necessary to limit the freedom of the press, even in present circumstances, and this leads one to conclude that freedom from irresponsibility is a necessary pre requisite to real freedom of speech. Again, freedom of worship can hardly be real unless there is freedom from the grosser forms of superstition and unless (though this is a wider question) the worship which is to be free ensures that freedom of the spirit which is an essential pillar of democracy in the western sense. Lastly, and also arising out of the incompleteness of these freedoms in some territories, freedom from ignorance is a necessity.
9. British institutions have grown out of British character. Not only has the accumulation of overseas territories mainly resulted from the activities of Briton overseas but the way in which they have been run and British colonial policy itself. The British character has resulted in Britons in Whitehall thinking of Empire in centripetal terms and in Britons in colonies developing the centrifugal idea, but both share the British ideas of personal and political freedom. The Britons abroad therefore creates a new centre and being instinct with his ideas of freedom cannot be expected to teach anything other than he knows.
10.
In the past the Briton abroad has rarely known much about how his own institutions work and having a great faculty for seeing other peoples points of view has paid great deference to indigenous institutions. Nevertheless his instincts being British he has always managed to give a British complexion to them.
11. Any form of constitution evolved in a colony is to be expected to have British characteristics in it and it seems desirable to encourage this, not only because such a constitution is more likely to be one under which British concepts can survive and develop but because the more people think alike in a community of nations the less likely they are to break away.
12. Furthermore people like the West Africans are unlikely to be satisfied with less than something approaching the Westminster model as they will consider anything else inferior. Of course exact duplicates of Westminster and all the other forms of British government including local government are not to be expected, but I think that, for example, one can say "Coussey" should count as "Westminster".
13. The important thing seems to be to design constitutions within the framework of which British concepts can work and develop without a fear of their being overthrown by any form of totalitarianism. I would say that the forms of German constitution easily susceptible to centralisation of power made the path of Prussian and Nazi domination casior. British forms would have made it much more difficult. The "D.C. concept should only be regarded as an interim form as it could make for centralisation and authoritarianism in a self governing state. Therefore I doubt if African D.Cs are in the long run a good thing.
14. But this emphasises that even more important than designing, the ultimate form of constitution is the provision for the period leading to that goal. The framework should be there and in the meantime the people taught to exercise responsibility within it and to practice the spirit of democracy.
15. This suggests that interim colonial constitutions should sometimes have two sides an executive operated as far as possible by the people themselves and an educational operated by us.
16. It is important that all territorics should stay in the commonwealth by the will of their citizens, and I believe they are more likely to do this by our meeting aspirations which are developing or can be developed while things arc in a formative stage
/and
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