Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/12/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 11:32 AM 12/24/1999 -0500, Dan Cardish wrote: >Even then, it was just a formality. Canada could act independently of >Britain since the 30s. For instance, Canada waited a few days after Great >Britain before declaring war on Germany at the start of WW2. It wasn't >automatic. The Statute of Westminister (1931) established the right of the independent Dominions (Canada, New Zealand, Saorstadt na h-Eireann, Australia, and the Union of South Africa) to great freedom from the control of the UK. The only remaining link to the UK was through the common throne and the right of aggreived subjects to appeal from the local government to the Judicial Council of the UK's Privy Council. Only New Zealand retains the last, I believe, though: Eire left the Commonwealth completely in '49 (the final victory of Dev and the long-dead Big Fellow), South Africa in 1960, while Australia eliminated the Privy Council appeal around 1974 and Canada around 1982. (The Republic of South Africa did rejoin the Commonwealth within the past decade, after Apartheid was ended.) So, effectively, the Empire became a Commonwealth in 1931. (Of course, in 1931, Newfoundland, Bermuda, Jamaica, the BVI, Trinidad & Tobago, British Guinea, on to Pitcairn Island, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Brunei, Borneo, Burma, Ceylon, and half of Africa, were all colonies under the direct rule of the British Colonial Office, while the Indian Sub-Continent was a separate and independent nation which just happened to be ruled by the British government, a fascinating constitutional quirk.) Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!