A.—4

330

Committee on Arbitration Awards. [15 June, 1911. CHAIRMAN : Yes; the reason is, because the Chambers of Commerce are desirous that it should be done, because they have found actually in their commercial relations that it is to them rather a serious matter. That is the point of it. That is why it is confined to commercial arbitrations; and also, I conceive, there would be a good deal of difficulty in enforcing awards in other arbitrations. For example, arbitrations which take place under an order of our courts, or in consequence of some statute that we have here. All we seek is, if you have two parties to an agreement to refer some commercial matter to arbitration, that once the award has been given and the judge has pronounced that it should be enforced in this country, we should be able to enforce it in your Dominions; and we propose that we should give exactly the same facility to any awards which are enforced by order of a judge in your Dominions. Dr. FINDLAY : We had a discussion upon quite an analogous matter in this Conference, and that was with regard to reciprocal legislation for the recognition of orders in certain cases of destitute persons. It seems, as you will require to give effect to what is proposed here, the principle might be extended a little further than merely commercial awards. We unanimously adopted a resolution in favour of some step being taken to give mutual recognition to orders in such cases as I have mentioned. Mr. Fisher was strongly in favour of that view. CHAIRMAN : It would be worth while considering also, although it does not come within the province of this Resolution, whether some steps could not be taken to enforce judgments as we do with regard to Ireland and Scotland. Dr. FINDLAY : As I was urging upon the Conference the other day, the oversea Dominions are treated largely as if we were foreign countries. While we are talking about the unity of the Empire uniformity in these matters is very desirable. Sir WILFRID LAURIER ;It is practically the same thing. An award is a thing which is not a record. It becomes a record when presented to a judge, and then, when it is a record, there is no reason why it should not be treated as a judgment. Dr. FINDLAY : Unfortunately we do not treat judgments as we ought to. CHAIRMAN : This will be a beginning. Dr. FINDLAY : A judgment obtained here in England, with all the proper preliminaries of judicial inquiry, is not recognised in New Zealand. Sir WILFRID LAURIER : This is simply a corollary of the proposition we had the other day. Dr. FINDLAY : I think we ought to extend the principle. Sir WILFRID LAURIER : I think we can accept this Resolution. Dr. FINDLAY : Yes; and if possible we should like it extended to other cases. CHAIRMAN : I agree entirely, and I think if we can arrive at an agreement with regard to this, and put it into actual effective shape we shall have gone a long way towards getting uniformity in legal procedure and practice in our countries which would be very valuable. Dr. FINDLAY : It is a thing which one practising in the law recognises the value of. Do you agree, Sir Wilfrid ?