ABSTRACT
Federalism had not been considered seriously by the British government as a solution to the ‘Irish problem’ or to the congestion of business in the Westminster parliament. It had never attracted mainstream politicians concerned with the maintenance of imperial unity. It had not received close philosophic attention by those studying the constitution. Its adherents, as with the Federal Union movement, had been essentially unknown or lesser known public figures. Few politicians of rank and/or influence had supported the federal idea in the United Kingdom since the late eighteenth century. Despite the initial enthusiasm for a ‘federal’ resolution of the problems besetting the international order in the late 1930s and early 1940s, it had quickly petered out as national cause by 1941. Nevertheless, it was not entirely surprising that after 1945 the British sought a federal solution to some of their most pressing colonial problems.
