The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on Monday once
more proved its capacity to deal with the most complex problems of Empire by determining the long dispute between the Chartered Company and the Legislative Council of Southern Rhodesia as to the ownership of the unalienated land in what used to be Lobengula's country. The luminous judgment read by Lord Sumner, which will be the authoritative history of the founding of Rhodesia, seems to us a model of good law and good sense. If we may venture to compress it into a sentence, the Crown has not parted silently with its owner- ship of the land, but the Company, so long as it administers Southern Rhodesia, is entitled to repay itself for advances on administrative account from the sales of land. Lord Sumner expressed regret that the Imperial Government had not defined the position in 1894. " In matters of business reticences and reserves sooner or later came home to roost," and the Judicial Committee in 1914 had to be asked to settle a controversy that need never have arisen.
Previous page
