On 16 March 1909 the First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McKenna, warned the British Parliament of the growing strength of foreign navies and the immediate need to order at least four new battleships, with possibly four more later in the year. Fanned by the media outcry, a sense of crisis spread rapidly across the British Empire. Within a week, New Zealand had telegraphed an offer to finance a battleship, and a second if considered necessary. Within a month, Canada, Australia and various smaller settlements had rallied to provide their own “patriotic proposals”. Even the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales offered to jointly fund a battleship, should the Commonwealth Government fail to take appropriate action.

The Empire was in a period of transition. The larger colonies had but recently become dominions, and after years of dependence were only just accepting that they must play a serious part in imperial defence. The need for intimate defence cooperation between the Empire's formal members had long been recognised, and amid the confusion of separate schemes a coordinated response was deemed essential. At the end of April the British Secretary of State invited representatives from the five self-governing dominions(Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Cape Colony and Newfoundland) to an Imperial Conference in London. The gathering took place over July and August, and although its stated object was to discuss “the general question of Naval and Military Defence of the Empire”, there could be little doubt that naval defence would take centre stage.