Report

The Commonwealth Structure of International Relations

“Dr. Fryer has, in this lecture, placed the Commonwealth in perspective by showing how it takes its place in the interdependency
of states which is a principle of national survival in our time. This interdependency of national states has led to the formation of numerous groups and organisations which overlap and interlock to make up the predominant pattern of international relations in a world chastened by two great wars and threatened by nuclear fission. In these circumstances it is remarkable that a country with the strategic, economic and political potentialities of the Union should remain unattached to any groups except some United Nations specialised Agencies and C.C.T.A. in Africa. For South Africa Commonwealth membership has been a substitute for adherence to regional groups and organisations and it has in addition given South Africa invaluable indirect representation in the many groups to which other Commonwealth countries belong.”