PRIVY COUNCIL

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 56, 29 November 1929, Page 11

PRIVY COUNCIL

ATTITUDE OF IRISH FREE STATE MR. MACDONALD REPLIES TO QUESTIONS (British Official Wireless,) 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 (C.) asked the Prune Minister whether it was the intention of the Government to maintain the terms of the Irish Treaty and ensure that the position of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the supreme Court, of Appeal for the Dominions, including the Irish Free 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 at the Imperial Conference in 1926, ’he Privy Council’s position was left for consideration by the next Imperial Conference, and until that had met >-.e position remained where it was. The Government had had no communication from the Irish Free State Government on tins matter. Such communication and such communication alone would receive his official attention. Replying to a further question, the Prune Minister said that he had never experienced from the Irish Free State any inclination to do anything but observe its honourable obligations.