00:00The Imperial Conference, in English, Imperial Conference, called the Colonial Conference until 1907, refers to the meeting of heads of government
00:08colonies and dominions of the British Empire between 1887 and 1937, before the establishment of Prime Ministers' Conferences
00:16of the Commonwealth in 1944.
00:18These meetings took place in 1887, 1894, 1897, 1902, 1907, 1911, 1921, 1923, 1926, 1930, 1932 and 1937.
00:35All the conferences took place in London, the seat of the Empire, with the exception of those in 1894.
00:41and of 1932 which took place in Ottawa, the capital of the Dominion of Canada.
00:45Originally, the imperial conferences were intended to be a sign of the unity of the Empire.
00:50They turned into negotiation meetings on issues of economic and military cooperation.
00:56Two conferences bring about profound changes.
00:59At the Imperial Conference of 1926, the heads of government adopted the Balfour Declaration, which established equality of
01:06status between the Dominions and the United Kingdom.
01:08The Statute of Westminster, negotiated at the Imperial Conference of 1930 and promulgated a year later, abolished the
01:16legislative sovereignty of the British Parliament over the Dominions.
01:19From 1944 onwards, imperial conferences were replaced by less formal meetings of prime ministers within the framework
01:27of the Commonwealth of Nations.
01:28These meetings were renamed the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1971 and have been held every year since.
01:35two years.
