Editing Commonwealth realm (section)

===Dominions emerge===
{{Main|Dominion}}

The possibility that a colony within the [[British Empire]] might become a new kingdom was first mooted in the 1860s, when it was proposed that the [[British North America]]n territories of [[Nova Scotia]], New Brunswick and the [[Province of Canada]] unite as a [[confederation]] that might be known as the ''Kingdom of Canada''.<ref>{{cite book| last=Farthing| first=John| title=Freedom Wears a Crown| publisher=Veritas Paperback| year=1985| location=Toronto| isbn=978-0-949667-03-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| last=Pope| first=Joseph| title=Confederation: Being a Series of Hitherto Unpublished Documents Bearing on the British North America Act| publisher=Kessinger Publishing| year=2009| location=Whitefish| page=177| isbn=978-1-104-08654-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| last=Hubbard| first=R.H.| title=Rideau Hall| publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press| year=1977| location=Montreal and London| page=[https://archive.org/details/rideauhallillust00hubb/page/9 9]| isbn=978-0-7735-0310-6| url-access=registration |url = https://archive.org/details/rideauhallillust00hubb/page/9 }}</ref>
[[File:William Orpen - The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors.jpg|thumb|[[William Orpen]]'s ''[[The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors]]'': a compiled portrait of the main delegates to the signing of the [[Treaty of Versailles]], including some of the dominion delegates{{NoteTag|The Australian and South African prime ministers, [[Billy Hughes]] and [[Louis Botha]], stand first and second from the right; the Canadian delegate, [[George Eulas Foster|Sir George Foster]], stands fourth from left. The representatives of New Zealand and Newfoundland are not shown.|name=Image2a}}]]

Although the dominions were capable of governing themselves internally, they remained formally—and substantively in regard to foreign policy and defence—subject to British authority, wherein the governor-general of each dominion represented the [[British monarch]]-[[Queen-in-Council|in-Council]] reigning over these territories as a single [[Empire|imperial]] domain. It was held in some circles that the Crown was a monolithic element throughout all the monarch's territories; A.H. Lefroy wrote in 1918 that "the Crown is to be considered as one and indivisible throughout the Empire; and cannot be severed into as many kingships as there are dominions, and self-governing colonies".<ref>{{cite book| last=Lefroy| first=A. H. | title=A Short Treatise on Canadian Constitutional Law| url = https://archive.org/details/shorttreatiseonc00lefrrich | publisher=Carswell| year=1918 | location=Toronto| page=[https://archive.org/details/shorttreatiseonc00lefrrich/page/59 59]| isbn=978-0-665-85163-6}}</ref> 

This unitary model began to erode when the dominions gained more international prominence as a result of their participation and sacrifice in the [[First World War]]. In 1919, Canadian prime minister Sir [[Robert Borden]] and South African minister of defence [[Jan Smuts]] demanded that, at the [[Versailles Conference]], the dominions be given full recognition as "autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth". As a result, although the King signed as High Contracting Party for the Empire as a whole,<ref name="Heard">{{Citation| first=Andrew| last=Heard| title=Canadian Independence| year=1990| place=Vancouver| publisher=Simon Fraser University| url=https://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/324/Independence.html| access-date=6 May 2009}}</ref> the dominions were also separate signatories to the [[Treaty of Versailles]]. They also became, together with India, founding members of the [[League of Nations]]. In 1921 the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, [[David Lloyd George]], stated that the "British dominions have now been accepted fully into the community of nations".<ref>{{cite book| last=Dale| first=W.| title=The Modern Commonwealth| publisher=Butterworths| year=1983| location=London| page=24| isbn=978-0-406-17404-8 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Twomey|first=Anne|title=Responsible Government and the Divisibility of the Crown|journal=Public Law|year=2008|page=742}}</ref>