Editing Commonwealth realm (section)

===Balfour Declaration of 1926===
{{Main|Balfour Declaration of 1926}}
The pace of independence increased in the 1920s, led by Canada, which exchanged envoys with the United States in 1920 and concluded the [[Halibut Treaty]] in its own right in 1923.<ref name=Heard/> In the [[Chanak crisis]] of 1922, the Canadian government insisted that its course of action would be determined by the Canadian parliament,<ref name="Buckner2008">{{cite book|last=Buckner|first=Phillip Alfred|title=Canada and the British Empire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KmXnLGX7FvEC&pg=PA98|year=2008|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-927164-1|page=98}}</ref> not the British government, and, by 1925, the dominions felt confident enough to refuse to be bound by Britain's adherence to the [[Treaty of Locarno]].<ref name=Hilliker1990>{{cite book |last=Hilliker|first=John F.|title=Canada's Department of External Affairs: The Early Years, 1909–1946 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=MZD0inJnMJQC&pg=PA131|year=1990|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press&nbsp;– MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-6233-2|page=131}}</ref> [[Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane|The Viscount Haldane]] said in 1919 that in Australia the Crown "acts in self-governing States on the initiative and advice of its own ministers in these States".<ref>{{cite court |litigants=Theodore v. Duncan| vol=696| pinpoint=p. 706 | court=Judicial Committee of the Privy Council | year=1919}}</ref><ref name=Heard/><ref>{{cite book| last=Clement| first=W.H.P. | title = The Law of the Canadian Constitution | url = https://archive.org/details/lawcanadiancons01clemgoog | publisher=Carswell| year=1916| edition=3rd | location=Toronto| pages=[https://archive.org/details/lawcanadiancons01clemgoog/page/n41 14]–15| isbn=978-0-665-00684-5 }}</ref>
[[File:ImperialConference.jpg|thumb|left|King [[George V]] at the [[Imperial Conference of 1926]]{{NoteTag|The figures in the photo are, back row, left to right: [[Walter Stanley Monroe]], [[Prime Minister of Newfoundland]]; [[Gordon Coates]], [[Prime Minister of New Zealand]]; [[Stanley Bruce]], [[Prime Minister of Australia]]; [[James Hertzog]], [[Prime Minister of South Africa]], and [[W. T. Cosgrave]], [[President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State]]; front row, left to right: [[Stanley Baldwin]], [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]]; the King; and [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]], [[Prime Minister of Canada]].|name=Image3}}]]

Another catalyst for change came in 1926, when Field Marshal the [[Lord Byng of Vimy]], then [[Governor General of Canada]], refused the advice of his prime minister (William Lyon Mackenzie King) in what came to be known colloquially as the [[King–Byng Affair]].<ref>{{cite book| title=Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General| url=https://archive.org/details/byngofvimygenera0000will| url-access=registration| last=Williams| first=Jeffery| year=1983| publisher=Leo Cooper in association with Secker & Warburg| location=Barnsley, S. Yorkshire| pages=[https://archive.org/details/byngofvimygenera0000will/page/314 314–317]| isbn=978-0-8020-6935-1}}</ref> Mackenzie King, after resigning and then being reappointed as prime minister some months later, pushed at the [[Imperial Conference of 1926]] for a reorganisation of the way the dominions related to the British government, resulting in the Balfour Declaration, which declared formally that the dominions were fully autonomous and equal in status to the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite journal| last=Marshall| first=Peter| date=September 2001| title=The Balfour Formula and the Evolution of the Commonwealth| journal=[[The Round Table Journal|The Round Table]]| volume=90| issue=361| pages=541–553| doi=10.1080/00358530120082823| s2cid=143421201}}</ref> What this meant in practice was not at the time worked out; conflicting views existed, some in the United Kingdom not wishing to see a fracturing of the sacred unity of the Crown throughout the empire, and some in the dominions not wishing to see their jurisdiction have to take on the full brunt of diplomatic and military responsibilities.<ref name=Mallory/>
[[File:British Empire flag RMG L0088.tiff|thumb|An unofficial [[British Empire flag]] from the 1930s including the arms of the dominions]]
What did follow was that the dominion governments gained an equal status with the United Kingdom, a separate and direct relationship with the monarch, without the British Cabinet acting as an intermediary, and the governors-general now acted solely as a personal representative of the sovereign in right of that dominion.{{NoteTag|The ministers in attendance at the Imperial Conference agreed that: "In our opinion it is an essential consequence of the equality of status existing among the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations that the governor-general of a dominion 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 Great Britain, and that he is not the representative or agent of His Majesty's Government in Great Britain or of any Department of that government".<ref>{{harvnb| Balfour| 1926| p=4}}</ref>|name=Balf}}<ref>{{harvnb| Twomey| 2006| p=111}}</ref> Though no formal mechanism for tendering advice to the monarch had yet been established—former Prime Minister of Australia [[Billy Hughes]] theorised that the dominion cabinets would provide informal direction and the British Cabinet would offer formal advice<ref>{{cite journal| last=Jenks| first=Edward| title=Imperial Conference and the Constitution| journal=Cambridge Law Journal| volume=3| issue=13| page=21| year=1927| issn=0008-1973| doi=10.1017/s0008197300103915| s2cid=145241070}}</ref>—the concepts were first put into legal practice with the passage in 1927 of the ''[[Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act]]'', which implicitly recognised the Irish Free State as separate from the UK, and the King as king ''of'' each dominion uniquely, rather than as the British king ''in'' each dominion. At the same time, terminology in foreign relations was altered to demonstrate the independent status of the dominions, such as the dropping of the term "Britannic" from the King's style outside of the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite book| last=Walshe| first=Joseph P.| authorlink=Joe Walshe| title=Documents on Irish Foreign Policy > Despatch from Joseph P. Walshe (for Patrick McGilligan) to L.S. Amery (London) (D.5507) (Confidential) (Copy)| publisher=Royal Irish Academy| date=29 August 1927| url=http://www.difp.ie/docs/Volume3/1927/831.htm| access-date=24 October 2009}}</ref> Then, in 1930 George V's [[Cabinet of Australia|Australian ministers]] employed a practice adopted by resolution at that year's Imperial Conference,<ref name="Heard" /> directly advising the King to appoint Sir [[Isaac Isaacs]] as the [[Australian governor-general]]. Calls were also made for the empire to adopt new symbols less centred on the United Kingdom specifically, such as a new [[British Empire flag]] that would recognize the elevated status of the dominions. Many unofficial designs were often displayed for patriotic celebrations such as coronations and [[Commonwealth Day|Empire Day]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Kelly |first=Ralph |date=8 August 2017 |title=A flag for the Empire |url=https://www.flaginstitute.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ICV27-B8-Kelly.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230813214957/https://www.flaginstitute.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ICV27-B8-Kelly.pdf |archive-date=13 August 2023 |access-date=13 August 2023 |website=The Flag Institute |page=}}</ref>