PRIVY COUNCIL.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 282, 28 November 1929, Page 7

PRIVY COUNCIL.

IRELAND'S ATTITUDE. No Official Notice Received Of Repudiation. IMPERIAL CONFERENCE ITEM. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 12.30 p.m.) RUGBY, November 27.

The statement made in the Irish Free State Parliament by the Minister of Defence, Mr. Blythe, in which he is reported to have repudiated the authority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a court of appeal, was the subject of a question in the House of Commons.

Sir Kingsley Wood (Con., Woolwich) asked the Prime Minister whether it was the intention of the Government to maintain the terms of the Irish Treaty and to ensure that the position of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the supreme court of appeal for the Dominions, including the Irish Fiee State, should at all times be fully safeguarded ?

The Prime Minister replied that when so much of the constitutional working of our Imperial machinery was altered in consequence of resolutions passed by the Imperial Conference of 1926, the Privy Council's position was left for consideration by the next Imperial Conference and until that had met the position remained where it was. The Government had had no communication Irom the Irish Free State Government on this matter. Such a communication, and such a communication alone, would receive his official attention.

Replying to a further question, the Prime Minister said that he had never experienced from the Irish Free State any inclination to do anything but observe its honourable obligations.