ial legislation therefore
at once became necessary; but the obvious fact which emerged was that the
Judicial Committee had no machinery to put decisions into effect which
were contrary to local feeling. Of the last of these cases the Australian
Premier said at the "'Imperial Conference,' 1917," that the "decision was
one which must have caused great embarrassment and confusion if it were
not for the fortunate fact that the reasons for the Judicial Committee's
decision are stated in such a way that no Court and no Council in
Australia has yet been able to find out what they were."

It is little wonder that Mr. Hughes in the same speech should have said
that "Australia's experience of the Privy Council in constitutional cases
has been, to say the least of it, unfortunate." He also read an extract
from a resolution of the Final Court of Appeal of New Zealand, which
declared of the Judicial Committee that "by its imputations in the present
case, by the ignorance it has shown in this and in other cases of our
history, of our legislation, and of our practice, and by its long delayed
judgments, it has displayed every characteristic of an alien tribunal."

The spokesmen for the other States present were equally emphatic. "I
think," said Sir Robert Borden for Canada, "we have had just about enough
Appeal Courts, and I think the tendency in our country will be to
restrict appeals to the Privy Council rather than to increase them."
"There is," said Mr. Rowell for the same State, "a growing opinion that
our own Courts should be the final authority." "You know what our opinion
is in S. Africa," said Mr. Burton. "In our Constitution we have abolished
the right of appeal to the Privy Council as a right. There is no such
right with us at all, but the Constitution merely says that any right
residing in the King in Council to grant special leave to appeal shall not
be interfered with."

These utterances, and the entire course of history on this matter, reveal
an irritation which has grown with experience. The mechanism is merely a
mechanism, and it has not worked well. It has injured harmony, and it
manifestly has not brought justice. Even assuming that the Irish courts
should agree that the decision in any individual case appealed from should
stand, it could equally well argue that that decision could not be held to
govern other cases; and the effect of such a decision would be to make the
appeal nugatory in law.

Besides all of whic