THE RIGHT OF APPEAL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 711, 11 December 1933, Page 5

THE RIGHT OF APPEAL

("Post" Special Correspondent.)

A NATIONAL BARGAIN

London, October 13. Before the Dail Eireann adjourned yesterday the final stages of the Bill to abolish Privy Council appeals were passed. Mr. W. E. Thrift, senior meniber for Dublin University, said that on every occasion when attacks were made on the Privy Council appeals, protests had been made by the Independent members. The rjght of appeal was part of a bargain that had been made, not with Great Britain, but among Irish nationals. The support of a certain section of the Irish people for the treaty was obtained very largely because concessions were made by those who were fighting against the British Government at the time, and the right of appeal to the Privy Council was one of those concessions. When concessiong were made in a bond, it was not an honest way of dealing with that bond to remove from it anything that the Government did not happen to like. The acquiescence in the treaty, which had been obtained from the minority as a result of concessions nf which the right to appeal to the Privy Council was regarded as the most important, had been adhered to honourably by the minority. It had done its best to make the treaty position workable. Ever since attempts had beep made to whittle away the concessions that had been niade. If the minority had not acquiesced there might have been no settlement with Britain in 192L . Mr. de Valera said he had heard ot guarantees about the Senate, but had heard nothing that concerned the Privy Council. They believed, he de-

clared, that the people had the right; to be completely free and that no outside body had any right, to dictate to them regarding their internal policy, and they proposed to proceed along thdse lines. If any bargains stood in the way of their sovereignty, those bargains would have to go.