CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1938, Page 8

CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS

FUTURE POSITION IMPOSSIBLE TO FORESEE. “Constitutional laws, like any other laws, get out of date,” said Professor J. L. Brierly, in a recent broadcast talk. “When a constitution is drafted, it is sheer impossibility to foresee the future conditions in which it will have to be applied. Let me tell you of a very serious situation which has just arisen in Canada. Canada, as a member of the International Labour Office, has made certain treaties dealing with labour matters; but the courts have held that the matters dealt with fall within the sphere of the provinces to regulate, and not Canada as a whole, and she now finds it impossible legally to carry these treaties into effect. Such a situation could not have been contemplated when the Constitution was framed, because at that date Canada was a colony with no treaty-making powers. Yet now that she is a nation, she finds herself paralysed in the exercise of one of the essential attributes of nationhood, by a document which it is not quite impossible, but certainly immensely difficult, to change. This international disadvantage of federal systems is, perhaps, their most serious disadvantage today when international relations play so vastly increased a part in the life of States.