360 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

of Government on the British model, their status being defined
by the Colonial Laws Validity Acti and while the Imperial
Parliament thus preserved its supjgtmacy, it was slow to use it.
The Great War demonstrated that these Colonies, as they were
still officially called, were nations able and determined to rule
themselves; second, that their ties of history and kinship with the
Mother Country were so strong that of their own choice they
would act with her in a time of crisis.

These facts were soon reflected in an alteration of adminis-
trative machinery. In 1925 a new Cabinet Office was created, the
Secretary of State for the Dominions. At first this post and that
of Secretary of State for the Colonies were held by the same
person; but there are now two Ministers and two separate
establishment^. The Dominions Office has charge of relations
with Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, the Union
of South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and the Dominion known
in 1925 as the Irish Free State. Southern Rhodesia is not called
a Dominion, but a "self-governing Colony" and the Dominions
Secretary has power to override the Acts of its Parliament.

At the Imperial* Conference of 1926, it was agreed that the
status of the Dominions should be legally recognised, and in
1931 the important Statute of Westminster was passed. This Act
states that the Colonial Laws Validity Act shall not apply to the
Dominions, and their Parliaments have therefore the power to
make what laws they please, each for its own territory. Thus,
while the legislature for the United Kingdom is the Ring and
the Houses of Lords and Commons, the legislature for Canada
is the King and the Houses of the Canadian Parliament at Ottawa,
and so throughout the Dominions. The King is represented in
the Dominions by a Governor or Governor-General, and it is
now recognised that he, like the King in Britain, will act on the
advice of Ministers responsible to the Dominion Parliament.
The King is thus the link between the Governments of Britain
and of the Dominions; and in the preamble to the Statute of
Westminster, it is accordingly laid down that any Act affecting