644
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

The whole appellate business from the Australian Colonies therefore has amounted to 112 cases,
of which one-third have never been prosecuted at all. The cases actually heard average 2 or 3 a year.
Out of a list of 86 Appeals set down for hearing after Trinity Term, there was but 1 from New South
Wales and 1 from Victoria, and these two cases have just been heard. The business of the Australian
Colonies forms therefore but a very small fraction of the business of the Privy Council.

It also appears from this Statement, which gives the exact dates of the setting down and hearing
of each case, that no case from any Australian Colony has ever been delayed more than a very few
months after it was ripe for hearing. The delays, such as they are, are attributable entirely to the
parties themselves, and not to this Court.

The statements contained in the note to page 14 of the Report are not consistent with the facts
relating to Appeals from the Australian Colonies, which will be found in the accompanying paper.
Nothing has occurred to justify the assertion that "the number of Appeals from the vast dominions of
the Crown is greater than it appears the Privy Council is capable of dealing with." The excess of
Appeals at present coming on for hearing has arisen solely in Bengal. There is no arrear of any
Appeals but those from India. The Lords of the Judicial Committee have never allowed the Colonial
or other business of the Court to be tied up or postponed by the Indian causes. The time of the
Court has been divided equally between the several jurisdictions it is called upon to exercise.

The Royal Commission advert to the inconveniences arising from the prosecution of an Appeal in
criminal cases to England. The Lords of the Council are fully aware of these inconveniences, and they
have on almost every occasion refused and discouraged all attempts to bring before them criminal
cases, insomuch that there are not more than two or three instances of any such application being
made with success from any part of the Empire. But recently, on an urgent application made on
behalf of the Attorney-General of New South Wales, based on grounds of public policy, their Lordships
were induced to grant special leave to appeal in two criminal cases from that Colony. These cases
were heard on their arrival in this country within a few days of the date of their setting down. No
delay whatever arose but that which is inseparable from the distance.

The appellate jurisdiction of Her Majesty in Council exists for the benefit of the Colonies, and
not for that of the mother country; but it is impossible to overlook the fact that this jurisdiction is a
part of the prerogative which has been exercised for the benefit of the Colonies from the date of the
earliest settlements of this country, and that it is still a powerful link between the Colonies and the
Crown of Great Britain. It secures to every subject of Her Majesty throughout the Empire his right
to claim redress from the Throne; it provides a remedy in certain cases not falling within the jurisdic-
tion of ordinary Courts of Justice; it removes causes from the influence of local prepossessions; it
affords the means of maintaining the uniformity of the law of England in those Colonies which derive
the great body of their law from Great Britain; and it enables suitors, if they think fit, to obtain a
decision in the last resort from the highest judicial authority and legal capacity existing in the
metropolis.

The power of establishing or remodelling the Colonial Courts of Justice is vested by the 28 and 29
Victoria in the Colonial Legislatures; and it is undoubtedly desirable that the Colonial Courts of
Justice should be so constituted as to inspire confidence in their decisions, and to give rise to a very
few ulterior Appeals. That is, in fact, the case with the Superior Courts of Westminster Hall; and the
small number of Appeals from the Australian Courts is the best testimony to the excellence of those
Courts also. But the controlling power of the Highest Court of Appeal is not without influence and
value, even when it is not directly resorted to. Its power, though dormant, is not unfelt by any Judge
in the Empire, because he knows that his proceedings may be made the subject of Appeal to it.

But it by no means follows as a necessary consequence of the powers vested in the Colonial Legis-
latures by the 28 and 29 Victoria, that laws should be enacted which would control the exercise of the
prerogative of the Crown in the exercise of its Supreme Appellate Jurisdiction.

Hon. Robert Meade.

I have, &c.,
HENRY REEVE, Reg. P.C.

Sub-Enclosure to Enclosure.

STATEMENT of all the Appeals to Her Majesty in Council from the Australian Colonies of New South
Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, West Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand,
which have been forwarded to England down to 1st July, 1871.