NEWS OF THE WEEK
EARLIER meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers have proved so useful that there was in no quarter any reluctance to accept the expense of time and energy which the current meeting demands of the overworked statesmen who are taking part in it. But the present conference may well prove the last to conform to the studied informality which has hitherto been a familiar characteristic of these gatherings. The present system of intermittent and informal discussions in London depends for its success on the personalities of those who take part in them and on the absence of disrupting controversies. There should be no question of any controversies at all. The problems to be discussed are far too grave for that. Though there is no formal agenda, the actual agenda can hardly be in doubt. It must cover the whole field of world-politics, and there is manifest value in this private family conclave uniting States like India, Australia, New Zealand and Ceylon, interested primarily in Pacific and Asiatic problems, with Atlantic Treaty Powers like Britain and Canada. The burden of defence must fall with almost intolerable weight for years to come on every member of the Commonwealth, and some discussion now on the share each member should bear is obviously opportune. India seems pledged to a policy of neutrality —so far as she an maintain it in face of increasing menace from the north—but in many fields Mr. Nehru seems likely to play a leading part at the Conference. He alone can speak for the masses of Asia (for Ceylon leads her own admirable and successful life in something of a natural insularity), he alone is in a position, if anyone is, to establish some kind of understanding with Peking, he represents a country whose continued membership of the Com- monwealth is more desirable than ever, but almost as problematic as ever, and he, too, of course, is involved in both of the only two serious differences dividing Commonwealth countries—with Pakistan and South Africa. All this invests the Conference with much more than normal importance.
Previous page
