about the matter. She is thus, presumably, free to announce at once that she chooses no longer to be Queen of South Africa; also to threaten the Govern- ment of the Rhodesian Federation that she will with- draw thelight of her countenance from them, on their attaining Dominion Status, if they continue to behave in a manner unsuited to their profession of allegiance to her. I seriously think this would do a lot of good; at any rate to world opinion and the British Monarchy, and quite possibly to the immediate situa- tion in Central Africa.—Yours faithfully,
The University, Sheffield, 10 [Pharos writes: 'If the Queen accepted Professor Empson's suggestion, she would, pace Lord Altrin- cham, be acting in a very "arbitrary" way. Secondly, she might think that a sudden unilateral breaking of the bonds between her and her subjects would set an unfortunate precedent.'—Editor, Spectator.]
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