How to Keep up with the Commonwealth
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How to Keep up with the Commonwealth The most useful tool is The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs. Founded in 1910 by the ‘Round Table Moot’, this quarterly journal published anonymous reports until 1966. It ceased publication briefly between 1981 and 1983. Publishing five issues a year from 2000, its regular features include ‘Commonwealth Update’ by Derek Ingram and ‘Documentation’, which provides the full texts of such material as Chogm Communiqués and C-Mag reports. Leading Commonwealth figures, as well as commentators and academics, con- tribute signed articles. The Round Table is available on line at <www.carfax.co.uk >. The official reference book is The Commonwealth Yearbook (produced since 1996 by Hanson Cooke for the Commonwealth Secretariat). It is the successor to The Colonial Office List and The Commonwealth Relations Office List, which were followed by The Commonwealth Office Year Book in 1967 after the CO and CRO had merged. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (created by a further merger in 1968) changed the title to The Commonwealth Yearbook in 1987, and in 1993 trans- ferred the title and responsibility to the Commonwealth Secretariat. The format was changed from 1996 in association with the new pub- lishing partner. The other important official reference book is Commonwealth at the Summit, vol. 1 Communiqués of Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings 1944–1986 (1987) and vol. 2 Communiqués of Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings 1987–1995 (1997). The texts from the 1997 and subsequent Chogms were published by the Secretariat in sep- arate pamphlets. Other useful reference works include: The 231 232 A Guide to the Contemporary Commonwealth Commonwealth Minister’s Reference Book (from 1989/90 by Kensington Publications); Alan Palmer, Dictionary of the British Empire and Commonwealth (1996), and House of Commons, Session 1995–6, Foreign Affairs Committee First Report The Future Role of the Commonwealth, vol. 1, Report, together with the Proceedings of the Committee, vol. 2, Minutes of Evidence and Appendices (1996), which includes numerous very informative submissions from NGOs. Academic study of the Commonwealth is catered for by The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (thrice yearly since 1972) and The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (thrice yearly since 1974 as the successor of The Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, started in 1961). Content details of both journals are available at <www.frankcass.com/jnls>. For the literary approach, Commonwealth: Essays and Studies (twice-yearly critical studies of the New Literatures in English) is published by the Société d’Etude des Pays du Commonwealth at the Languages Faculty, Dijon. The main inter-governmental organisations each produce magazines and periodic reports. The Commonwealth Secretariat issues the bi- monthly illustrated magazine Commonwealth Currents and the biennial Report of the Secretary-General. The Secretariat maintains a website, which includes the texts of news releases and speeches as well as descriptive material on the structure and membership of the associa- tion: <www.thecommonwealth.org>. The CFTC produces biennial reports entitled Skills for Development. The Commonwealth Foundation has an illustrated news magazine Common Path; presents biennial reports for the Chogm; and maintains the website: <www.commonwealthfoundation.org>. The Commonwealth of Learning has two news publications, Connections and EdTech News. The COL reports biennially to the Chogm and has the websites <www.col.org> and <www.col.org/ colint>. CAB-International (the former Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux until 1986) publishes each year a report, such as 99 In Review: Presenting CAB International and also Reports of Proceedings of its triennial Review Conferences. The component divisions maintain eight websites, which can all be accessed via the home site <www.cabi.org>. For the work of the Secretary-General during the first 35 years of the Secretariat see: Arnold Smith, with Clyde Sanger, Stitches in Time: the How to Keep up with the Commonwealth 233 Commonwealth in World Politics (1981); Shridath Ramphal, One World To Share: Selected Speeches of the Commonwealth Secretary-General, 1975–9 (1979); Ron Sanders (ed.). Inseparable Humanity: An Anthology of Reflections of Shridath Ramphal (1988); Shridath Ramphal (ed.), International Economic Issues: Contributions of the Commonwealth 1975–1990 (1990); Emeka Anyaoku, The Missing Headlines: Selected Speeches (1997); Phyllis Johnson, Eye of Fire: A biography of Chief Emeka Anyaoku, The Man and His Work (2000). Information on the People’s Commonwealth is available from the regular Newsletters and Annual Reports of the numerous NGOs. A selection of pan-Commonwealth websites is included below. Others are available at <www.thecommonwealth.org>: Commonwealth Business Council – <www.cbc.to/> Commonwealth Business Network – <www.combinet.net> and <www. combinet.org> Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance – <www.cbc. to > [governance] Commonwealth Association for Public Action and Management – <www.capam.comnet.mt> Commonwealth Electronic Network for Schools and Education – <www.col.org/cense/> Commonwealth Games 2002 (Manchester) – <www.commonwealth- games2002.org.uk> Commonwealth Human Ecology Council – <www.tcol.co.uk\comorg\ CHEC.htm> Commonwealth Institute <www.commonwealth.org.uk> and <www. eCommonwealth.net> Commonwealth Lawyers Association – <www.oneworld.net> Commonwealth Press Union – <www.compressu.uk> Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council, – <www.britcoun.org> Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London – <www.ihr.sas.ac. uk/ics/> Museum of the Empire & Commonwealth – <www.empiremuseum. co.uk> Royal Commonwealth Society – <www.rcsint.org> For historical background, the classic works are the ‘Chatham House surveys’ by Hancock, Mansergh and Miller. W. K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, vol. I, Problems of Nationality, 1918–1936 (1937); vol. II, Problems of Economic Policy 1918–1939, Part 1 (1940), 234 A Guide to the Contemporary Commonwealth Part 2 (1942); Nicholas Mansergh, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs: Problems of External Policy, 1931–1932, 2 vols. (1952, 1958) and see the same author’s The Commonwealth Experience (1969); J. D. B. Miller, Survey of Commonwealth Affairs: Problems of Expansion and Attrition, 1953–1969 (1974) and see the same author’s The Commonwealth and the World (1965). See also H. Duncan Hall, The British Commonwealth of Nations: A Study of its Past and Future Development (1920) and the same author’s Commonwealth: A History of the British Commonwealth of Nations (1970). Studies of the Commonwealth have been sparse since the last ‘Chatham House survey’ in 1974. The chief published works were: W. David McIntyre, The Commonwealth of Nations: Origins and Impact 1869–1971 (1977): D. Judd and P. Slinn, The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth, 1920–80 (1982); A. J. R. Groom and Paul Taylor (eds.), The Commonwealth in the 1980s (1984); Dennis Austin, The Commonwealth and Britain (1988); Stephen Chan, The Commonwealth in World Politics: A Study of International Action 1965 to 1985 (1988) and Twelve Years of Commonwealth Diplomatic History: Commonwealth Summit Meetings 1979–1991 (1992); Margaret Doxey, The Commonwealth Secretariat and the Contemporary Commonwealth (1989); D. A. Low (ed.), Constitutional Heads and Political Crises: Commonwealth Episodes, 1945–85 (1988); D. Butler and D. A. Low (eds.), Sovereigns and Surrogates: Constitutional Heads of State in the Commonwealth (1990); W. David McIntyre, The Significance of the Commonwealth, 1965–90 (1991); Leslie Zines, Constitutional Change in the Commonwealth (1991); R. Bourne, Britain in the Commonwealth (1997); I. M. Cumpston, The Evolution of the Commonwealth of Nations, 1900–1980 (1997); D. Mansergh (ed.), Nationalism and Independence: Selected Irish Papers by Nicholas Mansergh (1997); W. David McIntyre, British Decolonization 1946–1997: Why, When, and How did the British Empire Fall? (1998); G. Mills and J. Stremlau (eds.), The Commonwealth in the 21st Century (1999). Notes 1 Origins and Meanings 1. Speech by British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, at the Chogm Opening Ceremony, 24 October 1997, p. 2. 2. S. R. Mehrotra, ‘On the use of the Term “Commonwealth”’, Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies [JCPS] (1963) 2(1): 1–16. 3. R. Jebb, Studies in Colonial Nationalism (London, 1905), pp. 272–80. 4. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XII, 1891 to 1900 (Toronto, 1990), p. 1055. 5. British Parliamentary Papers: 1907, Accounts and Papers, IX, 61, Cd 3523, pp. 80–1; K. C. Wheare, The Constitutional Structure of the Commonwealth (Oxford, 1960), pp. 7–9. 6. See L. Curtis, The Problem of the Commonwealth (London, 1915) and The Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1916). 7. N. Mansergh, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs: Problems of External Policy 1931–1939 (London, 1952), p. 270. 2 Dominion Status and the 1926 Declaration 1. H. D. Hall, ‘The Genesis of the Balfour Declaration of 1926’, JCPS (1962) 1(3): 169–93; P. Wigley and N. Hillmer, ‘Defining the First British Commonwealth: the Hankey Memorandum on the 1926 Imperial Conference’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History [JICH] (1979) 8(1): 105–16. 2. L. S. Amery, My Political Life, 3 vols. (London, 1953–5), II, pp. 390–5. 3. Joe [Sir Saville] Garner, The Commonwealth Office 1925–68 (London, 1978), p. 51. 4. The Commonwealth at the Summit: Communiqués of Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings 1944–86 [Cwlth. Summit,