PEERESS AND THE LORDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18174, 21 August 1922, Page 8

PEERESS AND THE LORDS.

: REJECTION OF CLAIM. ; LADY itHONDDA'S CASE'. [PHOM OCfB OWN COSEESPONDENT.] LONDON, July 7. Reasoned opinions have been given for ! and against the dismissal of Lady Rhondda's claim under the Sex Disqualification Removal Act, to take her seat in the House of Lords. The Committee of Privileges first reported in favour, but later reversed its decision. After dealing at great length with Statutes and Standing Orders, the Lord Chanpellor said that upon a personal perusal of the words in Lady Khondda's patent it was clear 'that according to the ordinary principles of construction, and apart altogether from such disqualifications as were imposed the common law, she was inc&pablo of receiving a writ by reason oi the terms of the patent itself. The patent conferred a peerage/ dignity upon "Viscount Rhondda, and after his decease, in the events which had happened, upon the petitioner, with remainder after her decease to her heirs

male; but when it came to define the incidents of the dignity so -conferred it distinguished between viscount Rhondda and those males, who might hereafter hold the dignity on the one hand and Viscountess Rhondda on the other, giving to the former, and by silence denying to (lie latter the right to a seat, place and voice. The Lord Chancellor said the doctrine that the King, having created a peer, could not direct that he should not be summoned to Parliament, had become set-, tied by constitutional ; law in the course of the" 17th century, but, as was so often the.case;, it reprciwted not in truth the statement of a legal doctrine, but the result of a constitutional struggle. "The case is not one of suspension of a right or abeyance of an activity," said the Lord Chancellor. "The holder of a peerage dignity who is a minor is not entitled to receive a writ, but. lie may grow up and will then become so entitl&i. AMon or a bankrupt is not untitled to receive a writ, but a felon may receive a pardon and a bankrupt his discharge. A femala must remain a t femala till she dies," He had no difficulty upon the construction of the statute alone in reporting to the House against the petitioner in this ewe. It vru enfficient to sAv that the Legislature, in dealing with this matter, could not be taken to have departed from the usage of centuriaa or to have employed eueh loose and ambiguous words to carry out so momentous a revolution in the constitution of that House. He .was content to baaa hia judgment on thin alone, though ha had in an earlier portion of hia speech dealt fully with the points arising upon the document* creating the peerage and upon the nature of the peerage dignity itself, because they were elaborately argued at the Ba* f < ware of great historicaUnterest, and seemed to him also to bo fatal to the petitioner's claim, He wished to make it clear in expressing this view that he should hold the same opinion, whether Lady Rhondda eat tinder a patent or under a writ. Lord Haldano waa unable to agi'&e with the conclusions com® to about thiii claim by the majority of the committee. It appeared to him to be impossible to say that the removal of the sex disq'tialifccA tion they had been considering was nor within the purposa of the words of the Act.