EMPIRE CONSTITUTION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 124, 21 November 1931, Page 14

EMPIRE CONSTITUTION

STATUTE OF WESTMINSTER

SECOND READING PASSED

(Received 21st November, 1 p.m.)

LONDON, 20th November

In moving the second reading of the Statute of Westminster, in the House of Commons, Mr. J. 11, Thomas, Dominions Secretary, said that the Bill represented the terms of the law o£ equality of status. The power of disallowance was recognised by the 1929 Legal Conference a's obsolete and capable of abolition, if desired, subject to one exception affecting trustee securities, which the Bill preserved. Arrangements were now being made to obtain concerted action affecting merchant shipping, and this would be signed and operate concurrently, with the passage of the Bill.

The Dominion Parliaments had expressed approval of the Bill without exception.

Sir Stafford Cripps expressed the Labour Party's approval of the Bill, which was read a second time without divi-

Sir Thomas Inskip, Solicitor-General, said that the Irish Free State and South Africa were the only two Dominions' Constitutions framed in a unitary; principle, so if the Irish Free State' was inserted in the Bill, the same would be necessary in respect to the South African Constitution. He emphasised the safeguard in the preamble that all must consent to any alteration in the position of the Crown. The Irish Government had never suggested a desire to break the treaty. Even, if it were repudiated, he would say emphatically that they were then dependent only on the moral obligations involved in the maintenance of the treaty.

The "Sun-Herald" learns that the Agents-General have agreed to .an amendment.to the Statute safeguarding the sovereign rights of States, wThich Mr. Boycc tabled after discussion with Sir Thomas Inskip and Mr. Thomas.