Migration in the Commonwealth

Abstract

Speaking in 1943, Lord Cranborne (later Lord Salisbury) declared ‘I believe that Imperial overseas settlement and the interchange of populations between one part of the British Commonwealth and the others is essential to the future happiness and prosperity and even the survival of the British Empire.’¹ This resounding declaration was actually on behalf of white, mainly United Kingdom, emigration and settlement; nobody (except the Indians) was particularly enthusiastic about Indian colonisation in so many parts of the Commonwealth. Nevertheless, this was a period of mobility within the Commonwealth, a mobility which continued at a high level through the 1950s and into the 1970s. In some countries gradually, in others abruptly, the free flow of inter-Commonwealth migration was replaced by rigid immigration controls. As we begin the 1980s we enter a phase (likely to be permanent) in which almost all the Commonwealth countries will strengthen the barriers against new arrivals.