TheBalfour Declaration of 1926, also called theBalfour Definition, was issued by the1926 Imperial Conference ofBritish Empire leaders in London. It was named afterArthur Balfour, who wasLord President of the Council.[1] It declared the United Kingdom and theDominions to be:
... autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance tothe Crown, and freely associated as members of theBritish Commonwealth of Nations.[2]
TheImperial War Conference of 1917 passed a resolution drafted by Canadian prime ministerRobert Borden, which described the Dominions as "autonomous nations within an Imperial Commonwealth" possessed of a right to "an adequate voice in foreign policy and in foreign relations". The resolution also called for a "constitutional conference" to be convened following the end of the war to determine a "re-adjustment of the constitutional relations of the component parts of the Empire"[3]
At theParis Peace Conference of 1919, the Dominions sent separate representatives that were deemed for negotiation purposes to form part of one British Empire delegation. They signed theTreaty of Versailles under that designation but were admitted as separate members of theLeague of Nations. The confusion over the status of Dominions within the international community prompted calls for a formal statement of their relationship with the United Kingdom.[4]
The Inter-Imperial Relations Committee, chaired by Balfour, drew up the document preparatory to its unanimous approval by the imperial prime ministers on 15 November 1926.[5] It was first proposed bySouth African Prime MinisterJ. B. M. Hertzog andCanadianPrime MinisterWilliam Lyon Mackenzie King.
The wording of the declaration was drafted by Balfour following two weeks of discussion with prime ministers and heads of delegations, with Hertzog, Colonial SecretaryLeo Amery, and Secretary of State for IndiaLord Birkenhead playing key roles.[6]
The declaration accepted the growing political and diplomatic independence of the Dominions in the years after World War I. It also recommended that thegovernors-general, the representatives of the King in each dominion, should no longer also serve automatically as the representative of the British government in diplomatic relations between the countries. In following years,high commissioners were gradually appointed, whose duties were soon recognised to be virtually identical to those of an ambassador. The first such British high commissioner was appointed to Canada in 1928.
The conclusions of the Imperial Conference of 1926 were re-stated by the 1930 conference and incorporated in theStatute of Westminster of December 1931. In the statute, theBritish Parliament provided that it would not enact a law which applied to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless the law expressly stated that the Dominion government had requested and consented to the enactment of that law.[7]
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