CHAPTER 3.
COMMONWEALTH CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS*
A.
Introductory.
THE member States of the British Commonwealth are the United
Kingdom, the Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Aus-
tralia, the Union of South Africa, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and
Ceylon,1 India is an independent sovereign republic, but has chosen
to remain a member of the Commonwealth. All the other States
proclaimed the accession of the Queen in 1952. Pakistan has since
announced the intention of becoming an Islamic Republic, but of
remaining, like India, within the Commonwealth. The Union of
South Africa and Ceylon, according to their present Governments,
aim at republican status in the near future. In these circumstances
allegiance to the Crown, the legal tie, can scarcely be regarded as a
necessary requirement of membership of the Commonwealth. The
Republic of Ireland and Newfoundland, now a Province of the
Dominion of Canada, are former member States of the Common-
wealth. Apart from India and Pakistan which have evolved out of the
Indian Empire and the Native States, the other members have ad-
vanced from colonial status in subordination to the United Kingdom
Government to dominion status, as it was until recently called.
Members of the Commonwealth are "equal in status, in no way sub-
ordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external
affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown and freely
associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." 2
These words which the Imperial Conference of 1926 accepted from
a committee over which Lord Balfour presided are, so far as they
postulated common allegiance, no longer apt to describe the status
even of the older members. By substituting for a common nationality
law enactments of varying content to determine local citizenship
which, as we have seen,3 is accepted as the qualification as Common-
wealth citizen (a term of law alternative to British subject),, the legal
bond depends upon a different law in each State.
We will first discuss the meaning which was given to dominion
status. For, although the advent of the Dominions of Asia has
1 Southern Rhodesia has attended inter-Commmonwealth deliberations; no
doubt the Central African Federation will in future be represented as in 1955.
3 Imperial Conference, Summary of Proceedings* 1926, Cmd. 2768,
* Part IV,, Chap. 9.