Word: commonwealth
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...biennial meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers is something like a school reunion: it's nice to see the old classmates again, but each time the participants find that they have less in common. Of the 28 Commonwealth members represented at the ten-day conference that ended in London last week, a majority no longer recognize Queen Elizabeth as their sovereign, several have left the sterling area, scarcely any regard their citizenships as interchangeable, and only two (Australia and New Zealand) still display the Union Jack on their flags. The only thing that seemed to unite them was that...
Echo of Empire. For all its drawbacks, the Commonwealth gives Britons something -they might regret losing: an echo of empire. An amorphous grouping of white and yellow, black and brown, it is well-nigh unequaled for sheer curiosity and panoply. There in London last week were the Daimler sedans, each with a Special Branch man riding shotgun in the front, whisking delegates from their suites in Claridges, Grosvenor House or the Dorchester to the Regency-style Marlborough House. There at the meeting itself was Harold Wilson, impatiently tapping his outsize Tanzanian meerschaum on the mahogany conference table when a speaker...
...Britain is bothered by a rising impatience at the cost of maintaining the Commonwealth and, more important, at what the Daily Sketch called the "cheek" of members that presume to question Britain's policies. The nation that once ruled over a quarter of the globe is now desperately retrenching, and a great many Britons might agree with the Spectator: "What we must do is to act on the very threat that many of our partners have used against us too successfully in the past. We should withdraw our membership...
...power and the will to use it." After "centuries of responsibility," agreed Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, "a mood of disenchantment and withdrawal is all pervasive. Britain has decided to put British interests first." To an extent, that is true. Britain simply has had it as the Commonwealth doormat, and the other members are beginning to acknowledge this change of mood and to handle the crotchety old schoolmaster with uncharacteristic care...
Ford recently announced a grant of $464,000 to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for overall improvement of law enforcement and criminal justice...