What is the Grand Design? It is the concept of a Europe cooperating in fields of economy and politico-military strategy. It goes beyond the Europe of Western European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance and thinks in terms of a general confederation into which the Scandinavian and Mediterranean nations would be drawn. Existing organizations such as the Organization for European Economic Co-operation would be expanded to include new members. At the top would be a General Assembly elected by the parliaments of each member nation. There would be a general pooling of military research and development. The establishment of such an association of European states is at least ten years in the future. The British do not think it should be hurried. Careful, rather pragmatic, they advocate methodical progress in which new international organizations could be tested against actual conditions. Those that work will survive. Those that do not will disappear. Is the Grand Design a new name for a third force to be interposed between the Sino-Russian bloc in the East and the United States in the West? The British say emphatically not. They see it as a method of strengthening the Atlantic Alliance by uniting Europe. Naturally, they believe their flair for diplomacy and politics, their industrial strength, and, not least, Europe's distaste for German leadership will give them an important role in the new Europe. Obviously, that role, as spokesman for both a united Europe and a global Commonwealth, will be more suitable and, above all, more practical in the world of 1960 than the obsolete concept of Empire. The development of British action toward the accomplishment of the Grand Design will be accompanied by the gradual transformation of what is left of the Empire into the Commonwealth. Ghana, established as an independent member of the Commonwealth in March 1957, will be followed by Singapore, Malaya, Nigeria, Rhodesia, and many more. Since 1945 Britain has given self-government and independence to well over 500,000,000 souls (at the same time the Soviet Union was enslaving 100,000,000) and the process is not over. Certainly there have been shortcomings and failures--Cyprus is one. But it seems to me that a people prepared on one hand to abdicate power and turn that power over to others and at the same time ready to conceive and develop a new plan for Europe is showing an elasticity and toughness of mind the rest of the world might envy. We are not attending the birth of a new British Empire but watching the advent of a new position for Britain in the world--one less spectacularly powerful than the old, but important nonetheless. The speed of its development is inextricably connected with an expanding and prosperous economy at home.