The Nature and Structure of the Commonwealth

Abstract

The structure of the British Commonwealth of Nations is peculiar. If it did not exist, you could not invent it. Its peculiarities reveal themselves at once if we try to find an answer to what looks like a fairly simple question, namely: How do we know whether a country is inside the Commonwealth or outside it? This question has never been very easy to answer. It is not enough to say that a country is within the Commonwealth if it is one of the Queen's dominions. That is quite true so far as it goes. It covers the cases of such important countries of the Commonwealth as the United Kingdom itself, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, Ceylon, and the British West Indian Colonies. But it will not suffice to describe the position of such countries as Malaya, or Nigeria, or Uganda, or the Gold Coast, or Kenya, or Tanganyika. Large parts or all of the territories of these countries are not part of the Queen's dominions, strictly speaking. They are either protected states (as in Malaya) or protectorates (as in most of the African territories) or, as in the case of Tanganyika, Trust Territories under the United Nations. What we must say of these countries of the Commonwealth is not that they are part of the Queen's dominions but that they are under the Queen's protection or jurisdiction.