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With exceptions, the great political parties in the country have now identified themselves with the national interest rather than with a partisan one. Even the exceptions change. As the status of the working class has changed for the better, the Labor Party has moved perceptibly away from its early position as a one-class party. The heirs of Keir Hardy—the Attlees, Morrisons, and Gaitskells—understand that Labor must appeal now to the whole people.

The national interest is something the whole people has always understood and accepted in the past. For the British are guided politically not by an ideology but by interest. This interest is a free world, free from the economic as well as the political standpoint. One factor in the decision to withdraw from India was the conviction that, in the end, withdrawal would serve British commercial interests. I do not suggest that this was the only factor. There were others, including the belief of the leaders of the Labor government that India could not and should not be kept within the Empire by force.