Appendix IV. 197 



practically identical with the fundamental Ordinance annexed to the 

 Report. As already stated, it came into operation on January 1, 1917. i 

 The die is thus cast and the experiment launched. The results are a 

 matter of speculation. If the experiment fails, it will, at any rate, not 

 be for want of trouble taken. If it succeeds, the administration of law 

 in the Colony will be freed of many perplexities that now beset it. 



The West Indian Court of Appeal. 

 In the Report of the British Guiana Common Law Commission 

 reference is made (p. 21) to a proposal to establish a West Indian Appeal 

 Court. The proposal has been under discussion for some time past, and 

 has been received with widespread sympathy and interest. It has been 

 commended on the very legitimate ground that it would not only tend 

 to improve the administration of law in the Colonies concerned, but 

 would help to " link up the scattered fragments " of the West Indian 

 portion of the Empire, and consolidate and strengthen West Indian 

 interests in the Imperial counsels. After being in abeyance for many 

 years, the suggestion was revived in 1912, and has since been the subject 

 of many interchanges of opinion between the authorities of the Colonies 

 in question. 



An important step forward was taken in January, 1916, when ten 

 delegates from the Colonies of Barbados, British Guiana, the Leeward 

 Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Windward Islands, appointed by 

 their respective Governments, met at Port-ef-Spain, Trinidad, to discuss 

 the clauses of a proposed Imperial Act, which had been drafted by the 

 Attorney-General of Trinidad, for the purpose of establishing the Court 

 of Appeal " and for purposes ancillary to its establishment.'' The Con- 

 ference held four sittings under the Presidency of the Chief Justice of 

 Trinidad, and arrived at substantial agreement on all points of import- 

 ance but one. The main conclusions come to may be summarised as 

 follows : A Court to be called the " West Indian Court of Appeal " 

 should be set up by Imperial Act for the before-mentioned Colonies with 

 power to the King in Council to add any other Colony, in or near the 

 West Indies, that desired to be included in the scheme, or to direct that 

 any Colony already included in the scheme should, if it so desired, be ex- 

 cluded therefrom. - 



The Court was to be in substitution for, not in addition to, any 

 existing local Court of Appeal. The law to be administered was to be that 

 of the Colony from which the appeal came. The Court was to be ambula- 



1 At the time of writing no informaiton has come to hand as to whether the com- 

 plementary recommendations of the Committee hare been carried into effect. Probably they 

 have. 



2 In a speech by Mr. Nunan on February 5. 1917 (published in the June. 1917 issue of 

 Timehj-i, the excellent journal of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of British 

 Guiana), it is stated that the Bahamas are now willing to come into the scheme, and that 

 "questions of steamer communication alone postpone Jamaica"s acce»aon." It seems pro- 

 bable that British Honduras will follow suit, 



