The Commonwealth Experience: Volume One: The Durham Report to the Anglo-Irish Treaty

288 Pages·1982·32.56 MB·English

by  Nicholas Mansergh F.B.A. (auth.)

THE COMMONWEALTH EXPERIENCE
Volume One: The Durham Report to the Anglo-Irish Treaty
By the same author
SURVEY OF BRITISH COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (2 vols)
SOUTH AFRICA 1906-1961: The Price of Magnanimity
THE IRISH QUESTION 1840-1921
CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS BETWEEN BRITAIN
AND INDIA: THE TRANSFER OF POWER 1942-47
(10 vols published) (editor-in-chief)
THE COMMONWEALTH
EXPERIENCE
Volume One
The Durham Report to the Anglo-Irish Treaty
Nicholas Mansergh,
F.B.A.
Emeritus Smuts Professor of
the History of the British
Commonwealth and Fellow of
StJohn's College, Cambridge
© Nicholas Mansergh 1969,1982
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
· without permission
First edition published as one volume
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1969
Second edition published as two volumes 1982 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-33159-0 ISBN 978-1-349-16950-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16950-4
ISBN 978-0-333-33168-2 (hardcover two-volume set)
The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition including
this condition being imposed in the subsequent purchaser
To
The Master and Fellows
of
StJohn's College, Cambridge
'There was a time when we might have stood alone as the United Kingdom of
England, Scotland and Ireland. That time has passed. We conquered and peopled
Canada, we took possession of the whole of Australia, Van Diemen's Land and
New Zealand. We have annexed India to the Crown. There is no going back.
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento'
JOHN, EARL RUSSELL, 1870
'Suivez, suivez Seigneur, le ciel qui vous inspire:
v a
otre gloire redouble mepriser l' empire;
Et vous serez fameux chez la posterite
Moins pour l'avoir conquis que pour l'avoir quitte.'
Maxime to Cesar Auguste
Corneille, Cinna
'Our historic Commonwealth which comprises one-fourth of the world's
population ... has the unique quality of embracing nations and peoples from
every continent.'
DECLARATION BY COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS,
12 JANUARY 1951
Contents
Contents of Volume Two: From British to
Multiracial Commonwealth Vlll
Preface to the First Edition lX
Preface to the Second Edition Xl
PART ONE THE FOUNDATION MEMBERS AND THE NATURE OF THEIR
ASSOCIATION
1 The Commonwealth in History 3
2 Commonwealth Origins, 1839-67; English Thinking
and the Canadian Experiment 34
3 South Africa; Races and Riches, War and Union 69
4 The Pacific Colonies; Self-government and
Consolidation 111
5 'The Business May Seem Prosaic'; Co-operation
by Conference, 1887-1911 140
PART TWO THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS, 1914-21
6 The Catalyst of War 183
7 Ireland; the Dominion Settlement 215
Notes 244
Index 262
Vll
Contents of Volume Two: From British
to Multiracial Commonwealth
Contents of Volume One: The Durham Report to the Anglo-Irish Treaty
List of Maps
PART ONE THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS 1921-47
1 Status Seeking and Tariff Reform, 1921-36
2 India: an Uncertain Goal
3 Appeasement and War: the Commonwealth Role
4 India: the Tryst with a Divided Destiny
PART TWO THE COMMONWEALTH SINCE 1947
5 Constitutional Transformation, Irish Republican Secession,
Indian Republican Accession and the Changing Position of
the Crown
6 The Climax of Commonwealth and a Time of Disenchant
ment
7 Men of Commonwealth: Smuts, Mackenzie King and Nehru
PART THREE RETROSPECT 1838-1981
The Historical Experience
Notes
Bibliography
Irulex
viii
Preface to the First Edition
'Mr Deakin actually contended' wrote John Morley, secretary of
state for India, complaining of some remarks made by the
Australian prime minister at the Colonial Conference of 1907, 'that
India had no right to a place at the conference table, because not
self-governing. I dealt faithfully with him on the point. I laugh
when I think of a man who blows the imperial trumpet louder than
other people, and yet would banish India which is the most
stupendous part of the Empire- our best customer among other
trifles- into the imperial back-kitchen.'* This book, however, is
written on the assumption that not Morley but Deakin had the
clearer grasp of essentials- that there was a difference in kind
between states that were self-governing and even the greatest of
imperial dependencies and that these differences could not be
papered over, merely by the nomination by the imperial power of
representatives for that dependency. That was also the view,
despite India's equivocal position, of Colonial and Imperial Con
ferences in the past and of Prime Ministers' and Commonwealth
Heads of State Meetings in our own time, so much so that, by
agreement, admission as of right to such gatherings became the
accepted test of independence within the Commonwealth. Or, to
put the point in another way, Empire, its government, organisa
tion, administration and ideas is one thing; relations between
autonomous polities within a community of states another. Both
are deserving of study but it is the second, which in British history
superseded the first, that provides the theme of this enquiry
This book, then, is about the Commonwealth- about its origins,
its development, its pattern and concepts of inter-state relations, its
experience in peace and war. That Commonwealth was the heir of
Empire, and imperial influences bore closely upon its earlier
growth. But it developed a life and made a contribution to political
thought and relations, not only distinct and distinguishable from
*Lord Morley to Lord Minto, 2 May 1907. India Office Library. MSS Eur. D.
573/2.
IX