ABSTRACT
The nature of the structure known as the ‘British family of nations’ altered very rapidly after 1945. It was being transformed into the ‘multiracial commonwealth’. The election victory of the British Labour Party in July 1945, in the middle of the Potsdam Conference, was of great significance for the future of the commonwealth. The colonial policy theses of the Labour Party and the Conservatives had never been in stark opposition to each other, either before or after 1945, if one views the parties as a whole. The transfer to a ‘coloured’ people of rules of evolution which had been applied since 1839 to white colonists, culminating in the Statute of Westminster, was already well under way in Ceylon. The ‘semi-responsible government’ of Ceylon linked from 1931 extensive and unified franchise with genuine powers of people’s representation in the State Council and genuine responsibility in the hands of indigenous executive officials.
