Word: commonwealths
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...make it work even better, after its fashion, the Prime Ministers decided to establish a Commonwealth Secretariat. To be manned and financed by all members, it will have no political powers, will serve instead as a clearinghouse for information-and help Britain's Commonwealth Relations Office plan bigger and better conferences. Most remarkable fact about the new Secretariat: its strongest backers were the African members, who for all their frequent nationalist fuming evidently find advantages in belonging to the club...
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...
...ideas are partly responsible for the railroads' rise. Chrysler Corp., for example, recently started shipping its models on the new three-level freight cars instead of Great Lakes steamers. "Unitized" freight trains that carry only coal and move directly from mines to power plants save Chicago's Commonwealth Edison $5,000,000 a year. At the same time, the regulatory climate in Washington has changed. Switching from its policy of helping one form of transportation at the expense of another, the Interstate Commerce Commission has lately permitted railroads to reduce some rates to compete better against trucks...