PRIVY COUNCIL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 127, 31 May 1937, Page 6

PRIVY COUNCIL.

CANADIAN AGITATION.

TO ABOLISH RIGHT OF APPEAL.

(By AF.PAD SZIGETVARY.)

While the Irish Free State's attempts to abolish the right of appeal of its nationals to the Privy Council have frequently been referred to, little has been heard of a similar agitation in the senior Dominion, Canada. It was not until the question was raised by M. Ernest Lapointe. the Federal Minister of Justice, at the opening of the Imperial Conference, that the strength of the movement was realised overseas. In Canada, however, the desire for doing away with appeals to the Privy Council ha* become nation-wide. Not only in the Federal Houses of Parliament, but in the provincial ones, the question is being discussed, with opinion gradually hardening in favour of abolition. At first resentment found expression chiefly among the French-Canadians! a group which to a growing extent favours complete independence from Britain. Unrecorded in the Fnglish language Press and little suspected by the public, the movement for indejK-ndence has re.uhed a stage where the form of government for a. repnblie on the banks of the St. Lawrence to be named Laurentia. after the famous French-Canadian statesman, has been promulgated. It is to be a "corporative State." According to the movement's principal journal. "LTndependence," "the Parliamentary regime can lead us only to ruin, because it requires the existence of parties which dissipate our national energies. The corporative State » the juridical affirmation of the real man." The State is to be anti-Semitic. Naturally one of the first steps toward* the establishment of Laurentia is the effort to abolish the right of appeal to the .Privy Council as one of the few .remaining tangible fies which bind Canada to Britain. It is significant that M. Lapointe, himself the mouthpiece of French-Canadian opinion, stated recently: "It is difficult to reconcile Canada's national status with the necessity of appealing to London whenever a constitutional difficulty develops. Constitutional changes are an absolute necessity." Support of Other Parties. If is. easy, of course, to understand the French-Canadian attitude towards the Privy Council, but the surprising fact emerges that . they are supported by Conservatives and Liberals, who are mostly of Anglo j Saxon and Celtic stock. Speaking recently it: the Canadian House of Commons, Mr. C. H. Cahan, the Conservative leader, said that the Privy Council was disregarding the Constitution ot ' Canada in its decisions. He also declared ! that the council in declaring against Canada's I "New Deal" legislation had stepped outside , the law and invaded the political field. "It J is attempting to relegate Canada to a colonial status," he said. i A Liberal, Mr. J. Thorson, used equally strong terms. "The Privy Council decisions." ; he said, "mutilate the Constitution and deny i a national status to Canada." Urging abolition of the right of appeal, he claimed that "the Privy Council has proved itself not a court of law but a court of political expediency." -. ' In recent years the Privy Council decision which hurt Canadian national pride most was that awarding the potentially valuable hinterj land of Labrador to Newfoundland. Canada's I claim was that Newfoundland was entitled only to the coastline, whereas Newfoundland claimed inland to the watersheds of the rivers. The Council's decision against Canada was given at a time when Canada was negotiating for the purchase of Labrador. There was a vast difference in the price offered and the price Newfoundland demanded. The Privy . Council's decision naturally strengthened Newfoundland's hand to the extent that it could name its own. increased, price. Negotiations have lapsed, but Canadians have not forgotten, just as they have not forgotten the "Panhandle" of Alaska. Reference to the Labrador decision provides, an example of Mr. P. B. Bennett's (the late Conservative Prime Minister) attitude towards the Privy Council. The Labrador dispute licing an eternal question, in that it was one between two Dominions, was. to him, a case for the Privy Council. On the other hand. he favours alterations to the Constitution to ensure that internal Canadian laws of a social nature cannot be the subject of appeal to the Privy Council. It was his "New Deal" measures which suffered most from appeals to the Privv Council, Thus it would appear that before long in Canada, the Union of South Africa and the Irish Free State the right of appeal to the Privy Council will be abolished. At the same time it must, he remembered that as far as the non-self-governing colonies, the protectorates, etc.. are concerned, the Council performs most valuable service in that its decisions are respected by all races and all creeds as just and unbiased, and for them there i could be no substitute for it.