I have to ask permission to read a telegram which has just come. His Excellency the Governor-General has received a telegram from Mr. Secretary of State Thomas, stating that the Prime Minister (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) intended making the following statement in the House of Commons this evening in connection with the Chairmanship of the Boundary Commission. I am reading the telegram as it came:—
"With the approval of the Government of the Union of South Africa, His Majesty's Government have asked Mr. Justice Feetham, a member of the South African Supreme Court, to undertake this duty. I am very glad to be able to inform the House that Mr. Justice Feetham has accepted the appointment, and will leave South Africa for this country next week.
"Perhaps I may be permitted to remind the House that Mr. Justice Feetham has already rendered valuable public service in connection with Indian reform. Mr. Montague availed himself of his advice on Constitutional questions in discussions and the investigation of the preliminary drafting of Government of India Bill, 1919. He served with distinction as Chairman of the important Committee then appointed by the Secretary of State for India to enquire into the question connected with the division of the functions in India between the Central and Provincial Governments and in Provincial Governments in that country between Executive Council and Ministers, a question the complexity and importance of which it would be difficult to overstate. Consequent on the report of this Committee Mr. Justice Feetham gave evidence before the Joint Select Committee of both Houses which sat in the course of 1919 to consider Constitutional reform proposed in India. It is a source of great satisfaction to His Majesty's Government to have secured for this appointment a distinguished member of the South African Judiciary."
The message came into my hands during the time that Deputy Johnson was speaking, and I took the earliest opportunity of affording the information to the Dáil.
