dominion status

Was the term chosen to describe the position of the self‐governing member states of the inter‐war Commonwealth. They were to be regarded, proclaimed the 1926 imperial conference, as ‘autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another’. That was necessary to their self‐respect. After 1947, however, when India entered the club, the word ‘dominion’ was quietly dropped, as implying—despite Britain's disavowals—a certain subordination to her.