A TWENTIETH-CENTURY COMMONWEALTH

out of the work of joint authorities in special fields—joint, that is
to say, to two or more member countries of the Commonwealth.

REORGANIZING WHITEHALL

The development of such authorities, the institution of a Com-
monwealth Council or some such body with a standing secretariat,
and the potential multiplication of Dominions—or rather, of
autonomous nations within the Commonwealth for which at pres-
ent we have no better name than Dominions—impose also a
problem of domestic organization in the United Kingdom. Up to
1947, when the Commonwealth Relations Department was created
to give the Dominions Office a more appropriate title and to make
a fit repository for the conduct of relations with the new Indian
Dominions, the 'Imperial5 Departments at Whitehall were the Do-
minions Office, Colonial Office, India Office, and Burma Office,
each with its Secretary of State (though up to then the respons-
ibility for Indian and Burmese affairs had always been doubled).
The Dominions Office and Burma Office were creations of 1924
and 1935 only. We must keep our minds open to the possible need
for further changes as other countries, now dependencies, pass
from tutelage to self-government.

New and old self-governing members of the Commonwealth and
their foreign neighbours are bound to have many problems in
common, reflected in common problems of administration or
negotiation in Whitehall. The creation of international commis-
sions for the Carribbean and the South-West Pacific is a tribute to
this fact in two areas where the war forced the issue to a head.1
Even more striking recognition was accorded in Lord Killearn's

1 Colonel Oliver Stanley, then Secretary of State for Colonies., said in the
House of Commons on 13th July 194,3: 'While His Majesty's Government are
convinced that the administration of the British colonies must continue to be
the sole responsibility of Great Britain, the policy of His Majesty's Government
to work in close co-operation with neighbouring and friendly nations. We
realize that under present circumstances such co-operation is not only desirable
but is indeed essential . . . Problems of security, of transport, of economics, of
health, etc., transcend the boundaries of political units. His Majesty's Govern-
ment would therefore welcome the establishment of machinery which would
enable such problems to be discussed and to be solved by common efforts.
What they have in mind is the possibility of establishing commissions for certain
areas.*

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