The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that sets the basis for the relationship between the Dominions and the Crown.
The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of Independence. It provided for the establishment of the Irish Free State within a year as a self-governing dominion within the "community of nations known as the British Empire", a status "the same as that of the Dominion of Canada". It also provided Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an option to opt out of the Irish Free State, which the Parliament of Northern Ireland exercised.
Michael Joseph Savage was an Australian-born New Zealand politician who served as the 23rd prime minister of New Zealand, heading the First Labour Government from 1935 until his death in 1940.
A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth that has Charles III as its monarch and ceremonial head of state. All the realms are independent of the others, though one person, resident in the United Kingdom, acts as monarch of each. The phrase Commonwealth realm is an informal description not used in any law.
The Paris Peace Conference was a set of formal and informal diplomatic meetings in 1919 and 1920 after the end of World War I, in which the victorious Allies set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, the conference resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and the other losing nations were not given a voice in the deliberations; this later gave rise to political resentments that lasted for decades. The arrangements made by this conference are considered one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history.
Peter Fraser was a New Zealand politician who served as the 24th prime minister of New Zealand from 27 March 1940 until 13 December 1949. Considered a major figure in the history of the New Zealand Labour Party, he was in office longer than any other Labour prime minister, and is to date New Zealand's fourth-longest-serving head of government.
The Dominion of New Zealand was the historical successor to the Colony of New Zealand. It was a constitutional monarchy with a high level of self-government within the British Empire.
The Executive Council was the cabinet and de facto executive branch of government of the 1922–1937 Irish Free State. Formally, executive power was vested in the Governor-General on behalf of the King. In practice, however, it was the Council that governed, since the Governor-General was bound to act on its advice. The Executive Council included a prime minister called the President of the Executive Council and a deputy prime minister called the Vice-President. A member of the Council was called an executive minister, as distinct from an extern minister who had charge of a department without being in the Council.
The Imperial War Cabinet (IWC) was the British Empire's wartime coordinating body. It met over three sessions, the first from 20 March to 2 May 1917, the second from 11 June to late July 1918, and the third from 20 or 25 November 1918 to early January 1919. Consisting of representatives from Canada, Australia, India, the Dominion of Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the Cabinet considered many aspects of waging the First World War. It led to the United Kingdom's Dominions being considered more equal to Great Britain and Ireland. Held concurrently with the cabinet were the Imperial War Conferences of 1917 and 1918.
The state known today as Ireland is the successor state to the Irish Free State, which existed from December 1922 to December 1937. At its foundation, the Irish Free State was, in accordance with its constitution and the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, governed as a constitutional monarchy, in personal union with the monarchy of the United Kingdom and other members of what was then called the British Commonwealth. The monarch as head of state was represented in the Irish Free State by his Governor-General, who performed most of the monarch's duties based on the advice of elected Irish officials.
The Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947 was a constitutional Act of the New Zealand Parliament that formally accepted the full external autonomy offered by the British Parliament. By passing the Act on 25 November 1947, New Zealand adopted the Statute of Westminster 1931, an Act of the British Parliament which granted full sovereign status and Commonwealth membership to the Dominions ratifying the statute. New Zealand was the last Dominion to do so, as the Dominion of Newfoundland voted to become a part of Canada in 1948.
The independence of New Zealand is a matter of continued academic and social debate. New Zealand has no fixed date of independence from the United Kingdom; instead, political independence came about as a result of New Zealand's evolving constitutional status.
Sir Carl August Berendsen was a New Zealand civil servant and diplomat. After being in the Education and Labour Departments he joined the Prime Minister's Department in 1926, becoming its head in 1935. He was the creator of the Department of External Affairs, and collaborated with Michael Joseph Savage and Peter Fraser. He was Secretary for External Affairs 1928–32, Head of the Prime Minister's Department 1932–43, and Secretary of the War Cabinet 1939–43. He attended all Imperial Conferences 1926–43, and assemblies of the League of Nations and later the United Nations.
Sir Alister Donald Miles McIntosh was a New Zealand diplomat. McIntosh was New Zealand's first secretary of foreign affairs serving as the principal foreign policy adviser to Prime Ministers Peter Fraser, Sidney Holland, Keith Holyoake, and Walter Nash. He is widely considered to be the father of New Zealand's independent foreign policy and architect of the former Department of External Affairs, now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in New Zealand.
Australia is a constitutional monarchy whose Sovereign also serves as Monarch of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and eleven other former dependencies of the United Kingdom including Papua New Guinea, which was formerly a dependency of Australia. These countries operate as independent nations, and are known as Commonwealth realms. The history of the Australian monarchy has involved a shifting relationship with both the monarch and also the British government.
Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were biennial meetings of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominion members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Seventeen Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were held between 1944 and 1969. As well, the prime ministers met for a Commonwealth Economic Conference in 1952. These series of conferences were a continuation and regularisation of the earlier Imperial Conferences which had been held periodically from 1887 to 1937. Since 1971, Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings have been held.
The 1911 Imperial Conference convened in London on 23 May 1911 and concluded on 20 June 1911. It was held to mark the occasion of the coronation of King George V on 22 June 1911.
The 1930 Imperial Conference was the sixth Imperial Conference bringing together the prime ministers of the dominions of the British Empire. It was held in London. The conference was notable for producing the Statute of Westminster, which established legislative equality for the self-governing Dominions of the British Empire with Great Britain, thereby marking the effective legislative independence of these countries. Economic relations within the British Empire was also a key topic with proposals for a system of Imperial preference - empire-wide trade barriers against foreign goods. These proposals were further discussed at the British Empire Economic Conference in 1932.
The 1923 Imperial Conference met in London in the autumn of 1923, the first attended by the new Irish Free State. While named the Imperial Economic Conference, the principal activity concerned the rights of the Dominions in regards to determining their own foreign policy.
The Racial Equality Proposal was an amendment to the Treaty of Versailles that was considered at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Proposed by Japan, it was never intended to have any universal implications, but one was attached to it anyway, which caused its controversy. Japanese Foreign Minister Uchida Kōsai stated in June 1919 that the proposal was intended not to demand the racial equality of all coloured peoples but only that of members of the League of Nations.
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