THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, B, 1935 A PREGNANT JUDGMENT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 148, 8 June 1935, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, B, 1935 A PREGNANT JUDGMENT.

The decision issued by the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council and reported to us yesterday, with some English press comment to-day, is one of outstanding importance. Although delivered in connection with an Irish Free State action in itself affecting private rights of no interest excepting to the individuals directly concerned, it is one involving principles that affect all self-governing members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It has given an interpretation of the Statute of Westminster that affords its operation the widest possible scope. It virtually declares it to be competent, under that Statute, for the legislature of any such member to pass laws that may fundamentally alter its relations with other members, and that, too, notwithstanding that they may conflict with what has been spoken of as the Imperial legislation of the British Parliament.

In this it may, in the first instance, be noted that it practically confirms the legislation of the Irish Free State Parliament whereby litigants of that State were deprived of their right of resort to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council itself, still recognised by all the others as the ultimate court of appeal. Presumably, too, this would mean that* even in cases of dispute between the member States of the Empire recourse to this supreme tribunal would not be available in cases where .the Saorstat Eiran might be concerned. Thus it would almost seem as if in such cases there would be no established tribunal to which appeal might be made. That, however, merely provides a particular instance of the sweeping effect of the adoption of the Statute of Westminster, and it is merely as a pertinent indication of this that it is mentioned here. What we have to gather broadly from the judgment is that the dominion legislatures are to be the sole dictators of the destinies of the people they represent. All fetters—to use the word of the earlier message—that previously bound them to have regard for legislation by the British Parliament have been struck off. This leaves them free in almost every respect to follow their own devices, the only quali-

fication probably being an acknowledgment of the Crown so long as they wish to retain membership of the British Federation. It may perhaps be recalled that at the time when the Statute of Westminster was under discussion some highly refined arguments were, advanced by academic jurists as to the competence of any British Parliament to strip itself and all its successors of the Empire - wide authority with which they had previously been held to be endowed. No such theoretical considerations would appear to have entered into the present decision, which bases itself upon the Statute as it stands and so establishes it all the more firmly as the foundation upon which the relations of the United Kingdom and the self-governing dominions are in future to rest as among themselves. It is well that we should thus be sharply reminded not only of the privileges that have thus been conferred upon dominion legislatures, but also at the same time of the fresh and serious responsibilities that are implicit in them. It is more than likely that but very few among the peoples affected hae realised what this may really mean in the future. The reminder thus given may perhaps serve to awaken a sense of responsibility in them also as to the men they choose as their legislators. It is manifest that more than ever is it necessary that we should have men with some length and breadth of view capable of paying full regard to Imperial as wmll as to mere national and local affairs.