A—s

202

Seventh 1 )av. 26 April 1907.

Since those events the Government, and, I think, the great majority of the Parliament and people of Australia, have not altered their attitude . upon this question. They are no more contented with the present condition of appeal cases than they were in 1900 or 1901. Nor are their sentiments likely to alter after the judgment given lately in an Australian case in which two matters of vital importance came before the consideration of the Judicial Committee. The first question related to the right of hearing an appeal at all under such circumstances; the second related to the principle of interpretation to be adopted in respect to the constitution of the Commonwealth. The two taken together raised the most fundamental public issues for Australia that could well be summarised in any single case. It was heard by two Lords of Appeal, one of them the late Lord Chancellor, and two Colonial judges—a Court of four. If my memory serves me rightly, within two or three weeks of the hearing of that case a Court of exactly twice the same strength four Lords of Appeal and four other judges—assembled to rehear a case which, so far as its financial subject-matter was concerned, affected the sum of 600/. in the State, of New South Wales. Of course, it is impossible to suggest, even in the vaguest way, any scale of proportion by which the relative importance of cases can be judged. Great principles may possibly arise in connection with the smallest sums and slightest personal transactions. But in the one particular case, as I have said, the scope of the Commonwealth Constitution from a judicial aspect was in a measure at stake. We cannot think, and cannot for a moment admit, that under such circumstances the arrangement by which that attendance of judges was obtained was satisfactory. We are aware of the special manner in which this Court is constituted. Attention has been called to that for many years. During the Australian Convention, which resolved upon proposals restricting the Appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, that was one of the grounds upon which a very decided view was taken. Although alterations have been made from time to time and decided improvements of late, it is evident that, even regarded in its present condition, the system adopted is by no means satisfactory to us, nor, I think, is it satisfactory to many other than Australian litigants. The aim that we have was well expressed in course of the debate on the Commonwealth Bill, if my memory serves me, by the Right Honourable R. B. Haldane, when he said that he understood the Colonial view to be that what in the shape of a Court of Appeal was good enough for the people of Great Britain was quite good enough for the Colonies, and what was not good enough for the people of Great Britain was not good enough for Colonial litigants. That was a very pithy way of putting the case as it presents itself to us. We venture to entertain the opinion that notwithstanding the theory of its relation to the Crown, but from a purely legal point of view, the House of Lords is the tribunal to be preferred. It certainly stands higher in the estimation, at all events, of Australian lawyers than the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, speaking of it, of course, as a Board and not under special* circumstances. If the two arc to be compared, having some regard, of course, to the differences in their procedure, the House of Lords is preferred in Australia. The fact that in the case of the Judicial Committee you get but one judgment has its advantages in the way of simplification, and does not promote doubts which might otherwise arise, but it leaves us absolutely unaware whether that judgment was arrived at by a majority of one or by the unanimous consent of the whole of the distinguished lawyers who form that Court. Tt has to be taken or left. The practice of the House of Lords, which at the sacrifice of some apparent simplicity does afford a great many lights upon every question submitted, often from a number of quite individual standpoints, leads our litigants, as

Imperial Court of Appeal. (Mr. Deakin.)