IRISH ISSUE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 938, 7 December 1933, Page 1

IRISH ISSUE.

HOUSE OF LORDS DEBATE. Breach of Treaty. LORD HAILSHAM ANSWERS TOR GOVERNMENT. British Official Wireless. (Received December 7, 12.30 p.m.) RUGBY, December C The Irish question was raised in the House of Lords by Lord Danesfort, who asked what action was to be taken to protect the undoubted rights of British subjects to appeal to the Privy Council. He declared that recent Irish Free State legislation forbidding such appeal was a br.ach of the Treaty. Lord Carson, who is in poor health and now rarely attends at the House of Lords, received a sympathetic hearing. He said that the oath had gone, and the other promised safeguards had been abolished from time to time. Now the last remaining safeguard, appeal to the Privy Council, had gone. He urged the Government to reconsider the whole qu. stion. Lord llailsham, in replying, said the debate was rendered important by the intervention of Lord Carson, to whom he paid a warm tribute. It was an unenviable position for any member of the Government to reply to criticisms which he could only say were undoubtedly justified with regard to a series of actions which he could make no attempt to defend. The Government had consistently taken the view that under the terms of what was called the Irish Treaty it was not competent for tha Free State Government, without refutation of honourable obligations and disregard of the terms to which it had set signature, unilaterally to abrogate the right of petition for special leave to appeal to his Majesty in Privy Council. There had been a long series of legal decisions, which had laid it down that the right of a subject to petition his Majesty for special leave to app. al could not be taken away by enactment by the Legislature of a Dominion. without the express authority of an Imperial statute. As the validity and effect of a Free State statute might be raised for judicial determination by the Privy Council, it would be improper for him to suggest that he had even an opinion about it. In the absence of a decision to the contrary the Government could not propose to recognise any action taken in breach of treaty rights. He believed that there were in the Free State a verylarge number of people who were full of Irish honour, and anxious to see that the obligations undertaken by them were observed. The British Government profoundly regretted any divergence of opinion between th: Government of the Irish Free State and their own, or any of the interests between the two countries. The interests of both were best served by the closes* association.