ABSTRACT
The declaration of the London Conference of Prime Ministers has surmounted a great crisis in the constitutional development of the British Commonwealth by the practical, and indeed traditional, resource of saying in effect that no crisis exists. A sound political judgment decided at the outset, in the manner of the courts of Common Law, to limit discussion strictly to the circumstances of the particular case that had arisen, and to eschew any attempt to lay down a general rule. India came before the conference with two clear intentions to define. First, as had been foreseen for many months, she was firmly resolved to set up for herself a republican constitution in which there would be no place, even symbolic, for the Crown. Secondly, as had not been foreseen with any confidence until recently, she desired to retain her association with the other nations of the British Commonwealth on terms as intimate as before. The question to be decided was whether these two intentions could be reconciled with one another. The declaration rules that they can; and it says very little, if anything, more than this. India wishes to remain the permanent associate of her seven present partners in the Commonwealth; and all the seven declare that she is a welcome member of their brotherhood. This is the substance of the relationship it is desired to maintain; and no
questions of constitutional form can be allowed to stand in the way. It is true that the forms centred upon the monarchy have been found by the older members of the Commonwealth the indispensable means of preserving the association; but if India finds them not a help but a stumbling-block, then the partnership between her and the rest must in some way be sustained without them. The King will continue to be ‘the symbol of the free association of the independent member nations and as such the head of the Commonwealth’ to which India belongs. Yet although the King is the symbol for all, India’s relation to him will be different from that of any other member nation; at the same time it is laid down that there are not two classes of members, but only one. All are free and all are equal. The declaration has been rightly applauded in all countries of the Com-
monwealth, and by most of its leading statesmen, for it makes in the structure of the Commonwealth as a whole the least possible change compatible with India’s exercise of her undoubted right to renounce a system of symbolism which in her case could not serve its essential purpose, because the monarchy carries an historic connotation for Indian sentiment which is quite other than that which makes it a bond of social cohesion for other nations. [ … ] It has already been suggested that the status now accorded to India would
have had attractions for Burma at the time of her secession; but although the doors of the Commonwealth are certainly open for her return, it is easier to imagine such a movement after a substantial course of years than in the immediate future, when it might be misinterpreted to the diminution of the prestige of her independence. Ireland, on the other hand, is in an altogether different position; for there the republic has been set up for the sake of separation from the United Kingdom, rather than separation endured for the sake of the republic. [ … ] Since 1931 we have been accustomed to say that the monarchy is the sole
formal link on which the unity of the Commonwealth depends. If pressed to expand that statement we should probably say that the Crown binds us together because each individual state in the Commonwealth has at the head of its government the same person, His Majesty the King. We cannot, however, continue to regard the King as the link in that sense; for he is not the head of the Indian government, and yet he is the symbol of association for all members of the Commonwealth alike, of whom India is one. It is clear that we have to learn to think of the Crown as the symbol of association in some other aspect than that implied by its political headship of the individual member nations. It may be noted that in that part of the declaration which relates to the
status of India the reference is not to the Crown but, following a line of thought suggested by Dr. Evatt, to the King. Nevertheless it is useful to reflect upon the significance of the popular instinct which, from the many emblems of majesty with which the King is invested after his unction, has chosen the Crown as the pre-eminent symbol of the royal office. For the Crown, as the liturgical formulae of its imposition make clear, is not an
emblem of power. That position belongs to the Sceptre, the rod of justice, descending no doubt from the first bough torn from a tree by prehistoric man as a weapon to impose his will upon his fellows. The Crown stands, according to the liturgy, for glory and for righteousness. Now India has chosen to remove the King as bearer of the Sceptre from
her political system. But she still participates in the glory and righteousness of the Commonwealth, that is, in the ideals and the way of life for which it stands, and in that sense continues to pay respect to the King as wearer of the Crown. But if that is so, it becomes necessary for India’s partners in the Commonwealth to see their own mutual association symbolized by the same aspect of the monarchy. If the Sceptre is not a link with India, and India is constitutionally equal with all the rest, then it cannot be a link between these others. To dispense with the metaphor, the element of authority is now wholly removed from the apparatus by which the unity of the Commonwealth is sustained. Neither the authority of one privileged nation over the others, nor the authority of the corporate whole over its parts, now has any function in holding the Commonwealth together. [ … ]
Ever since the Nationalist party brought the term apartheid into current use in South African politics, earnest efforts have been made by seekers after truth to find out exactly what it means. As a general outlook on life, as the expression of a deeply felt emotion, the term has a meaning which is as significant as it is vague. All attempts, however, have failed to get from members of the Government a clear statement of its exact application in every sphere of national life. We are therefore driven to undertake the prosaic task of analysing its meaning point by point in the light, not merely of Nationalist election propaganda, but of what the Nationalists have done, refrained from doing, or threatened to do since Dr. Malan came to power. Before doing this it may be as well to glance for a moment at those few supporters of apartheid who have taken this election slogan seriously, and endeavoured to work it out logically. These, as might be expected, consist mainly of university professors, and appear to fall under the definition of Edmund Burke, ‘those good souls whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasury to crafty politicians’.
They have faced the possibility of apartheid in the sense of the literal separation of White from Black, and have envisaged a great Bantu State or group of States to which at least one ingenious thinker has affixed the term ‘Bantustan’, somewhere in the fastnesses of southern Africa. This State or group of States is to have some measure of self-government, although apparently the suzerainty of the White man must always remain. The issue of labour is faced, and the European community is exhorted to learn to do with less African labour, although indeed there are crosscurrents of thought which seem to favour the entrenchment of the migrant labour system – in which case Bantustan would be something unique in history, a dormitory State. This unofficial ‘solution’ leaves a number of questions unsolved. The sim-
plest and perhaps the most important of them is that of the geographical boundaries of Bantustan. The supporters of apartheid appear to have a distaste for maps. Up to the present it has not been possible to get any authentic map showing the proposed redivision of the country, in spite of challenges, pleas and plaintive requests for it. In the second place, the professors do not seem to have settled, for them-
selves or anyone else, the question of the future of the non-Bantu elements in South African society. So far as the Indians are concerned, the simple solution of expatriation to India is sometimes put forward by those who have no political responsibility and occasionally by some who have. But what of the large and increasing Cape Coloured population, over 750,000 of whom live in the western part of the Cape Province in the most intimate economic contact with the Europeans? There is no equivalent of Bantustan for them, and although they are sometimes exhorted to develop in their own areas, they have no areas of their own. If these were created, they would have to be carved out of some of the richest farming land of the whole Union. It would perhaps be best to say that apartheid represents rather an emotion
than a policy. It is none the less a critical issue for that reason. Built up into it is much of the feeling which has been the strength of South African Nationalism in the past – the appeal to history, a history much of which is composed of inter-racial war, White against Black; the appeal to tradition, stabilizing the tradition of the Afrikaner more or less as it stood in 1899, or earlier; the appeal to fear. What is this fear? It is the not unnatural fear of a large number of Afrikaners that their hard-won nationality, so sore beset by alien contacts, their own way of living, their own outlook on life, should be lost in the rising tide of colour. To them liberalism in any of its forms is the removing of the dike which keeps this sea of colour out of the territory so hardly wrested from it. [ … ] So far as the Africans are concerned, the land question is the crux of the
policy of apartheid. By it the Africans will test the validity of the conception. Most of them are not inhibited by liberal or socialist theories. If the Nationalists had come forward with a clear, extensive and generous policy as regards land, they might have carried a good deal of African opinion with them. Many Africans are realists in these matters. The majority of established
leaders would, on general principles, have been against the apartheid policy, but they would have found their followers slipping away from them if Bantustan had appeared on the map, and if its exponents had been practical surveyors rather than meditative theorists. All possibility of this has disappeared. Bantustan, which had a certain limited usefulness during the election campaign, has now outlived its usefulness. Nationalist Ministers are now using the argument that the increasing urbanization since 1936 means that it is doubtful whether they ought really to carry out General Hertzog’s promise to buy the 7/4 million morgen (approximately 14,500,000 acres) provided for in the Natives Trust and Land Act, of which a little over 4 million morgen have been bought. This kind of argument is better calculated than anything else to condemn apartheid in African eyes. [ … ] As to Parliament, the Indian franchise, existing only on paper under the
Act of 1946, has been abolished. It is now proposed
