MANDATORY POWERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1923, Page 5

MANDATORY POWERS.

IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Durban, Nov. 30. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court delivered an important judgment affecting the legality of mandatory power under the Versailles Treaty, arising out of an appeal against the conviction of Jacobus Christian, one of the leaders in the Bondelswartz revolution of 1922, on a charge of high treason. The question at issue was whether a mandatory Government was a sovereign power against which treason could be committed. The court quoted the precedents of the lonian Islands and the Transvaal Republic. Although in both eases sovereignty was considerably curtailed by the British protectorate and suzerainty respectively, their subjects were liable to action for treason. The court held that the Government of South-West Africa was not a sovereign independent State, but the sovereignty formerly residing in the German Government must now reside in the Union Government as the mandatory authority, and that the Union is the sovereign power, being a signatory to the Versailles Treaty and a member of the League of Nations. The appeal was dismissed.