R
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
LITTLC.O. 885
15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
2
Draft OrdER IN COUNCIL.
Whereas by certain Letters Patent bearing date the 1st day of February, 1886, Her late Majesty Queen Victoria did constitute and appoint the Governor and Com- mander-in-Chief for the time being of the Straits Settlements and their Dependencies to be the Governor of certain Islands, including the Northern Island, otherwise called the North Keeling Island, situated in the Indian Ocean, in latitude, twelve degrees five minutes South and longitude ninety-six degrees fifty-three minutes. East, which Islands are therein and are hereinafter called the Cocos Islands, and did by the said Letters Patent vest in the said Governor certain powers and authorities as in the said Letters Patent are more particularly declared and set forth;
And whereas by the Colonial Boundaries Act, 1895, it is provided that where the boundaries of a Colony have, either before or after the passing of that Act, been altered by His Majesty the King by Order in Council or Letters Patent, the boundaries as so altered shall be and be deemed to have been from the date of the alteration the boundaries of the Colony:
And whereas it is expedient that the boundaries of the said Colony of the Straits Settlements should be altered in such manner that the said Cocos Islands shall become part of the said Colony:
Now, therefore, His Majesty, by virtue and in exercise of the powers of the Colonial Boundaries Act, 1895, or otherwise in His Majesty vested, is pleased by and with the advice of His Privy Council to order, and it is hereby ordered, as follows:-
i. From and after a day to be appointed by the Governor of the Colony of the Straits Settlements by Proclamation under his hand and the Public Seal of the Colony (which day-is-her-inafter-referred-to-un-the-appointed-day) the boundaries of the Colony of the Straits Settlements shall be extended so as to include the Cocos Islands.
ii. It-chall-be-lawful for the Legislative-Conneil-of-the-Culmny of the Straits Settlements-ut any time-whether before or after-the-appointed-day to make Ordinances-for-the-peace;-onder-smul good government of the Locos Islands provided that ung Ordinances-made-prise to-the- appointed day-shall, untree-otherwise therein provided; come-into-force-und-bave-vilert-within-the-said-Islamde on the appointed-day:
iii. His Majesty may at any time revoke, add to, alter or amend this Order.
R. B. F. E. C.
13256
SIR,
No. 183.
(NEW SOUTH WALES: COMMONWEALTH.)
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
[Reservation and laying before Parliament of Bills passed by the Australian States.]
Royal Courts of Justice,
April 8, 1903. We were honoured with your commands signified in Mr. C. P. Lucas's letter of the 13th January last stating that, with reference to our Report of the 15th Novem- ber. 1902,* in which we expressed our opinion that the Act 54, of 1902, passed by the Legislature of New South Wales should have been reserved and laid before Parlia- ment under section 32 of 13 and 14 Victoria Cap. 59, he was directed to request the favour of our opinion as to what extent Bills passed by the Legislature of New South Wales as at present constituted were affected by the provisions of 25 and 26 Victoria Cap. 11; and that he was further to request us to consider, generally, to what extent Bills passed by the present Legislature of each of the six States constituting the Com- monwealth of Australia were subject to the requirements of Section 32 of 13 and 14 Victoria Cap. 59 with reference to reservation and laying before Parliament.
That Section 32, of 13 and 14 Victoria Cap. 59 referred to three classes of Acts, viz. (1) Acts altering the laws concerning the election of elective members of Legis- lative Councils, (2) Acts altering the laws concerning the qualifications of clectors and elective members, (3) Acts establishing, instead of the Legislative Councils existing at the date of that Act, other separate legislative Houses.
That it was not, however, clear from the terms of the preamble to 25 and 26 Victoria Cap. 11 that that Act dealt with all the three classes of Acts referred to above. That it was true that Section 1 of that Act referred to "the purposes mentioned in the said first recited Act" (13 and 14 Vict. C. 59)" or any of them," but that this was merely a validating section and dealt only with the past. That Section 3 was also a validat- ing Section, but that Section 2, unless it was also-in effect-a validating Section, would appear to be of future application, and, if governed by the preamble, to apply only to such Acts as were mentioned therein. That upon that point he was to refer us to the Report of our predecessors in office of 25th March, 1862.t
That the argument that, whilst Section. 1 of the Act validated all Acts of the kind contemplated in 13 and 14 Victoria Cap. 59 Section 32, by the original Legis- lative Councils of the four Colonies, Section 2 exempted further Acts of the like description passed previously but not subsequently to the passing of 25 and 26 Vict. Cap. 11 by the substituted Legislatures of the four Colonies from being reserved and laid before Parliament, i.e., that Section 2 practically validated such Acts, would appear to be inadmissible, because Section 3 expressly validated such Acts, and that this provision would have rendered Section 2, its effect was that suggested above,
unnecessary.
That it was, therefore, conceived that Section 2 was enacted with a view to the future and still had active effect. That the question then arose whether its effect was to absolve from the necessity of being reserved and laid before Parliament Acts, passed by the present Legislature of New South Wales, of all three classes specified in Section 32 of 13 and 14 Victoria Cap. 59 or (if that Act did not deal with all three classes) only of such one, or two, class, or classes, specified in the preamble to 25 and 26 Viet. Cap. 11.
That that question, so far as could be ascertained had never been directly sub- mitted to the Law Officers of the Crown, nor did our predecessors in office express any opinion upon it in their Reports of the 9th February, 1894, and 8th February, 1897,‡ though in the cases then submitted to them it was assumed and stated that the effect of the section in question was that the proviso to Section 32 of 13 and 14 Victoria Cap. 59 did not affect Bills passed by the Legislature of New South Wales as at present con- stituted, no distinction being made between Bills of the three classes specified in that section.
• No. 173.
25 Wt 66 5/01 D & 8 G
† No. 108 in Vol. I.
11387
Nos. 51 and 127 in Vol. V.