TNAG-1117-FCO40-1391-Future-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1982 — Page 149

Reference...

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Mr G C Livesey (HKGD)

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THE BRITISH EMPIRE

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1. You asked yesterday in the context of a written PQ, when we stopped using the term "The British Empire".

2. I can find no recent authoritative opinion or policy on this nuestion. It was raised in the House of Commons 01 May 1949 when, in reply to a PQ (I have not seen the text) Mr Attlee said:

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"Terminology, if it is to be useful, keeps step with developments without becoming rigid or doctrinaire. All constitutional dev- elopments in the Commonwealth, the British Commonwealth of the British Empire I use the three terms deliberately - have been the subject of consultation between His Majesty's Goverments, and there has beei 10 agreement to adopt or exclude the use of any one of these terms, or any decision of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to do so....Opinions differ in different parts of the British Empire and Commonwealth on this matter, and I think it better to allow people to use the expressio: they like best."

2. It was in 1949, however, when we are of the term "British Empire" bega: to disappear when it was agreed that India could co ti que to be a member of the Commonwealth after becoming a republic As explained by Roberts-Wray, former legal adviser to the CRO, (Commonwealth and Colonial Law, Stevens, 1966, 0 22)

"When a member of the Commonwealth becomes a republib, retaining its membership and acknowledging the Queen only as Head of the Commo 17 wealth, the formal, though nonetheless fundamental, constitutio val chanze,

by virtue of which Her Majesty ceases to be head of the executive, seems clearly to take the country out of an undefined British Empire....Members of the Commonwealth of which Her Majesty is Queen, must remain, only if because it is not possible to point o any date on which they ceased to be part of the British Empire.

"British Empire" no longer appears in enactments and official donu- ments, having been replaced by "the Commonwealth"; It is no doubt regafded as inconsistent with the equality of members of the Commo - wealth and with reference to dependent territories, as savouring too much of "colonialism". "1

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Δ. We have now, after almost a century, come round to following Lord Rosebery who, in a.speech in Adelaide in 1884 said "The Empire is a Commonwealth of Nations"(The Commonwealth Relations Office List, 1959).

10 February 1922

Miss Brett Rooks (CCD)

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J M Hay

International Section Research Dept G115/2

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