Imperial Conferences
Imperial Conferences were gatherings of British Empire government leaders in London in 1887, 1897, 1902, 1907, 1911, 1921, 1923, 1926, 1930 and 1937. The 1907 conference changed the name from "Colonial Conference" and agreed that the meetings should henceforth be regular rather than taking place while overseas statesmen were visiting London for royal occasions (jubilees, coronations). The conferences were a key forum for Dominion governments to assert the desire for removing the remaining vestiges of their colonial status. The conference of 1926, by Balfour Declaration, marked the acknowledgement that the Dominions would henceforth rank as equals to the United Kingdom, as members of British Commonwealth of Nations. The conference of 1930 came to conclusion to remove the legislative supremacy of the British Parliament as it was expressed through the Colonial Laws Validity Act, and recommended a declaratory enactment of the United Kingdom Parliament, passed with the consent of the Dominions. The Statute of Westminster 1931 was enacted by the imperial Parliament in pursuance of that recommendation. After World War II, with the transformation of the British Empire into The Commonwealth, Imperial Conferences were replaced by biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
See alsoImperial War Cabinet
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