TEXT OF SPEECH
made by the Right Hon. Michael Stewart, C.H., M.P. Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary
at the Royal Commonwealth Society at 1.15 p.m. on Thursday, 19 February, 1970
THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE COMMON MARKET
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad to have the opportunity of addressing the Royal Commonwealth Society and welcome the tradition of an annual speech of this kind about Commonwealth problems. Last time I think your speaker was the Prime Minister and before that you had two Commonwealth Secretaries, Mr. George Thomson, and, as he then was, Mr. Herbert Bowden. Now, I suppose as I am the first person to be both Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, it is appropriate that the title of my talk should link Foreign and Commonwealth matters. Of course if you entitle your talk "The Commonwealth and the Common Market ", it might give the presumptuous impression that you are going to inform both those immense institutions exactly what they should do. You could, of course, lengthen it by saying that it is Britain, the Commonwealth and the Common Market, implying that one is concerned, legitimately, with Britain's approach to both these institutions.
Well, that extension of the title might reduce my concern but might increase yours. There's the story of a Scottish divine who, one Sabbath, told his congregation: "Today my subject will be God and man, forgiveness and sin, free will and pre-destination with, if time permits, some words about the woman at the well in Samaria ", after which he preached for four hours. But according to your rules, you are away by round about 2.15.
It is, in any case, a particularly appropriate time to be considering the future of the Commonwealth. The Cook Bicentenary Year reminds us of the origins of the present Commonwealth, and the end of that decade, the 1770s, saw the end of one relationship across the Atlantic and the beginning of another. In the past 200 years, we have seen very great changes in Britain, changes in the countries of Continental Europe and in our relationships with each other and with the rest of the world. For us the great change, during the latter part of that period, has been the change from Empire to Commonwealth. We can take heart in the fact that we have survived and adapted ourselves to these changes in the past and we can, therefore, with confidence approach the change in relationship that is involved in the start of negotiations and we confidently expect that start before long for entry into the European Communities. If those negotiations are successful, and we enter them as the Prime Minister said resolutely and in good faith, there will be further changes in our relationship with the Commonwealth and with Europe. Why should these not prove to be eventually as acceptable and as beneficial as the changes which the swing of history has brought about in the past? I believe they can be beneficial to all the parties concerned.
May I say a word about the background to our decision to apply for entry. In the years since the end of the war, we have seen a steady movement from national units to wider units. We have also seen the rise and the advance on to the front of the world's stage of two Super Powers, and the stirrings of a third; in reaction to that, there has been a growth of those regional groupings and organisations that are described by letters of the alphabet. Defence pacts such