The Community of the Parliaments of the British Commonwealth

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When Nazi planes, on the night of May 10, 1941, bombed the rooms of the Empire Parliamentary Association in Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament, they struck at a central institution of the British Empire. Fire destroyed most of its records. Fire-blackened, water-soaked documents, annual reports, verbatim reports of annual meetings and of sessions of the Empire Parliamentary Conference, and other documents, all bearing marks of that night, have formed the basis of this article, which incorporates also the experience gained from personal contacts with the Association in most parts of the Empire, including the addressing of meetings of members in the parliaments of each of the Oversea Dominions and attendance at meetings of the Empire Parliamentary Conference.