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Imperial Conference

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Imperial Conferences
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Periodic meetings held between 1907 and 1937 by the dominions within the British Empire and later the Commonwealth. Convened to discuss mutual defense and economic issues, they passed nonbinding resolutions. However, the Statute of Westminster implemented decisions made at the 1926 and 1930 conferences that described the self-governing dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, and Newfoundland) as "autonomous communities within the British empire." After World War II, meetings between the countries' prime ministers replaced the conferences.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Imperial Conference
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Imperial Conference, assembly of representatives of the self-governing members of the British Empire, held about every four years until World War II. The meetings prior to 1911-in 1887, 1897, 1902, and 1907-were known as Colonial Conferences, and were chiefly concerned with defense problems and the possibility of imperial tariff preference. Relatively informal, they were held when colonial representatives came to Great Britain for royal celebrations. More formalized meetings were held in 1907, 1911, 1917-18, 1921, 1923, 1926, 1930, 1936, and 1937. The conferences were designed to strengthen imperial ties by exchange of ideas, but their decisions had no legal effect. The two main focal points of discussion remained defense and economic policy. In 1917-18 the Imperial War Conference acknowledged the importance of the whole empire in defense policy by admitting India, not yet self-governing, to the conference. There was an acknowledged need on the part of Britain for practical support from the dominions in military and naval resources, and a parallel desire for participation in the decision-making initiative on the part of the dominions. The dominions also wanted to be able to pursue independent foreign policies, within the bounds of imperial cooperation. The constitution of the conferences themselves and the status of the dominions were the chief problems discussed at meetings during the 1920s. The resolutions of the conferences were given legal effect by the Statute of Westminster (1931; see Westminster, Statute of), which declared the legislatures of the several dominions on an equal footing with that of Great Britain. A standing Imperial Economic Committee concerned itself with coordination of economic matters. After World War II, it was replaced by the biennial Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers and yearly meetings of finance ministers.

Bibliography

See M. Ollivier, ed., The Colonial and Imperial Conferences from 1887 to 1939 (1954).

Wikipedia: Imperial Conference
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This article is about meetings in the British Empire. For the Japanese imperial meetings, see Gozen Kaigi.
King George V (front, centre) with his prime ministers. Standing (left to right): Walter Stanley Monroe (Newfoundland), Gordon Coates (New Zealand), Stanley Bruce (Australia), J. B. M. Hertzog (Union of South Africa), W.T. Cosgrave (Irish Free State). Seated: Stanley Baldwin (United Kingdom), King George V, William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canada).

Imperial Conferences (Colonial Conferences before 1911) were periodic gatherings of government leaders from the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire between 1887 and 1937, before the establishment of regular Meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in 1944. They were held in 1887, 1894, 1897, 1902, 1907, 1911, 1921, 1923, 1926, 1930 and 1937.

All but the second conference (held in Ottawa, Canada) were held in London, the United Kingdom: the seat of the Empire. The 1907 conference changed the name of future meetings to Imperial Conferences and agreed that the meetings should henceforth be regular rather than taking place while overseas statesmen were visiting London for royal occasions (e.g. jubilees and coronations).

Contents

List of conferences

Year Date Location Notes
1887 London Golden Jubilee of Victoria
1894 28 June – 9 July Ottawa, Canada
1897 London Diamond Jubilee of Victoria
1902 30 June – 11 August London Coronation of Edward VII
1907 15 April – 14 May London
1911 London Coronation of George V
1921 London
1923 1 October – 8 November London
1926 19 October – 22 November London
1930 London
1937 London Coronation of George VI

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.[1] 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, although 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, and not a dominion.[2]

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.

Towards Commonwealth meetings

After World War II, with the transformation of the British Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations, Imperial Conferences were replaced by biennial Meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers (MCPM), renamed Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM) in 1971

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Mole, Stuart (September 2004). "Seminars for statesmen': the evolution of the Commonwealth summit". The Round Table 93 (376): pp. 533 – 546. doi:10.1080/0035853042000289128. 
  2. ^ Lord Saint Brides (April 1980). "The Lessons of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia". International Security 4 (4): pp. 177–84. doi:10.2307/2626673. 

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Imperial Conference".  Read more