Imperial Conference - Notable Meetings

Notable Meetings

Originally instituted to emphasise imperial unity, as time went on, the conferences became a key forum for dominion governments to assert the desire for removing the remaining vestiges of their colonial status. The conference of 1926 agreed the Balfour Declaration, which acknowledged that the dominions would henceforth rank as equals to the United Kingdom, as members of the 'British Commonwealth of Nations'.

The conference of 1930 decided to abolish the legislative supremacy of the British Parliament as it was expressed through the Colonial Laws Validity Act and other Imperial Acts. The statesmen recommended that a declaratory enactment of the Parliament, which became the Statute of Westminster 1931, be passed with the consent of the dominions, but some dominions did not ratify the statute until some years afterwards. The 1930 conference was notable, too, for the attendance of Southern Rhodesia, despite it being a self-governing colony, not a dominion.

The 1932 British Empire Economic Conference held in Ottawa discussed the Great Depression, and the governments agreed to institute 'Imperial Preference': a system of protectionist tariffs on imports from non-imperial countries.