The Work for the Empire of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

Extract

Mr. President and Gentlemen,—You make me feel a little shy. When I somewhat incontinently accepted your kind invitation I wholly forgot that I was a Judge of the Privy Council. Thank heaven, I have no written address to deliver, and I am informed that there are no reporters present. But even that does not free me from embarrassment. I have under-taken to speak to you tonight of the position of the Judicial Committee in the Constitution of the Empire, and I have to remember that we who sit on the Judicial Committee have taken a tremendous oath not to disclose any of the secrets that come to the fore there; and I have also to consider that it was only this very morning that at half-past ten, in the absence of the Lord Chancellor, who is frequently called away at this moment on other business, I was sitting to dispose of the list in that Court, presiding as the senior remaining ex-Lord Chancellor. Well, we finished the list at eleven, and I went over to sit on the Woolsack at the House of Lords, which I occupied till a ' quarter to four, when public business made it necessary that I should adjourn the tribunal a little early. I did not say why, and my unsuspecting colleagues acquiesced. Now, gentlemen, you will see why I have something of the sense of the boy who comes to tell tales out of school. However, let us begin.