The Grin Without the Cat

The Commonwealth of Nations* is one of the largest associations known to history --and one of the most difficult for the rest of the world to understand. It binds together 580 million people in all parts of the world in common trade, common defense, and--up to a point--a common outlook on life. The Commonwealth nations are not joined by formal treaties. They are free to leave any time. The forces which hold them together are as subtle, delicate and elusive to the prying outsider as the forces which bind the atom. The one formal, legal Commonwealth bond: the British Crown.

In London last week, six Prime Ministers and one Foreign Minister from the Commonwealth Nations joined British Prime Minister Clement Attlee to fret over a problem that might rudely upset the Commonwealth's finely adjusted balances. The problem was posed by the fact that India, now a free dominion within the Commonwealth, had declared her intention of severing her connection with the Crown; she would become an "independent sovereign republic" next August.

Hard Dilemma. But at the same time India wanted to stay in the Commonwealth fold. She could ill afford to lose British economic, military and technical help. The British in India today, now that they no longer rule, are more popular than ever before. Living alone in the world does not look inviting, with the Communist colossus on India's northern border. Nearer to home, India is confronted with the terrible warning of Burma which fell into chaos and civil war after rashly severing all Commonwealth ties.

Among other members of the Commonwealth India's position had created powerful misgivings. From South Africa, fiery ex-Prime Minister, Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, had warned: "Clearly India wishes to retain as an independent republic . . . some of the benefits and advantages of Commonwealth connection . . . My personal view is that there is no middle course between Crown and republic, between in & out of the Commonwealth ... If in some nebulous and muddled way you can be both in & out of it, the whole concept of Commonwealth goes and what remains is mere name without substance, the grin without the cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

New Harmonies. Smuts's argument sounded logical enough, but ordinary logic does not rule the Commonwealth. Britain and the other Commonwealth nations wanted India in the family, no matter how nebulous the arrangement. For over a week, the Ministers debated the issue with India's sad-eyed Prime Minister

Jawaharlal Nehru. Their talk, as one of them put it, often bordered on theological metaphysics. Finally, a satisfactory formula was found. It provided that India would indeed be an independent sovereign republic, but that she would nevertheless accept "the King as the symbol of the free association of [the Commonwealth's] independent member nations."

It was just the kind of political paradox for which the British have a peculiar fondness and talent. It satisfied everybody, including old Imperialist Winston Churchill, who ringingly spoke of "new harmonies." The only disappointed party was the Communists, who knew that an India out of the Commonwealth's charmed circle might fall to Asia's rising Red tide. Sputtered London's Daily Worker: "Unprincipled agreement . . . British imperialism has always proved adaptable in finding a formula which can suit its aims . . ."

*No longer to be known as "British," in deference to nationalist feelings of non-British members.

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