IRISH FREE STATE

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 November 1929, Page 7

IRISH FREE STATE

CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATIONS. (Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 27. The statement made in the Irish Free State Parliament by the Minister, of Defence (Mr Blyth), in which he was 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 (Conservative) asked the Prime 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 Dominion, 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 by the Imperial Conference in 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 no communication from the Irish Free State Government on this matter. Such a communication, and such a comunication alone, would receive his official attention.

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