THE LONDON DECLARATION OF THE COMMONWEALTH PRIME MINISTERS, APRIL 28, 1949
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1949.tb00131.x |
| Author | S. A. Smith |
| Published date | 01 July 1949 |
| Date | 01 July 1949 |
REPORTS
OF
COMMITTEES
THE LONDON DECLARATION
OF
THE COMMON WEALTH PRIME MINISTERS,
APRIL
28,
1949
THE
British Commonwealth owes much to the fact that its
statesmen have been endowed with what Professor W.
K.
Hancock
once called
'
an incorrigible disposition to escape from a logical
dilemma
'.l
In April,
1949,
the Commonwealth Prime Ministers
produced a declaration which may well prove to be one of the great
constitutional documents of modern times, but which is certain to
prove the despair of constitutional theorists. India's intention to
become a
'
sovereign independent republic
'
and to eliminate the
Crown from her future constitution was reconciled with her desire
to remain
a
full member of the Commonwealth. In order to effect
this reconciliation the London Declaration finally discarded the
theory that membership
of
the Commonwealth necessarily entails
allegiance to the Crown. Allegiance is a notoriously vague con-
ception, but the
'
Balfour Declaration
'
of
1926
and the preamble
to the Statute of Westminster,
1981,
formally recited that the
members of the Commonwealth were united by a common allegiance
to the Crown, and in
1981
it
was generally assumed that common
allegiance was the one vital characteristic of the Commonwealth
relationship. Difficulties were soon created by the behaviour
of
the Irish Free State, which, although defined as a Dominion by
the Statute of Westminster, proceeded to abolish the oath of
allegiance and the ofice of Governor-General and to purport to
exclude its citizens from the category of British subjects. The Eire
Constitution of
1987
made no reference to the Crown, except by
an oblique allusion to the Executive Authority (External Relations)
Act,
1986,
which provided that
so
long as the Free State was
associated with the members
of
the British Commonwealth the
King could act on her behalf for appointing diplomatic and consular
agents and concluding international agreements. Thereafter Eire
was externally associated with the Commonwealth
;
the External
Relations Act was her sole legal connection with the Crown. Yet
when the
1987
Constitution came into force the United Kingdom
Government issued
a
statement to the effect that it was not pre-
pared to treat the new Constitution as effecting a fundamental
alteration in Eire's position in the Commonwealth. Eire continued
(at least until
1989)
to enjoy most of the advantages of membership
of the Commonwealth. In English law, moreover, her status was
unchanged, and her citizens were still regarded as British subjects.2
1
Suruey
of
British
Commonwealth
Aj'airs,
Vol.
1,
p.
5.
2
Murray
v.
Porkes
[1942]
2
1C.B.
123.
351
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