"Peter Fraser played an important role in the establishment of the United Nations, of which New Zealand was a founding member. However, domestically Labour had lost the reforming zeal of the 1930s and its electoral support ebbed after the war. After Labour lost power in 1949, the conservative National Party began an almost continuous thirty-year stint in government, interrupted by single-term Labour governments in 1957 to 60 and 1972 to 75. National Prime Minister Sidney Holland called a snap election as a result of the 1951 waterfront dispute, an incident that reinforced National's dominance and severely weakened the union movement."
"Minister Sidney Holland introduced a private members' bill to abolish the New Zealand Legislative Council. Because New Zealand required the consent of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to amend the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, Fraser decided to adopt the Statute. The adoption of the Statute of Westminster was soon followed by the debate on the future of the British Commonwealth in its transformation into the Commonwealth of Nations. In April 1949 Ireland, formerly the Irish Free State, declared itself a republic and ceased to be a member of the Commonwealth. Fraser's government reacted by passing the Republic of"
"bureaucratic intervention, restriction and regulation, and an acceptance of the welfare state. During the successful 1949 general election, Holland capitalized on the threat of Communist expansion in Eastern Europe, the government's perceived unwillingness to counter the militant waterfront unions, persisting wartime restrictions, and rising inflation. This strategy secured National's electoral victory on 30 November 1949. The Sidney Holland National Government implemented economic reforms, dismantling many state controls including butter and petrol rationing. His government also emphasized individualism, personal freedom, and private enterprise in accordance with its 1949 electoral platform. One of Holland's first acts as Prime Minister was to abolish"
"including Winston Churchill and Clement Davies. By contrast, Jan Smuts, who had been defeated by Malan in the South African general election the previous year and was considered second only to Churchill as a Commonwealth statesman, was bitterly opposed. India became a republic in 1950 and remained in the Commonwealth. However, Ireland, which was in the same situation, having passed the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, declared itself a republic on 18 April 1949, ten days before the declaration, and therefore left the Commonwealth. London Declaration The London Declaration was a declaration issued by the 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference"
"1956 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1956 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the eighth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in June 1956, and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden. The new prime minister of Ceylon, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike pressured Eden to remove British military bases in Ceylon; Britain agreed to close the installations. In international affairs, the leaders expressed their support for the People's Republic of China and Japan being admitted to the United Nations (see China and the United Nations)"
"1947 to 1950, he was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Commonwealth Relations Office, and in 1950 he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, serving until Labour's defeat at the 1951 general election. As Commonwealth Secretary in 1950, Gordon Walker persuaded the cabinet to agree to prevent Seretse Khama, the heir to the throne of the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, from becoming its king - on the grounds that he had wed a white English woman, Ruth Williams, an inter-racial marriage that had upset Bechaunaland's neighbouring state, apartheid South Africa. Khama had been brought to"
"the Commonwealth in 1949, and India became a republic within the Commonwealth the following year. George adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth. He was beset by smoking-related health problems in the later years of his reign. He was succeeded by his elder daughter, Elizabeth II. George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was Prince George, Duke of York (later King George V), the second and eldest-surviving son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). His"
"Multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations were also discussed. This was the first Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference attended by Ghana, which had attained independence in March 1957. 1957 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1957 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the ninth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in June 1957, and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. The new Canadian prime minister, John Diefenbaker, proposes the intensification of trade relations within the Commonwealth. His call for an Empire Trade Conference were resisted by the British government which"
"government than any other party. In 1949, Sidney Holland became the first Prime Minister from the National Party, and remained in office until 1957. He was succeeded by Keith Holyoake, who was soon defeated at a general election by the Labour Party in 1957. Holyoake was in office for a second period from 1960 to 1972. The party's policy platform shifted from moderate economic liberalism to increased emphasis on state interventionism under the National government of Robert Muldoon, in office from 1975 to 1984. In 1990, Jim Bolger formed another National government, which continued the radical free-market reforms initiated by"
"1955 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1955 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the seventh Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in January 1955 and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. A sense of international crisis loomed over the conference which occurred during which the First Taiwan Strait Crisis as were other international developments such as the sudden resignation of Soviet Premier Georgy Malenkov and the fall of French prime minister Pierre Mendès France, all of which were discussed. Atomic energy for peaceful purposes, disarmament,"
"seven independent Commonwealth countries, including Pakistan, which was still a dominion at the time, whereas India was not, as the dominion of India had become a republic under the new Indian constitution of 1950. Pakistan ceased being a dominion on 23 March 1956 on the adoption of a republican constitution. However, Pakistan became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations. The Queen visited Pakistan as Head of the Commonwealth in 1961 and 1997, accompanied by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Pakistan left the Commonwealth in 1972 over the issue of the former East Pakistan province becoming independent as Bangladesh. It"
"India and King of Pakistan instead. In 1950 he ceased to be King of India when it became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations and recognised his new title of Head of the Commonwealth; he remained King of Pakistan until his death. Other countries left the Commonwealth, such as Burma in January 1948, Palestine (divided between Israel and the Arab states) in May 1948 and the Republic of Ireland in 1949. In 1947, the King and his family toured Southern Africa. The Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, Jan Smuts, was facing an election and hoped to"
"for three sessions, and was prorogued on 25 October 1957. The National Party under Sidney Holland had been in power since the , and Holland remained in charge until 1957, when he stepped down due to ill health in September 1957 some two months prior to the . Holland was succeeded by Keith Holyoake, but the Labour Party narrowly defeated National at the 1957 election, and the government changed in mid-December of that year. The table below shows the number of MPs in each party following the 1954 election and at dissolution: Notes There were a number of changes during"
"1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the fourth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in April 1949 and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. The principal topic of the conference was the relationship of India, which was intending to become a republic, to the Commonwealth, which, hitherto, had been an association of Britain and British dominions united by sharing a constitutional link by sharing the British sovereign as their head of state, in particular whether a Commonwealth state could"
"1957 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1957 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the ninth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in June 1957, and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. The new Canadian prime minister, John Diefenbaker, proposes the intensification of trade relations within the Commonwealth. His call for an Empire Trade Conference were resisted by the British government which has an eye towards the UK developing stronger trade relations with Europe and the newly formed European Economic Community; the impact of the UK joining"
"President of India, taking over from Governor General Rajgopalachari. Subsequently, the French ceded Chandernagore in 1951, and Pondichéry and its remaining Indian colonies in 1954. India invaded and annexed Goa and Portugal's other Indian enclaves in 1961, and Sikkim voted to join the Indian Union in 1975. Following self-rule in 1947, India remained in the Commonwealth of Nations, and relations between the UK and India have been friendly. There are many areas in which the two countries seek stronger ties for mutual benefit, and there are also strong cultural and social ties between the two nations. The UK has an"
"the Commonwealth. The upheaval of Indian independence in 1947 was well in the past, and the wave of decolonising of the 1960s was yet to come. However, it fell to Home to maintain Commonwealth unity during the Suez Crisis in 1956, described by Dutton as ""the most divisive in its history to date"". Australia, New Zealand and South Africa backed the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal. Canada, Ceylon, India and Pakistan opposed it. There appeared to be a real danger that Ceylon, India and, particularly, Pakistan might leave the Commonwealth. Home was firm in"
"was not abolished when Ireland became independent of the United Kingdom in the 1920s, but by the Republic of Ireland Act of 1948, which came into force in 1949. Some Commonwealth realms waited a little longer before abolishing their monarchies: Pakistan became a republic in 1956 and South Africa in 1961. Gambia abolished its monarchy in 1970, while Sierra Leone became a republic in 1971, as did Sri Lanka in 1972, Malta in 1974, Trinidad and Tobago in 1976, and Fiji in 1987. The latest country to become a republic within the Commonwealth was Mauritius in 1992. That of Egypt"
"the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the remainder of the British Empire was almost completely dismantled. Today, most of Britain's former colonies belong to the Commonwealth, almost all of them as independent members. There are, however, 13 former British colonies, including Bermuda, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, and others, which have elected to continue rule by London and are known as British Overseas Territories. In the 1960s, moderate unionist Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O'Neill tried to reform the system and give a greater voice to Catholics who comprised 40% of the population of Northern Ireland. His goals"
"the 1930s but this was the first conference to be held after Ireland's membership was regarded as terminated. 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the fourth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in April 1949 and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. The principal topic of the conference was the relationship of India, which was intending to become a republic, to the Commonwealth, which, hitherto, had been an association of Britain and British dominions united by sharing a constitutional"
"three electorates having their boundaries altered. Fendalton's area went to the and electorates. These changes came into effect through the . Sidney Holland was the electorate's first representative. Holland had since the held the Christchurch North electorate. He was Prime Minister from 1949 to 1957 while representing the electorate. He retired from Parliament in 1957 due to declining health. Holland was succeeded by Jack Watts in the . Watts had since represented various Christchurch electorates. He retired at the end of the parliamentary term in 1960. The electorate was abolished in 1969, when Eric Holland went to the nearby Riccarton"
"Singapore, the Solomon Islands and in the waters surrounding Japan. Towards the end of the war, in 1944, New Zealand warships the HMNZS ""Achilles"" and HMS ""Gambia"" bombarded the Japanese coast. The war in the Pacific soon ended after the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. In 1947, New Zealand became an independent nation. In 1952, both nations established diplomatic relations and that same year, New Zealand opened a diplomatic legation in Tokyo. The following year, Japan opened a legation in Wellington. In 1955, Prime Minister Sidney Holland became the first New Zealand head-of-government to pay"
"economic policies. Holland led the National Party to its first election victory in . His National government implemented moderate economic reforms, dismantling many state controls. Holland's government also undertook constitutional change in 1950, by abolishing the Legislative Council, the upper house of parliament, on the grounds that it was ineffectual. In 1951, Holland, having confronted striking dockers and coal miners intent on what he called ""industrial anarchy"", called a snap election and was re-elected Prime Minister. In its second term, the National government signed the ANZUS defence agreement with Australia and the United States. Holland led his party to a"
"was called, began in 1948 and lasted until 1960, but by 1957, Britain felt confident enough to grant independence to the Federation of Malaya within the Commonwealth. In 1963, the 11 states of the federation together with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo joined to form Malaysia, but in 1965 Chinese-majority Singapore was expelled from the union following tensions between the Malay and Chinese populations. Brunei, which had been a British protectorate since 1888, declined to join the union and maintained its status until independence in 1984. In 1951, the Conservative Party returned to power in Britain, under the leadership of"
"the British Commonwealth. The opposition did not attend the debate, and the vote was unanimous. The British government accepted this motion as clearly representing a reasonable majority, so on 18 September 1956 the British set 6 March 1957, the 113th anniversary of the Bond of 1844, as the date the former British colony of the Gold Coast was to become the independent state of Ghana, and the nation's Legislative Assembly was to become the National Assembly. Nkrumah continued as prime minister, and Queen Elizabeth II as monarch, represented in the former colony by a governor general, Sir Charles Noble Arden-Clarke."
"in 1957, Nigeria in 1960 and Kenya in 1963. However, in the Middle East Macmillan ensured Britain remained a force — intervening over Iraq in 1958 (14 July Revolution) and 1960 and becoming involved in Oman. Immigrants from the Commonwealth flocked to England after The British Government posted invitations in the British West Indies, for Workers to come to England to ""help the mother Country"". He led the Tories to victory in the October 1959 general election, increasing his party's majority from 67 to 107 seats. Following the technical failures of a British independent nuclear deterrent with the Blue Streak"
"Commonwealth on independence from the United Kingdom in 1964. Queen Elizabeth II, Head of the Commonwealth, was Queen of Malawi, represented by the Governor-General of Malawi, until the country became a Commonwealth republic in 1966, when the then Prime Minister of Malawi, Hastings Banda, declared himself the first President of Malawi. Foreign relations of Malawi Malawi's former President Bakili Muluzi continued the pro-Western foreign policy established by former President Hastings Banda. It maintains excellent diplomatic relations with principal Western countries. Malawi's close relations with South Africa throughout the apartheid era strained its relations with other African nations. Following the collapse"
"The 1949 general election was held on Tuesday, 29 November in the Māori electorates and on Wednesday, 30 November in the general electorates, respectively. A total of 80 MPs were elected; 49 represented North Island electorates, 27 represented South Island electorates, and the remaining four represented Māori electorates; this was the same distribution used since the . 1,113,852 voters were enrolled and the official turnout at the election was 93.5%. The 29th Parliament sat for two sessions, and was prorogued on 18 July 1951. The National Party under Sidney Holland won the 1949 election, defeating Labour's second Fraser Ministry. Holland"
"to the historian Barry Gustafson, the 1949 and 1951 elections marked the peak of Sidney Holland's political career. After 1951 the National Government continued its policy of deregulating the economy by ending rationing on basic food commodities, loosening import controls, and encouraging home ownership by selling states houses to their tenants. Shortly after being re-elected, the government also enacted the Police Offences Bill which gave the police substantial powers to deal with future industrial unrest. Holland's Government also reformed the superannuation scheme to enable retiring public servants to claim a portion of their entitlement as a lump sum payment. In"
"Louis St. Laurent, stated that the King, as the symbol of the free association of the countries of the Commonwealth, was the Head of the Commonwealth. When India adopted a republican constitution on 26 January 1950, George VI ceased to be its monarch (the President of India, Rajendra Prasad, becoming head of state), but it did regard him as Head of the Commonwealth. Elizabeth II became Head of the Commonwealth on her accession in 1952, stating at the time ""[t]he Commonwealth bears no resemblance to the empires of the past. It is an entirely new conception built on the highest"
"1953 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1953 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the sixth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in June 1953 on the occasion of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. The meeting was held prior to a Three Powers conference between Churchill, US President Dwight Eisenhower, and French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel in Bermuda which Commonwealth leaders hoped would lead to a Four Powers summit with the Soviet Union. Armistice talks to conclude the"
"states are Commonwealth realms, with the Head of the Commonwealth as their head of state. Five others are monarchies with their own individual monarchs (Brunei, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malaysia, Tonga) and the rest are republics. Republic of Ireland (from 1949 according to the Commonwealth; 1936 according to Irish government), Zimbabwe (2003), and Maldives (2016) are former members of the Commonwealth. South Africa, Pakistan and The Gambia left and later rejoined the Commonwealth. All dates below are provided by the Commonwealth of Nations Secretariat members list, and population figures are as of 1 January 2018. A. Unless otherwise noted, independence was gained"
"the 1950s. While these countries were proud of their independence from Britain, many of them elected to remain within the Commonwealth of Nations. The ""Commonwealth club"" provided a forum where the heads of government of the newly independent states met on equal terms with the heads of older self-governing Dominions like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. In 1960 the British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan responded to the Sharpeville massacre by delivering his ""Winds of Change"" speech to the South African Parliament. The speech recognised the inevitable growth of African national consciousness, which could no longer be ignored. MacMillan's"