The Commonwealth: Who Needs Mother?

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Leaders of 18 nations on five continents gathered last week in the red-walled, blue-carpeted conference room of London's Marlborough House. More than ever before, the faces around the oval table at this year's Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting reflected the divergent interests and cultures represented in the network of free nations that has evolved from the British Empire: only five were white, and the other 13 represented every shade of skin from ivory-yellow through burnt umber to the blue-black of Africa's heartland.

There were those who wondered whether Britain could much longer dominate an association with such widely differing political and economic systems. London's respected Economist had a remedy: "It is high time that Britain and the Commonwealth shed the 'mother country' fixation and made their relationship one of real as well as constitutional equality."

Whatever the merits of this argument, the Commonwealth nations last week showed that they are still preoccupied less with global goals than with regional and racial issues close to home. All seven African leaders at the conference were insistent that Britain use force, if necessary, to ensure that Southern Rhodesia's white-supremacist government grants full constitutional equality to the African population before achieving its independence. But militant white Southern Rhodesians have many sympathizers in England. And in an election year, the government of Sir Alec Douglas-Home is deeply reluctant to make any move that might encourage the self-governing "colony" to seize independence this year as it has threatened to do. Nonetheless, the African statesmen who were to wind up the speeches this week left no doubt that, in their eyes, Britain's resolution of Southern Rhodesia's impasse will be the crucial test of the Commonwealth's need and ability to survive.

Tshombe's eagerly awaited announcement of a government had been delayed by a full 24 hours when Adoula tried to force a woman into his Cabinet. She was Catherine Tshibamba, attractive young wife of the Congo's first doctor. Though women do not have the vote in the Congo under the new constitution, they may well get it before the next elections nine months from now. Adoula wanted to win a few votes, embarrass Tshombe, and prove that Catherine was at least as qualified to sit in the Cabinet as God-Emperor Kalonji. Only a nighttime call from Tshombe himself convinced Premier Adoula to drop Catherine.