525
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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conferring the right upon each Crown Colony to be represented on this Tryperial Court: it is that one Judge, or retired Judge, from the body of Crown Celonies should have a seat upon that Court. I think when one comes to consider the position of most of these Crown Colonies, that this Conne! will easier that they have a right to some ropresentation on such a Court. Any one who travels from England, suy to Shanghai, and goes through such ports as Colombo, Singapore, or Hazz Fong-ports which I venture to say have no rivals amongst the Colonies whie!. posers representative government-i venture to think that any one taking that voyage would come to the conclusion that any scheme which excluded these Colonies would be incomplete. The immediate arguments which appeal to my mind in favour of my action, I think may be put down as two. First of all, the advantage which would accrue to the Colonial Bench,of this and other Colonies, and secondly, the advantage which this Imperial Court would derive from the presence of a representative of the Crown Colonies on the Bench. With regard to the first, I think it will bo pretty obvious to all of you. The position of a Colonial Judge is not a particularly attractive one, when you set it side by side with the counter attractions of political and legal life in England ; he is not well paid, and if he has the luck to become Chief Justice, he has nothing more to look forward to in his judicial carcer except his pension. But once give him a chance of a well-paid seat on what I venture to think would be the most dignified Tribunal in the world, and the whole of his career is changed. I should think that the attraction of that chance would have the most important hearing on the whole of the Courts of the Colonies. Then again, consider the effect that the presence of one of our retired Judges would have upon the Privy Council, and what I want chiefly to lay stress upon on this point is this: the diverse training in various systems of law which the Crown Colony Judge generally geis. He may start in Singapore or Hong Kong, where English law is administered; he may go to Ceylon, where you find Roman Dutch law; he may then go on to Mauritiu, where you find French law. I have in my mind one instance of a Judge, now sitting on the bench of one of the Colonies, who has had experience in two of the Colonies of English law; in another of French and English law; in another of Spanish and French law, and in another of Roman Dutch law. Well, I venture to doubt if judicial experience of that kind could be obtained anywhere outside the service of the Crown Colonies: But not only, I think, bas he the advantage of a knowledge of divers systems of law, he has also the training which contact with the various races which come before him brings to his point of view. Thus in the Colonies I have mentioned, a Julge gets experience of Chinese, Malays, Sinhalese, Tamils, and others, which I venture to think will not be possessed by any other Judge who will have a seat on that Court. Of course it may be said, and probably will be said, that an Australian Judge will have a certain amount of experience with regard to Chinese. I venture to think, however, that an Australian Judge looks upon Chinese litigation brought before him with a very different spirit to that of a Judge in this Colony or in Hong Kong. In the mind of the one exclusion of the Chinese is the standpoint, and in that of the other a desire to attract them as one of the best sources of our population. On the first reading of the Commonwealth of Australia Bill, Mr. Chamberlain made one statement showing in what sense he considered the utility of a Colonial Judge consisted which, I think, is worth quoting verbatim. He pointed out that the present condition of the Judicial Committee was not such "as to make it certain that on every occasion when a Colonial case was involved there was a Colonial Judge with full knowledge of local conditions qualified to advise his colleagues." Now, if that is the object aimed at, and I venture to think it is, unless the Crown Colonics have some representation that object cannot be attained. I had hoped that the honourable and learned junior Member for Penang would have been present to-day, because it is a' subject which he has made, I think, peculiarly his own; but he was not able to be present. He has, however, authorized me, if I am in order in saying so, on his own behalf, and on behalf of the senior Member for Penang, to say that they cordially agree with the motion which I now propose to the Council. In conclusion, then, I ask the Council to accept this motion. So far as I know no similar motion has been brought forward in any of the other Crown Colonies, and I bring this forward in the hope that the Straits Settlements may take its proper place the foremost place--in bringing forward a question which has for its object the unity of the British Empire and the welfare of the Crown Colonies generally.
Mr. BURKINSHAW seconded the motion.
Mr. EARLE: Sir, there are two points in this motion which commend them- selves to me. The first is, that I recognize at once the strength that it must give to
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the Colonial Circuit, as has already been pointed out by the honourable Member, the proposer of the motion. The other point is one which I should have expected would have been dealt with by the seconder of the motion, judging from his remarks at a public meeting a few days ago regarding the advertising which he thought was necessary for the Colony. The honourable Member then suggested that it was the public of England whose educational deficiencies we need to correct; he seemed quite satisfied with the care taken of us by the Colonial Office; but I am inclined to think that the care is rather too much of a grandmotherly character. It is very necessary, I think, that this Colony should bring home to the Colonial Office the fact that we are of sound mind and baly, and able to walk alone. I think for that reason, apart altogether from the merits of the case, which I recognize at once, this motion deserves to receive our support. It is an open secret that a year ago the representative opinion of this Colony was in favour of a certain appointment to the Governorship, and, had the Colonial Office attached any weight to that opinion, we should now have had the pleasure of welcoming yong Excellency as Governor. If we only take a step now which will in future bring the Colonial Office into fuller knowledge of our value, then, I think, we shall have done a good thing for ourselves.
Mr. BURKINSHAW POSO to a point of order. He thought the honourable Member was scarcely in order in attributing to him the use of the word “advertising,' which he did not use, but which might have appeared in a newspaper report of the meeting.
Mr. EARLE apologized if the summary of the honourable Member's remarks he had made was not correct. He agreed that the honourable Member did not use the word "advertising," but he had merely given the effect of his remarks.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL; Sir, I have listened with very great pleasure to the extremely interesting speech of my learned friend on this important topic, and I am very glad he brought it forward. It seems to me to be a properly-timed and a properly conceived motion, and I should be very glad to give it my support. Of course, the presence of Judge who had had experience in the Courts of the Colonies would be, as my learned friend says, of very great use on many occasions; but it cannot be supposed that we could secure the presence on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of a Judge who had knowledge of all the local circumstances in which litigation arises, or really understood the manners and customs of all the people from whom every esse came. After a man has been considering in Africa the relative rights of a Chief and a neighbouring Chief to an umbrella or a stool, he may go into the customs with regard to killing wild beasts in the forests. After experience of that kind, he goes and tries a little Roman Dutch law; then he may go and get certain experience of gold mines and of the law of mining in various places, and he may then go somewhere else, where he gets a slight acquaintance with the Turkish system of land tenure. Well, of course, I should think that, when he sat upon the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, he would have a number of pleasant reminiscences; but whether he would have an accurate knowledge of all these systems is somewhat questionable. Therefore, what would be said against this motion is that the presence on the Committee of one of the Judges of the Crown
· Colonies, no doubt living large experience, but without having sufficiently accurate experience of every system through which he had passed, would not enable him to render such service as he otherwise would. That is, after all, not by any means a staing objection. The experience of the present members of the Privy Council is sometimes various, even as the Court is now constituted. What one porecives, if one is in that Court at all, is the great breadth of mind which pervades the Judges, from their very varied experience, and that, I am sure, is what would be given as much in the case of Crown Colonies as in other cases. I had, in my younger days, mucli » experience of the Judicial Committee, because I reported for a law periodical in that Court, and I was very much struck with the broad view they took of every case that came before then, and with the adaptability of the Court to the various systems which came within its cognizance. I think that what struck one was this, that sometimes there was a lack of exact knowledge of some particular point in law or custom, and the result of that was that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council got something of a reputation for opportunism. That, I think, was inevitable, when there was no source from which they could obtain a knowledge of the technicalities with which they were dealing. That danger would be considerably removed if the Crown Colony element was introduced, because the probability is you would have a man who, not in all cases, yet in many cases, would be a far better Judge of the technical nature of things, which would come before the Court, and would redeem it from that charge of
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