DOMINION STATUS 271
The Imperial Conference 1926, took this view, holding that it had been determined in this sense by the Legal Committee of the Arms Traffic Conference of 1925 [Cmd. 2768 p. 23.]
The Dominions save the Irish Free State as well as the United Kingdom, excluded inter-imperial disputes from those to be submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice when accepting the optional clauses of the Statute of the Court in 1929 [Cmd. 3452 p. 415] and similarly when accepting the General Act of 1928 for the Pacific Settlement of International disputes [Cmd. 3930 pp. 14, 15],
The inter-Imperial preferences are a domestic issue, on which most favoured nation clauses of treaties with foreign states do not operate.
Allegiance
The bond of a common allegiance involving a common status as British subjects, and this bond is one which cannot be severed by the unilateral action of any part as follows from the formal declaration in the Preamble to the Statute of Westminister that inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations and as they are united by a Common allegiance, any alteration in the law touching the succession to the throne or the Royal style and titles, requires the assent of the Parliaments of the Dominions as well as of the United Kingdom.
While the Preamble does not make law, it expresses a convention of the constitution which would render it very difficult for the Crown or its representative to assent to a bill passed by any single part which violated this principle of the unity of the British Commonwealth of Nations on a basis of equality of its status.
Note. — In approving the report of the Conference of 1929, the Union Parliament recorded that the proposed Preamble “shall not be taken as abrogating from the right of any member of the British Commonwealth of Nations to withdraw therefrom”.