The Changing Concept of the Commonwealth

occasion of a meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers is always an opportunity for the organs of public enlightenment to devote time and space to informing their audience about the member nations of the Commonwealth. Articles about Ceylon, or radio talks about New Zealand are matched, in some of the more reputable journals, by discussions of the present state of inter-commonwealth relations. Public interest is aroused in the progress being made in the several units, and there is an awakened concern about the nature of inter-commonwealth communication and its effects upon relations. The tone of such articles is usually enthusiastic and optimistic. It is all the more regrettable, therefore, that only the infrequent meetings of the Prime Ministers seem to arouse on the part of the press and radio this zeal which is so often allowed to lapse during the intervals. The revival of interest leads as a direct consequence to the raising of hopes in the effectiveness of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting as a means of strengthening world peace, or of satisfying some of the political ambitions of some of the participants. The eventual production of a colourless and platitudinous communique comes as a douche of cold water, quenching hopes and extinguishing ambitions; and the consequent disappointment leads to a questioning of the validity of such conferences. An Australian newspaper, the Melbourne Age, for example, asks whether the results of such conferences are commensurate with deliberately fostered expectations and hopes. The communique's trite observations, it said, might remind many of the Oxford undergraduate's description of his professor's lecture on philosophy as Dim, mysterious glimpses into the obvious. This lively sense of dissatisfaction does however lead to one beneficial result. It leads to a resolute discussion of what might be or should be expected from the meetings of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, and from thence to the handling of the subject

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