§ Mr. Martinasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of certain undesirable associations of the word "Imperial," he will consider with the Prime Ministers of the Dominions and the Government of India, the use of the word "Commonwealth" in all references to co-operative activity between those States and ourselves?
§ The Prime MinisterThe word "Imperial" and the word "Commonwealth" have both of them time-honoured associations in the minds of His Majesty's subjects. Some prefer the one and some the other, and like a great many British conventions they are not too rigidly or precisely or even logically applied. The roots of these ideas go far back into our history, which is the common inheritance of all subjects of the King-Emperor and members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and this is no time to institute pedantic divisions about nomenclature.