LAWS OF DOMINIONS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1929, Page 9

LAWS OF DOMINIONS

CONFERENCE IN LONDON

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 18th October.

Representatives of the Dominions and the United Kingdom arc meeting each day in the "Moses" Eoom at the House of Lords for a conference on the operation of Dominion legislation and merchant shipping legislation. The "Moses" Eoom is so named, by the Tvay, because it contains a picture of the patriarch handing the tablets of the law to the Children of Israel. Sir James Parr and Mr. S. G-. Raymond, K.C., are representing New Zealand. The proceedings are private, no Press representatives being allowed to be present.

As its first act the conference sent a message of greeting to the King in the following terms:—"The representatives of the several parts of the] British Commonwealth assembled in conference on the operation of Dominion legislation and merchant shipping legislation desire at their first meeting to send repectful _ greetings to the King. They rejoice at Your Majesty's recovery from your long and serious illness, and hope that Your Majesty, with Her Majesty the Queen, may be given health and strength for many years to watch over the destinies and to promote the welfare of your peoples in all parts of your Empire."

Lord Passfield, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, opened the proceedings as chairman by extending a welcome to the representatives of the Dominions and India. A general survey ef the ground to be covered by the «onference was then made by the At-torney-General on behalf of the United Kingdom. He was followed by Mr. X/apointe (Canada), Sir Harrison Moore (Australia), Sir James Parr tNew Zealand), Mr. Beyers (Union of South 'Africa), Mr. M'Gilligan (Irish Free State), and Sir Muhammad Habibuli"\ (India).

The conference will remain■■ in seseion for some weeks. The appointment of these committees was recommended by. the last Imperial Conference. The Committee on Dominion Legislation will examine the existing restrictions, formal or material, on such legislation, and the best way of carrying out in practice the principles that each Dominion should be able to legislate extra-teritorially in support of internal order and good government. It will also study the principles embodied or implied in the Colonial Laws Validity Act of 1865, and the extent to which the provisions of that Act should be repealed, amended, or modified in the light of the relations between the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations as denned in the report of the Committee on Intel-Im-perial Relations, which was adopteu by the Imperial Conference of 1926. The other committee will examine the Merchant Shipping Act in the light of the changes in the constitutional status of the Dominions since this legislation was enacted, and in the interests of uniformity of practice.