I do not want to speak at length, Mr. President, for want of time; but I would like to know whether we have joined the Commonwealth because England wanted us to do so or because we desired to do so. I understand England desired it since long and Mr. Churchill desired the same from the year 1944. He stated in his speech in 1944:–
“The vast development of air transport makes a new bond of union, and there are new facilities of meeting, which will make the councils of the British Commonwealth of Nations a unity much greater than ever was possible before, when the war is over and when the genius of the air is turned from the most horrible forms of destruction to the glories of peace.”
“When peace returns, and we should pray to God it soon may, the conference of Prime Ministers of the Dominions, among whom we trust India will be reckoned and with whom the colonies will be associated, will, we hope, become frequent and regular facts and festivities of our annual life.”