5 FEBRUARY 1937, Page 2

Canada's Constitution In Canada, as in the United States, modern

conditions have forced the Federal Government into conflict with a Constitution designed to meet other needs and other circumstances, but in Canada all parties in the Dominion Parliament are agreed that the conflict necessitates a revision of the Constitution. Last week, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in the main confirining previous decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, invali- dated six Acts of the late Conservative adMinistration at Ottawa which overstepped the powers of the Federal Government under the British North America Act ; on the same day Mr. Bennett, as leader of the Opposition, was proposing in the Canadian House of Commons that a conference of Dominion and Provincial representatives of all parties should decide on necessary amendments to the Constitution. Mr. Mackenzie King, though he dislikes some of Mr. Bennett's Acts, is equally anxious to alter_ a Constitution which gives the Federal Government no power, for example, to establish a system of social insurance. But despite this agreement of Government and Opposition, there are difficulties of procedure to solve. Amendment of the North America Act by the United Kingdom Parliament is unacceptable to Canada ; amendment by the Dominion Parliament is difficult under the Statute of Westminster. The problem, as Mr. King pointed out on Tuesday, can only be solved satisfactOrily by agreement between the Federal Government and the Provinces.