368
i.
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"officers and practitioners of the Court" for all stews to be done therein.
By section 16(3) of the stat of 1970 it is, I submit, clearly provided that all these fees are to be taken when new Rules are made, and the expression "the amount of each such fee" shows that every fee taken is within the scope of the directions contained in the section, until new rules are made there is, therefore, I submit, a statutory duty on the Colonial Court to direct the manner in which all fees are to be taken, subject to the proviso, that "the amount of each such fee shall, so far as nearly as practicable, be paid to the same officer or person who but for the passing of the Act, would have been entitled to receive the same in respect of the like business.
The terms of this proviso cannot, I would respectfully submit, be satisfied by an Order of the Executive Government, that all fees are to be paid into the Colonial Treasury.
I would further submit that the beneficial interest in fees which the section is intended to preserve to officers cannot be confined to ex-officers of the Vice Admiralty Court, because, as soon as these failed, the directions (which as I have applied above) could no longer be followed. Also that there is nothing in the language of the proviso, to necessarily confine its meaning to such ex-officers, and that if it had been intended that all fees taken in respect of the Acts of other officers should be dealt with as Court fees, an express provision to that effect would have been inserted.