In The Ring: A Commonwealth Memoir.

• Author: Hensley, Gerald
• Position: Book review

IN THE RING: A Commonwealth Memoir

Author. Sir Don McKinnon

Published by: Elliott and Thompson Ltd, London, 2013, 288pp, $49.99.

The Commonwealth is one of those institutions, like the British House of Lords, which no constitutional theorist could invent but which unexpectedly work. Originally seen by the worldly-wise as a tactful but temporary means of accustoming the British public to the loss of their empire, it has instead grown over the decades into an international association second in scope only to the United Nations. No other empire has managed this feat.

The key to this was the establishment of the Commonwealth Secretariat, which put the institution into common ownership. As a voluntary association controlled by all its members, it could mediate, intercede and make demands in ways unthinkable for the former imperial power. Over almost 50 years of the Secretariat the Commonwealth was transformed from the tail-piece of empire into a lively voice in the world community.

Over that time only five Commonwealth secretary-generals have moulded it. Now, the most recendy-retired, Don McKinnon, who had long service as a New Zealand foreign minister, has followed his predecessors in giving an account of his eight years, commenting that if he did not someone with less direct experience would.

In a job that has few guidelines and none of the obvious levers of power, the skill and enthusiasm of the secretary-general are crucial. Without military force or economic clout, he is necessarily the practitioner of diplomacy at its purest. So more than most his position relies on social qualities, ease of manner, confidence, firmness of purpose and if possible charm, and McKinnon had them. He had in addition the stamina to keep up a punishing schedule of travel for the personal diplomacy on which the job relies requires face-to-face meetings. The tide he chose for his memoir, In the Ring, conveys some of the relish he had for the day-to-day battles and arguments needed to make any headway on big and intractable issues.

Inevitably the book is an account of diplomatic crises large and small, of urgent get-togethers and wrangles over the wording of statements. That is largely the stuff of Commonwealth business. The shared language and other personal links make it a little easier to talk about touchy issues, and a little easier to have rows without denunciations and walkouts. Although there is inevitably a lot of name-dropping (that is the personal way the...