,
(
287
in general use. In this edition minor amendments made in Ordi-
nances by subsequent legislation have been incorporated in
the Ordinances, the amendments being printed in italics, but I
can discover no statutory sanction for such incorporation.
4. It is a serious defect of hoth these edi-
tions that they have no sufficient index. This defect has been
to some extent supplied by an index to the Ordinances of the
Colony which was compiled and published in 1895 by Mr.E.C.
Ellis, a solicitor of this Court. This work, although useful, does
not follow the lines upon which indices of Statute Law are now
generally compiled.
5. But, carefully compiled and valuable as both
these editions have been in their day, they have to a consi-
derable extent become obsolete by the lapse of time and the
course of subsequent legislation. The Legislative Council has
been busy during the eleven and the eight years which have
elapsed since the date of the latest of the Ordinances con-
tained in them respectively. A large number of Ordinances print -
ed in them have been repealed; a yet larger number have been
the subject of more or less extensive amendment. Besides this
a considerable body of new law has come into existence.
6. Under these circumstances I venture to
think that the time has come when the issue by the Government
of a new and revised edition of the Statute Laws, with a full
index, would be of much advantage to the legal profession and
to the public generally. I take the liberty of forwarding here-
with