1528 : IMPERIAL UNITY [PART VIII 
from that Dominion. With regard to the United Kingdom 
the Government were not prepared to make a change in the 
composition of the House of Lords, which already included 
one distinguished judge from the Dominions, Lord de Villiers. 
He suggested that two English judges of the highest quality 
should be added both to the House of Lords and to the Judicial 
Committee, that the quorum of both Courts should be fixed 
at five instead of three as at present, and that the Court 
should sit successively in the House of Lords for United King- 
dom appeals, and in the Privy Council for appeals from the 
Dominions and Colonies. It would thus be in effect a single 
Court sitting in two divisions, but the old name would be kept. 
Sir Joseph Ward! expressed his preference for a system 
by which the Judicial Committee should be strengthened by 
the addition of a permanent judge from each of the self- 
governing Dominions who should take part in the hearing of 
all cases from the Dominions, and not merely of cases coming 
from the Dominion in which he was a judge. It would be 
well worth, in his opinion, the cost to the Dominion of paying 
their judge, for he would be able to inform the Court on many 
matters which it might not otherwise have satisfactorily 
before it. The native land cases which affected New Zealand 
were of the highest consequence to the Dominion, for 
7,000,000 acres of land were in the hands of some 47,000 
Maoris, and it was of such moment that cases which affected 
those lands—and such cases must arise frequently—should 
be rightly decided that the payment for a judge was com- 
paratively of no importance. 
But Sir Joseph Ward’s proposal was not acceptable to the 
rest of the members of the Conference. Mr. Brodeur 2 stated 
that the existing system worked satisfactorily, that the 
Provinces of Canada were concerned in the matter, and 
would resent if anything were decided without their consent, 
and accordingly it would be well if matters could be left as 
they were. Mr. Fisher 3 thought that appeals from Australia 
should be decided in Australia, but he recognized that that 
Cd. 5745, pp. 224 seq. Cf. Dr. Findlay, at pp. 237-9. 
Ihid., pp. 239 seq. 3 Thid., p. 245.