PRIVY COUNCIL.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14729, 6 August 1921, Page 2

PRIVY COUNCIL.

FAITH IN IMPERIAL TICE.

When Professor J. A. Strahan read a paper on “Federation and Confederation in the British Empire,” at a University College Rhodes Lecture, Lord Justice Scrutton occupied the chair, and gave a racy description of the work of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He descibed this body as one of the threads, and a very odd one “that held together the different units of the British Empire. If you go into a slummy little street off Whitehall,” said the chairman, ‘you find an extremely obscure door. You will then go upstairs into a not very clean-looking room, where you will find a horseshoe table, and four or five sometimes rather sleepy old gentlemen sitting round it, being addressed bj r Counsel. (Laughter.) But if you sit and listen you will be amazed at the pageant that passes through that room. Indian communities come to ask the Court to decide whether a certain god has a right to pass through the streets of a certain Indian town with elephants or not. (Laugh*ter.) There comes sometimes the Commonwealth of Australia for _ the settlement of disputes between the States of Australia and the Commonwealth as to the exact limitations of the jurisdiction of each. There comes very frequently the Commonwealth of Canada, and there come representatives from the Mauritius, Trinidad, the Cape, and every colony brings the oddest questions to be decided by that perfectly impartial and trusted tiibunal. The result is that the Privy Council is known in the most obscure parts of the Empire , althmgh the people do not know what it is. (Laughter.) There is a story that in one of the most obscure parts. of India there was found an altar with worship going on. j The traveller asked the people whom they were worshipping, and they answered: ‘We do not knov but it is the great god Privy Council.’ ” (Laughter.) DAILY WORK. The observations of Lord Justice Scrutton have inspired a leading article in the “Daily "Telegraph” whose writer doubts whether the Judicial Committee lias ever heard a more picturesque suitor than the West African potentate Tvho- this week Appears before them. , This monarch is one of the Idejo White Cap Chiefs of Lagos, and he comes into court in a white robe covered with a cloak of blue and gold brocade; on his head is the titular white cap granted to his ancestors 1 t\vo centuries since, and in close attendance upon him is borne the State Umbrella. His cause concerns the rival claims \of himself and the Crown to certain lands. “We are concerned not with its nature but with the fact of a native of West Africa seeking justice from a little Committee of the PrivyxCouncil of the King of England. This is, indeed, but a striking illustration of the daily work of this Imperial Court. As for the Indian story where the people in a remote part were performing religious rites about an altar worshipping' “the great god Privy Council,” the “Daily Telegraph” hopes that all those who smile at the story have a clear idea of the origin and functiops of the Judicial Committee. That Court in its present form is not hallowed by antiquity- It is less than a hundred years old, and owes its existence to Lord Brougham. His intentions in the matter caused much uneasiness to that jealous and suspicious clerk of the Privy Council, Charles Greville. But whatever Brougham meant, it is clear that he gave the British Empire, building perhaps better than he knew, an institution of the highest value. Its authority is, indeed, derived not only {from nineteenth century legislation, but from the ancient tradition of the constitution which ascribes judicial authority to the Privy Council as representing the original continual Council of the King. From its foundation, in 1833, the Judicial Committee has been recognised and fully honoured as the final Court of Appeal for Britons and all subjects of the King-Emperor beyond the seas. “Though We are not . federated, though the ultimate political organisation of the Empire remains undetermined, while each year binds its component parts more closely, it is well we should remember one of the greatest bonds of union—faith in Imperial justice and the institution by which it is administered.”