All this, of course, led up to the famous clause 72, which is practically the only clause which has been touched. In fact the only other amendments are mere matters of drafting. Considerable disappointment was felt when Mr. Chamberlain announced that insuperable difficulties had been encountered in the way of an immediate introduction of a Bill to amalgamate the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the House of Lords in its appellate jurisdiction, and that for the present all it was proposed to do was to pay salaries of £6,000 a year to the four Colonial representatives on the Judicial Committee and to vive them seats in the House of Lords. This reform will doubtless be pleasing enough to the Australian judges and leaders of the Australian Bar who are afforded fresh prizes to strive for; but does not remove, as a properly constituted Imperial Court of {Appeal might have done, the objection felt in the Colonies to appeals to the Privy Council, For the rest Mr. Chamberlain, while acknowledging that the Imperial Parliament would never force absolutely opposed, strongly urged the upon Australia views to which they were
importance of maintaining in fall the exis ing right of appeal to the Queen in Council, and announced thit the Bill as introduced by the Government would be amended in this particular. Since then the Bill has been printed, and it is found that clause 72 has been struck out altogether.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.