00:00The Balfour Declaration of November 15, 1926, is a document resulting from a British imperial conference chaired by Arthur Balfour.
00:07It recognizes the full sovereignty of the dominions of the British Empire: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa.
00:13of the South, Ireland and Newfoundland, opposite the United Kingdom.
00:17The declaration proclaims that the United Kingdom and the dominions are "self-governing communities within the Empire"
00:22British, of equal status
00:24in no way subordinate to one another in any aspect of their internal or foreign affairs,
00:29but united by their common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of
00:34nations.
00:35The dominions had, in practice, already acquired a great deal of autonomy and were presented as countries at the international level.
00:41But for example, Canada did not have the right to amend its own constitution.
00:46declarations of war were imposed upon them by the United Kingdom, for example, the First World War.
00:50Canada's highest court was in the United Kingdom until 1949, and Canadian citizenship...
00:56'only began to exist in 1947.
00:58The declaration also changed the role of the governors-general,
01:01who would no longer be representatives of the British, imperial government in the dominions, but representatives of the crown.
01:08This meant the official end of British government interference in the government of the dominions.
01:13The Statute of Westminster in 1931 reiterated the terms of this declaration.
01:17while emphasizing them to offer full sovereignty to the dominions,
01:21provided they take the necessary legislative steps to achieve this by a date that suits them,
01:24hence the dates after 1931 for the Canadian examples so high.
01:28The Canadian constitution even waited until 1982, and according to the 1931 statute,
01:34this constitution still needed to be approved by the United Kingdom, but for the last time.
01:38Thank you for watching this video!
01:39Thank you for watching this video!
