PRIVY COUNCIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1940, Page 3

PRIVY COUNCIL

HISTORY AND FUNCTION. The Privy Council, to which the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Fraser) was recently appointed, is descended from the Court of the Norman Kings, and was then a general feudal assembly performing all the functions of central government without differentiating between them. Out of this Court developed the King's Council, which by the time of King Henry VII. had become an important instrument of the Crown, with a conciliar oath and a more determinate membership. In Tudor times there was a further division of functions and out of the King’s Council grew chiefly “the Council at Court" and “the King's Council in the Star Chamber.” The former body became the Privy Council. The membership has grown from about 20 in the Middle Ages, to over 300. Members of the Council are entitled to be designated “the Right Honourable,” and consist mostly of dignitaries who' have held, or hold, high political, judicial or ecclesiastical office in Britain, the dominions or the colonies. Office lasts for the life of the Sovereign and six months after, but it is the custom for the new King to renew the appointment. Members of the British Cabinet are necessarily Privy Councillors, and they principally form the acting Privy Council on such rare occasions as it is required to function. The Council js summoned to act “with others' upon the death of the King. The Lord President of the Council, a position occupied at present by Mr Neville Chamberlain, is the Fifth Great Officer of Strife, and as such is always a prominent member of the Cabinet. The Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, and Messrs J. G. Coates and G. W. Forbes are other New Zealand members of the Privy Council, and two former Governors-General of the Dominion, the Earl of Liverpool and Lord Bledisloe, are also “counsellors.”