Seals and Symbols: From Substance to Form in Commonwealth Equality

Abstract

According to the Balfour formula, enunciated by the Imperial Conference of 1926, the position of the United Kingdom and the dominions was that of “autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate to one 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.” Equality of status as a declared principle was one thing: its application in constitutional procedure was another.For equality of status did not necessarily mean equality of function. There was a deliberate ambiguity in the 1926 declaration. The United Kingdom and some of the dominions were satisfied with the principle of equality, for an attempt to define its meaning in institutional terms would reveal the disagreement which had been so carefully glossed over. The United Kingdom did not like to think of the dominions as functionally autonomous, for if they were, the sacred shibboleth of the diplomatic unity of the Empire would be undermined, and there were not many in the dominions who were prepared to bear the full burden of the bureaucratic, diplomatic, and military structure which real independence would bring. So, on the whole, ambiguity was preferred. Today, this ambiguity has been resolved. In fact, the Commonwealth in 1926 meant something rather different than it has now come to mean, though both meanings can be covered by the Balfour formula.