IRISH FREE STATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 29 November 1929, Page 13

IRISH FREE STATE.

PRIVY COUNCIL MATTER.

QUESTION IN COMMONS. British Wireless. RUGBY,' Nov* 27. The statement made recently in the Irish Free State Dail by the Minister of Defence, Mr. Ernest Blythe, 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 to-dav.

Sir Kingsley Wood (Conservative) asked the Prime Minister, Mr. Mac Donald, whether the Government intended 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. Mr. Mac Donald replied that when so much of the constitutional working of the Imperial machinery was altered in consequence of the resolutions passed by the Imperial Conference of 1926, the Privy Council's position was left for consideration by the next Imperial Conference. Until that had met the position remained where it v. as.

The Government had received no communication from the Irish Free State Government on the matter. Such.a communication alone would receive his official attention. He had never experienced from the Irish Free State any inclination to do anything but observe its honourable obligations.