The British Commonwealth of Nations

1953 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 997-1015 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Duncan Hall
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Long Range ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Common Concern ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
The Family ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations

The British Commonwealth of Nations is the oldest international organization of states in existence. Its uniqueness lies in its unbroken historical continuity, the loyalty of its members to each other, their solidarity on vital matters of common concern, the fluidity of their machinery for dealing with such matters, and their abhorrence of constitutional contracts within the family of the Commonwealth. These are its features so far as we can see them yet in the perspective of history. This article will discuss some of these features and advance an hypothesis for research on the nature of Commonwealth.Continuity, with change but without revolution, has been the British political formula for the Commonwealth. The evolution of the Commonwealth was one of the long-range consequences of the American Revolution. In a broad historical sense the Commonwealth is the lesson that Britain drew from that revolution. There have been other examples in history, such as Rome and Spain, of the expansion overseas of a people and of its concepts, language, traditions, and institutions. But only in the case of the Commonwealth has historical continuity been maintained without catastrophic change or revolution. It is true that revolution severed the main branch of the first British Empire. The cause of that revolution was the still unresolved deadlock between executive and legislature which had caused the revolt under Cromwell in the preceding century.

scholarly journals The Rethinking of Great Britain’s Role: From the World Empire to the Nation State

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-145
Author(s):  
O. Zernetska
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Global State ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
Different Parts

In the article, it is stated that Great Britain had been the biggest empire in the world in the course of many centuries. Due to synchronic and diachronic approaches it was detected time simultaneousness of the British Empire’s development in the different parts of the world. Different forms of its ruling (colonies, dominions, other territories under her auspice) manifested this phenomenon.The British Empire went through evolution from the First British Empire which was developed on the count mostly of the trade of slaves and slavery as a whole to the Second British Empire when itcolonized one of the biggest states of the world India and some other countries of the East; to the Third British Empire where it colonized countries practically on all the continents of the world. TheForth British Empire signifies the stage of its decomposition and almost total down fall in the second half of the 20th century. It is shown how the national liberation moments starting in India and endingin Africa undermined the British Empire’s power, which couldn’t control the territories, no more. The foundation of the independent nation state of Great Britain free of colonies did not lead to lossof the imperial spirit of its establishment, which is manifested in its practical deeds – Organization of the British Commonwealth of Nations, which later on was called the Commonwealth, Brexit and so on.The conclusions are drawn that Great Britain makes certain efforts to become a global state again.

Newfoundland Reverts to the Status of a Colony

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 895-900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. MacKay
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
British Empire ◽  
West Indian ◽  
Responsible Government ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations

Newfoundland, which proudly boasts that she is “Britain's oldest colony,” which has enjoyed responsible government since 1855, and which has been ranked by the Statute of Westminister as one of the Dominions of the British Commonwealth of Nations, voluntarily reverted to the status of a crown colony governed by a commission responsible to Whitehall. The event is without precedent in the history of the Empire. While certain West Indian colonies which have enjoyed representative assemblies have voluntarily given up their elected legislatures, no colony which had attained responsible government has ever before renounced it. The incident is sufficiently unique to be of interest alike to students of the history of the British Empire and of political science in general.

Commonwealth or Empire?

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-562
Author(s):  
Norman MacKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Conference Report ◽  
Autonomous Communities ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations

“The group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the Dominions, are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”—From the Imperial Conference Report of 1926.

Dominion Status In International Law

1927 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Kenneth Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
International Law ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Autonomous Communities ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations

At the Imperial Conference of 1926, the participating British governments agreed that the Dominions and Great Britain “ are autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations”

Is the British Commonwealth Withering Away?

1950 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. C. Wheare
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Autonomous Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations

At a great crisis in the history of the American Commonwealth, Abraham Lincoln in a speech delivered in June, 1858, used these words: “If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it.” The British Commonwealth has reached a crisis in its affairs, but the nature of the crisis escapes the diagnosis of most students and many are inclined, therefore, to echo the words which Lincoln used nearly a hundred years ago. It seems worth while, accordingly, to set down as simply as possible some of the changes that have occurred in the structure and composition of the Commonwealth in recent years, in the hope that, on this basis, some judgment may be hazarded about “where we are and whither we are tending.”When the War ended in 1945 the British Commonwealth could still be described in the terms adopted almost twenty years before, at the Imperial Conference of 1926, as a group of “autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”

Migrant Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Innes
Keyword(s):  
Professional Training ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
British And Irish Literature ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
British Commonwealth ◽  
British Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
Second World

This chapter discusses migrant fiction in British and Irish literature. The end of the Second World War and the closing stages of the British empire brought significant changes, making more complex the ambivalent attitudes of the British towards the peoples of what now became (in 1948) the British Commonwealth of Nations. As it was gradually acknowledged that the expatriate professional and administrative classes in the former empire would be replaced by indigenous persons, increasingly large numbers were sent from the colonies to acquire the British professional training and higher education often required for an appointment in their home countries. It is in this context that migrant fiction, both by and about immigrant communities, was created in Britain in the decades immediately following the Second World War. One response to the disorientation experienced in Britain was to recreate the community back home, to rediscover and understand what one had left.

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