when the Munich Agreement was signed on 30 September 1938, giving Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Germany. This pact seemed to have appeased Hitler and avoided war. But, by the beginning of the following year, the uneasiness that persisted after the Munich Agreement was once again increasing and Mackenzie King began psychologically preparing parliament for Canada going to war. In his speech on 16 January 1939, he quoted Wilfrid Laurier from 1910: "if Britain is at war, we are at war, and liable to attack"; words that triggered a negative reaction, most strongly felt within Cabinet. Minister of Justice Ernest Lapointe threatened to resign and asserted the Prime Minister's statement went against the Statute of Westminster, 1931, which, in combination with the Balfour Declaration of 1926, had "established that the United Kingdom and the Dominions were now autonomous in domestic or external affairs"; Canada in 1939 had "the option of making its own decision." After Germany disregarded the Munich Agreement and invaded the Czech areas of Bohemia and Moravia on 15 March 1939, Mackenzie King vascillated: he told the House of Commons on 20 March that Canada would go to Britain's aid if bombs fell on London. Ten days later, he said the idea of Canada going to war, only 20 years after the last, was "sheer madness", though also saying the government would reject neutrality. He told the British government in April that he could not predict Canada's course of action, should Britain go to war and be attacked. Lapointe stated Canada's participation in any conflict would be in its own self-interest. His approach was viewed favourably by the Canadian media and public. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and the United Kingdom and France declared war on 3 September. At first, Mackenzie King and Lapointe asserted in the Commons that Canada was bound by the British declaration, regardless of the absence of any explicit Canadian approval for, or given to, the edict issued by George VI on 3 September; they believed Canada was at war, though just how much the country contributed to that war was up to the Canadian government. However, after it was noted that Canada was not on the list of belligerent states in the declaration of neutrality promulgated by President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt on 5 September, the Canadian Parliament, which was not scheduled to return until 2 October, was recalled by