A.—4.

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Ith Day.] Imperial Appeal Court. [12 June, 1911. Sir JOSEPH WARD—con*. tribunal on the retrial of a case in which he had taken part in our country. In my opinion, the only way in which the position can be improved, as far as New Zealand is concerned, is by having a permanent appointment made of a judge here, not for life, but for a period of five or seven years ; at the end of that time the judge, returning to his own country and again taking up his work in the Supreme Court there, and another judge coming here to take his place. Let me point out what would be the outcome of such a system, apart from the advantage it would be in regard to important cases to be dealt with coming from New Zealand. There is admittedly, very strongly evidenced at this Conference, a desire to have uniformity of laws and co-ordination of laws, as far as it is possible for us to have it. If, from the point of view of each portion of the Dominions, that uniformity is wanted as a valuable addition to the present system, I do not know of anything that could do more good than the appointment of a representative judge from the respective countries I have referred to. When going into the question of the assimilation of the laws and the unification of the laws as far as possible, having regard to the different considerations applying to the position of the different Dominions, I do not know of any section of men who could do such valuable work in this respect as the judges from the different countries. In the case of South Africa, I concede to Mr. Malan, who spoke upon this matter, that they have got practically what they want by the fact of Lord de Villiers being a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ; but that is no reason why they should not be agreeable to the rest of the Dominions getting into as good a position as they themselves now are in that respect. The PRESIDENT : Let me point out again, that Lord De Villiers is not permanently or temporarily resident in this country, he only comes over here very occasionally ; whereas your proposal, as I understand it, is that there should be a judge from each of the Dominions permanently quartered here for the teim of five years, sitting upon the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at any rate —I do not know whether the suggestion extends to the House of Lords also. Sir JOSEPH WARD : No, only to the Judicial Committee. The PRESIDENT : I do not know whether your proposal extends to his sitting to hear English appeals as well ? Sir JOSEPH WARD : No ; I say let the English appeals be kept in a separate category, as suggested by the Lord Chancellor. The PRESIDENT : But such a judge is to sit and hear appeals from the Dominions, say, from South Africa, for which special leave has been granted ; because you will remember that under the Consitution of South Africa, as we have been reminded, there is absolutely no right of appeal at all; and Mr. Malan said, I think, that he did not think there would be more than one appeal in perhaps four or five years, because the appeals would only be heard on special leave being granted by the Privy Council. Is it your proposal that we should have a Judge from South Africa as a permanent member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council when the probability is that from South Africa there will not be more than one appeal in five years ? Is it really a profitable employment of the time of an eminent South African lawyer that he should be kept here for that sole purpose ? Viscount HALDANE : At an expense to his Dominion of 5,000 Z. or 6,0001. a year. The PRESIDENT : We have not had the question of expense dealt with at all yet. Sir JOSEPH WARD : I propose to refer to that question presently. I cannot put myself in the shoes of South Africa, and I do not presume to do so ; but as far