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Another reason for the worldwide use of the English language is its use throughout the Commonwealth,’ which includes a quarter of the world’s people in one-sixth of the world’s land area. All of its forty-nine member states have at some time been under British rule. In some of them English is the first language; others, with several different languages of their own, find English the most convenient means of communication except for small-scale business. Today the Commonwealth is a loose association of independent sovereign states, nearly all of their members of the United Nations, mattered among the continents and their adjacent islands. British rule still continues in a few groups of islands, all but one of them too small in population to be independent states but preferring to continue the British connection rather than to attach themselves to any neighboring states.
    The transformation of the British Empire into a "Commonwealth" of independent nations began, in part, in 1867 with the establishment of Canada as a fully self-governing country, still associated with Britain. Australia and New Zealand followed. With all these, full power was transferred, with agreement on both sides, to the representative institutions of people mostly descended from emigrants from Britain, though part of Canada was French.
    The new Commonwealth began in 1947, when India and Pakistan became fully independent. India’s membership of the Commonwealth was not affected by its decision three years later to become a republic. All the major colonial territories, in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, had become independent within twenty years. In every case power was transferred, with the help and agreement of the British government, to ministries responsible to parliaments elected by universal suffrage, but with guarantees of protection for minorities, such as small tribes.
    One country at first declared itself independent without British agreement. In 1965 Rhodesia had already enjoyed internal self--government for forty years, but with a regime that in effect gave power to the white minority, who were mainly settlers of British origin. The arrangement was objectionable to other countries in the Commonwealth, and the British insisted that it must be changed. When the leaders of the white-dominated regime unilaterally declared their independence, the British government considered their regime to be illegitimate, and joined the United Nations in imposing sanctions, while refusing to use military force. Eventually the white leaders agreed to an amended system which would give power to a government elected by equal universal suffrage. An election on this basis gave power to black ministers, and the Republic of Zimbabwe was inaugurated in 1980.
    In many independent countries of the Commonwealth the British cultural influence survives, and some of their educational systems still reflect this influence. So too with parliamentary and legal processes. Sonic send military officers to British colleges for training. But British governments, of both parties, have regularly avoided any interference with their relations with other states, or with their internal politics -- although in some cases the original institutions have been fundamentally altered, replaced by military rule or other forms of more or less arbitrary power. In the United Nations, members of the Commonwealth are quite often opposed to one another.