3

A.—6

PART lI.—ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF CONFERENCE. General. 6. The present Conference owes its origin to a recommendation contained in the Report of the Imperial Conference of 1926. The Inter-Imperial Relations Committee of that Conference made a recommendation, which was approved by the full Conference, that a Committee should be set up to examine and report upon certain questions connected with the operation of Dominion legislation, and that a Sub-Conference should be set up simultaneously to deal with merchant shipping legislation. This recommendation was approved by the Governments concerned, and the present Conference was established to carry out those tasks. 7. The Report of the Imperial Conference of 1926, in addition to setting forth the problems which required further examination, contained first and foremost a statement of the principles regulating the relations of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations at the present day. It is desirable to recall these principles, as they establish the basis and starting-point of the work of the present Conference. 8. The Report of the Imperial Conference declared in relation to the United Kingdom and the Dominions that — " They are 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 to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations." The Report recognized, however, that existing administrative, legislative, and judicial forms were admittedly not wholly in accord with the position as described, a condition of things following inevitably from the fact that most of these forms dated back to a time well antecedent to the present stage of constitutional development. 9. With regard to the position of the Governor-General, it was placed on record in the Report that it was an essential consequence of the equality of status existing among the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations that the Governor-General is the representative of the Crown, holding in all essential respects the same position in relation to the administration of public affairs in the Dominion as is held by His Majesty the King in the United Kingdom, and that he is not the representative or agent of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom or of any Department of that Government. 10. With regard to certain points connected with Dominion legislation—disallowance, reservation, the extra-territorial operation of Dominion laws, and the Colonial Laws Validity Act —the Imperial Conference of 1926, while recognizing that there would be grave danger in attempting in the limited time at their disposal any immediate pronouncement in detail on issues of such complexity, set forth certain principles which were considered to underlie the whole subject. As regards disallowance and reservation it was recognized that, apart from provisions embodied in Constitutions or in specific statutes expressly providing for reservation, it is the right of the Government of each Dominion to advise the Crown in all matters relating to its own affairs ; and that consequently it would not be in accordance with constitutional practice for advice to be tendered to His Majesty by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom in any matter appertaining to the affairs of a Dominion against the view of the Government of that Dominion. It was also suggested that the appropriate procedure with regard to projected legislation in one of the self-governing parts of the Empire which may affect the interests of other self-governing parts is previous consultation between His Majesty's Ministers in the several parts concerned ; and it was stated that, with regard to the legislative competence of members of the British Commonwealth of Nations other than the United Kingdom, and in particular to the desirability of those members being enabled to legislate with extra-territorial effect, the constitutional practice is that legislation by the Parliament of the United Kingdom applying to a Dominion would only be passed with the consent of the Dominion concerned. 11. It was, however, considered that there were points arising out of these considerations, and in the application of these general principles, which required detailed examination. In the first place, there remains a considerable body of law passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom which still applies in relation to the Dominions and at present cannot be repealed or modified by Dominion Parliaments ; secondly, under the existing system His Majesty's Government in the