DOMINION STATUS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 9, 12 January 1932, Page 9

DOMINION STATUS

SPIRIT THAT BINDS

STATUTE AND IRELAND

MORE VIEWS^EXPRESSED

4From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 24th November. "There would, indeed, be" a pretty mess," comments "Tho Times" on the . question of tho Statute of Westminster, "if any of tho Empire Parliaments were to decide to ignore its moral obligations and its engagements towards the rest of the Empire; but the way to guard against that clangerassuming that there is a danger—is not by attempting to maintain restrictions which had long been a dead letter ■when they were formally declared obsolete in 1926. To endeavour to meet it by rejecting or altering the Statute would inevitably be regarded, not only by the Irish Free State and the South African Union, but probably hy other Dominions as wel}, as an (attempt to go back on the Balfour Declaration,, to say nothing of its being an open departure from the agreements reached at the Conferences of 1929 and 1930." "The Irish Free State," says the "Daily Express," "buys from us more than we take from them. That is a fact we should not forget. The Irish are a proud and sensitive people. They have contributed much to civilisation. Let us now treat them with all tho respect and regard which, wo owe them as fellow-citizens of the Commonwealth.- Their President, Mr. Cosgrave, is a great national figure. Ho is a credit'to the Empire. Let us recognise that, freely and generously. Let us take pride in Mr. Cosgrave. "Let us believe in the Irish and their loyalty to the treaty which tl/oy have signed with us and registered ', at. Geneva. That is the way to c^ser relations, to a fuller friendship, to a forgetting of old disputes, and finally, as it may be, to that complete partnership which we desire." SERIOUS VIEW TAKEN. Lawyers, however, take a more serious view of the matter. Professor J. H. Morgan, of University College* writing to "The Times," says:— t '■'_ Under this "Statute" as it stands it is within the power of the Irish Free State Legislature, the moment the Statute is passed, to repeal each and every article of that "agreement" known as the Irish Free State Agree: ment Act. The effect on the position of Northern Ireland, coupled with the power which, under the '' Statute," the Irish Free Stato will have of legislating "extra-territorially," may be of almost; incalculable danger, tcr the .Government' of Northern Ireland. Lord Hailsham, in his speech on 10th November, urged that. the Statute of Westminster would, jn practice, prove to be so harmless as to be almost "obsolete" from the moment it was passed. By that, he meant, I think, that no Dominion Legislature would take advantage of the vast, and indeed un-? limited, powers conferred on it by the Statute exercise them. I, entirely agree with 'his view as regards five of the Dominions. But as regards a sixth, no one who knows what is going on there can doubt that the powers conferred by this Statute are going to be exploited to the uttermost. I have unimpeachable information on that point. "But there is an even greater-danger ahead. Until now there has been no legal definition of what Dominion status means—it has been merely a political catchword. The "Statute"- of West■minster'now provides us with' pne.r; And in that Statute every Dominion is given power to repeal the Act of Settlement, and, in colloquial language, to deprive His Majesty of his Cvown as King in that particular Dominion—in other words, to establish, with all the legal decorum of a Dominion Statute, a Eppublic. The preamble to the "Statute" of Westminster saying, in very veiled words, that "it would not bo in accord .•.with the established constitutional position..for a Dominion to do this, is, as every lawyer who has read his cases on the construction of/ statutory preambles knows, of no legal force or value . whatsoever." ' KING UN COUNCIL. .. .Mr.,J. R, Fisher, barrister-at-law and a member of the Irish Boundary Commission, says in another letter tc "The Times'*: "Strictly speaking, there is no such document as the 'Treaty of 1921.' The relations between Great\ Britain and Southern Ireland aro settled by the St»te Constitution Act (1922) and tho corresponding Irish Act (Act of Dail Eireann sitting as; a •Constituent Assembly). To these Acts i,s as a Second Schedule the text of the "Articles of Agreement for" between Great Britain and Ireland/ which Articles then become ..the.."Scheduled Treaty," ana "are , thereby given the force of law.". The text: of. the Constitution itself forms the First Schedule. "The- Constitution came into effect by Boyal Proclamation on 6th December, .1922, and the Proclamation expressly cites the words of the Constituent Act: <If any provision of the said Constitution, or of any amendment thereof, or of any law mado thereunder, is m any respect repugnant to any^of the provisions of tho Scheduled Treaty it shall, to the extent only of such repugnancy, be absolutely Void and inoperative.' No one has suggested that 'repugnancy' shall be decided by vote of the British Parliament; nor could any constitutional authority suggest that Dail Eireann has such power The. Judicial Committee of. the Privy Council has decided that that power resides in the King in Council, and until some higher authority decides otherwise most people will be content with that." TWO PARTIES IN A TREATY. .1' Surely no unilateral action could rewrite a treaty without the consent of the other party?" says Scrutator, of the "Sunday Times." "The Irish .Dail might, it is true, under this Act rewrite its former translation of the Treaty into the form of an Act, but it could not thereby vary the Treaty itself except with our consent. And even if it could, is the point of real practical importance? If the wish to be loyal to contract ceased to influence the Free State-.Government, it could ' repudiate tho Treaty itself tho fact that under the Statute it could do so under the forms of law would surely make no difference.to its willingness or its reluctance. It is tho spirit that matters,' not the law; the law kills, the spirit makes loyalty alive." HAVING CAKE THAT IS EATEN. Itr. A. Alfred Dickie (one of His Majesly'3 counsel in Ireland) points out that the Free State got its Dominion status by the treaty. "The Statute of Westminster confirms certain rights to Dominion status, but in order to get that right it must be a Dominion. It cannot tear up the treaty and then claim that it is legally entitled to do so under the Statute of Westminster when by its very Act it ceases to be n Dominion. "Tho right of appeal to tho Privy Council stands in a different category altogether. The Irish Government says that the right of appeal is not iv the treaty and only is implied in the treaty jn the words Ireland is to' have the 'same status as Canada.' And as tho