T.M. Healy to the Registrar of the Privy Council (London)
(Copy)

I am advised by my Ministers to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 4th instant,¹enclosing copy of an Order dated the 25th day of June, 1924,²whereby His Majesty referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, certain questions connected with the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, for the consideration and report of the Judicial Committee.

Considerable correspondence has already taken place between my Government and His Majesty's Government, in the course of which His Majesty's Government informed my Government that they proposed to submit to the Judicial Committee, under the Statute 3 & 4 William IV. Chap.41, the questions set out in His Majesty's Order. In doing so, His Majesty's Government made it quite clear that they were merely seeking advice from the Judicial Committee as to their legal and constitutional powers. My Ministers have at all times refused to be parties to the reference of these matters to the Judicial Committee, and do not recognise that they are in any way bound by its proceedings or decision, and His Majesty's Government are in complete agreement with them as to this.

My Ministers also desire me to say that in making the Order of the 25th day of June 1924, His Majesty did not act on the advice of my Ministers, in accordance with the constitutional practice applicable if it were intended that the determination of the questions set out therein should bind or affect the Irish Free State.

In the circumstances, my Ministers desire me to say, for the information of the members of the Judicial Committee, that they do not desire to attend, by counsel, before their Lordships, nor do they desire to submit any documents for the consideration of the Board.