Letter: The Privy Council
We have received the following letter about the article on the Privy Council in our April issue
To the Editor.
Much as I would like to agree with your remarks in STANDARD of April as to the Privy Council I am afraid that it is not quite so simple as it appears and would quote the late Lord Birkenhead (F. E. Smith) when he said that “if ever Democracy abused its numerical strength they would put its pretentions to the sword,” a remark that somewhat discounts the supremacy of the House of Commons. Certain interests in Australia recently challenged the right of its elected Parliament to nationalise the banks and it was referred to the Privy Council who declared the Act as unconstitutional. Orders in Council are so numerous and so cleverly drafted that many of them escape the scrutiny of the House of Commons. There are thousands alone dealing with Housing and certain orders are disguised as being under Defence Regulations that their contents are never questioned. It is yet too early to anticipate what the government of Eire will do if some legislation goes through their equivalent to our House of Commons that threatens some vested interest. They can no longer appeal to the Privy Council. But it is fairly safe to assume that they will accept the Church as their arbiter as under the Encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII in an Ex Cathedra Pronouncement he declared that Private Property is a Divine Institution. Naturally the king, even if he desired could not attend all the Councils and is probably only there on special occasions. There is no denying the executive powers of the Privy Council and most of its Orders merely go through the formality of securing the assent of the House of Commons. In practice our lives are almost dominated by Orders in Council. Hardly a moment exists that we are not under its influence. May I ask at this point, how did Mr. Churchill wage a private war in support of the Russian White Generals, Denikin and Kolchak, unless it was under some Order in Council? Unless there is some legislation cancelling the powers of Privy Council a clash is inevitable with possible serious results.
Yours, F. L. RIMINGTON (Leicester).
On most of the points raised in this letter we must refer our correspondent to the article in question. We did not maintain that the Privy Council has no powers— which is the gist of one of our correspondent’s arguments—but that its powers are given to it by Parliament and exercised by the Cabinet. Those who control Parliament could, if they wished, deprive the Privy Council of its powers. The fact that those who at present control Parliament do not wish to do so has nothing to do with the case.
Equally irrelevant is the flamboyant nonsense attributed to the late Lord Birkenhead.
The fact that those who control the government in Australia prefer to make use of the Privy Council as a Court of Appeal does not in the least support our correspondent’s belief that the Privy Council is a body with independent powers. If the Australian government did not want to use the Privy Council it could do what Canada and South Africa are doing. As we pointed out both countries are introducing legislation to terminate appeals to the Privy Council.
When we are asked how Mr. Churchill waged a private war in support of the anti-Bolshevik generals in Russia we can only reply that he did no such thing. He was acting in accordance with the policy of the government of which he was a member, a government dependent like other governments on its Parliamentary majority.
Finally, our correspondent destroys his own case by writing about the need for “legislation cancelling the powers of the Privy Council.” If he is right and the Privy Council has powers independent of Parliament how could Parliamentary legislation destroy those powers? If Parliament can legislate the Privy Council out of existence, as indeed it could, it is only because the powers of the Privy Council rest ultimately on Parliament. But that is our contention, not our correspondent’s.
ED. COMM.