341.1154L58/239
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 4.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s telegraphic instruction No. 237, September 8, 4 p.m.,11 with reference to the Armes Automatiques Lewis Company case, and to state that the Foreign Office sees no objection to releasing to the United States claimants’ attorneys the memorandum enclosed with Foreign Office note No. A 4758/1710/45 of August 2, 1933, being the enclosure to the Embassy’s despatch No. 137 of August 4, 1933.
With regard to the Department’s telegraphic instruction No. 233, September 6, 2 p.m., I venture to quote from a Foreign Office note just received, giving its authority for the statement made in its note of August 2, 1933, that “if the Company were dissatisfied with the judgment of the court, an appeal to the Court of Appeal and thence to the House of Lords was open to them”:
“… I must refer you to the Petitions of Right Act of 1860. In section 7 of this Act, it is stated that ‘so far as the same may be applicable, and except in so far as may be inconsistent with this Act, the Laws and Statutes in force as to Pleading, Evidence, Hearing, and Trial, Security for Costs, Amendment, Arbitration, Special Cases, the means of procuring and taking Evidence, Set-off, Appeal, and Proceedings in Error in Suits of Equity, and Personal Actions between Subject and Subject, and the Practice and Course of Procedure of the said Courts of Law and Equity respectively for the Time being in [Page 823] reference to such Suits and Personal Actions, shall, unless the Court in which the Petition is prosecuted shall otherwise order, be applicable and apply and extend to such Petition of Eight; Provided always that nothing in this Statute shall be construed to give to the Subject any Remedy against the Crown in any Case in which he would not have been entitled to such Remedy before the passing of this Act’.
“Once therefore a petition of right has received the fiat and has been served, it assumes the character of and is subject to the procedure applicable to any action started in the King’s Bench or Chancery Division by ordinary writ of summons; and on judgment being delivered adverse to the suppliant he has under Order 18 a right of appeal without leave to the Court of Appeal. Generally speaking, the time for appeal is that laid down in Rule 15, viz. the time for appealing from an Interlocutory Order is fourteen days, and from a final Order is six weeks.
“By the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, any successful appellant and therefore a suppliant has a right to appeal without leave to the House of Lords from the Court of Appeal. The time limited for presenting the Appeal is six months.”
Respectfully yours,
Counselor of Embassy
- Not printed.↩