CHAP. ITI] JUDICIAL APPEALS 1361 
appeal lies as of right from the Supreme Court of Canada, 
although legally such appeal could be allowed under the 
Act of 1844 1 —permitting a defeated party who has chosen 
bo go to the Supreme Court first to appeal to the Privy 
Council. On the other hand, a party who has been taken 
bo the Supreme Court and defeated there will more readily 
be allowed an appeal to the Privy Council. But in the case 
of the Commonwealth and Canada alike it has been laid down 
by the Privy Council that appeals will only be allowed where 
the case is of gravity, involving matters of public interest or 
some important question of law as affecting property of 
sonsiderable amount, or where the case is otherwise of some 
public importance or of a very substantial character.? Nor 
will the Privy Council allow appeals where the judgement 
appears to be plainly right, or at least not to be attended 
with serious doubt, or for an abstract question? 
As a result of the Colonial Conference * of 1907 important 
simplifications have been made in the procedure of the Courts. 
The fifth resolution arrived at by the Colonial Conference 
on the subject of judicial appeals was to the effect— 
(1) That it is expedient that the practice and procedure 
of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council should be 
definitely laid down in the form of a code of rules and 
regulations. 
(2) That in the codification of the rules regard should be 
had to the necessity for the removal of anachronisms and 
anomalies, the possibility of the curtailment of expense, and 
the desirability of the establishment of courses of procedure 
which would minimize delavs. 
* Not 80 in Australia or the Union, where the exclusion of other appeals 
"ests on an Imperial Act, whereas in Canada it rests only on a Dominion Act. 
* Ct. Daily Telegraph Newspaper v. McLaughlin, [1904] A. C. 777. Cf 
Prince v. Gagnon, 8 App. Cas. 103; Carter v. Molson, ibid., 530; Clergue 
v. Murray, ex parte Clergue, [1903], A. C. 521; Canadian Pacific Railway 
Co. v. Blair, [1904] A. C. 453: Victorian Railway Commissioners v. Brown, 
[1906] A. C. 381. * Rex v. Louw, [1904] A. C. 412. 
* Parl. Pap., Cd. 3523, pp. 200 seq. The views of the Dominions are 
riven in Cd. 3521, pp. 179 seq. The subsequent correspondence is in 
Cd. 5273, pp. 26-41. The practice is given in Safford and Wheeler.