The Korean Crisis and the Commonwealth

IT was to have been expected that, when the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth countries met at London in January i95i, the greater part of their discussions should be concentrated upon the Korean crisis. The disturbing divergence of policy between the Commonwealth and the United States on how best to deal with the intervention of China in Korea, and the differences in outlook among the Commonwealth states themselves, made this fourth postwar meeting of exceptional importance. The results should not be gauged by the published Declaration. Meeting as they do in an atmosphere of careful informality, the Prime Ministers have developed a technique of combining a maximum of frank discussion with a minimum of public information. This is all very well for the statesmen, but it naturally evokes less enthusiasm elsewhere. The Economist (London) described the published Declaration as comprising impeccable platitudes; the Sydney Morning Herald noted its fine sounding generalisations; and the Canberra correspondent for The Times (London) reported that Australians were learning not to expect much from the Prime Ministers' periodic discussions. But the studied reticence of the press releases issued during the London meetings should not be allowed to blur the value of such meetings. When Prime Ministers Attlee, St. Laurent, Menzies, Holland, Nehru, Liaquat Ali Khan, Senanayake, Huggins, and Dr. Donges, Minister of the Interior in the South African government who deputised for his ailing chief, sat around the conference table, they represented one-quarter of the human race, and brought to bear upon their deliberations a wealth of experience in the art of government based upon a common political system. To talk the same language politically saves time and prevents misunderstandings. What these nine men agreed upon or when they agreed to differ, as in the Kashmir dispute, affected the conduct of high policy everywhere. Their decisions might

Commonwealth · Political science · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · Law

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