9783
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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Reference :-
6
C.O. 885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
15 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
:
SIR,
No. 216.
(GENERAL.)
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
[Application of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870, to certain parts of His Majesty's Dominions.]
Royal Courts of Justice,
March 19, 1904.
We were honoured with your commands signified in Mr. H. Bertram Cox's letter of the 24th ultimo stating that he was directed by you to request the favour of our report on certain questions which had arisen with regard to the application of the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870, to certain parts of His Majesty's dominions.
That the third section of that Act (33 & 34 Vict. C. 90), provided that the Act should be proclaimed in every Colony by the Governor thereof as soon as might be after he received notice of the Act, and should come into operation in that British possession on the day of such Proclamation.
That the Act when passed was sent out to the Governors of the British Colonies then in existence, and was duly proclaimed and brought into operation, but that at various dates since that time new possessions had been acquired by cession or by conquest, and that the question had now arisen how far, if at all, the Act had been brought into operation in those Colonies.
That the British Possessions to which Mr. Bertram Cox was to call our attention were Fiji, Ashanti, the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, Griqualand West, Bechuanaland, Zululand, and Basutoland.
That Fiji was acquired by cession from the Chiefs and people of the Islands on the 10th October, 1874, and was erected into a separate Colony by Letters Patent dated the 2nd January, 1875. That the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870, did not seem ever to have been proclaimed in Fiji, but that by Section 23 of the Supreme Court Ordinance, 1875, passed in that Colony, it was provided that the common law, the rules of equity, and the Statutes of general application which were in force on the 2nd January, 1875, should be in force in the Colony.
That you assumed that the Foreign Enlistment Act, which applied to all of His Majesty's subjects, was a Statute of general application within the meaning of the Ordinance, and that, therefore, that Act might be considered as being in force in Fiji notwithstanding that it had not been formally proclaimed there as prescribed by Section 3 of that Act.
That Ashanti was annexed to, and became part of, His Majesty's dominions under an Order in Council of the 26th September, 1901.
That no Proclamation under the Foreign Enlistment Act had been made within Ashanti, and that it was presumed that a Proclamation should be at once issued, unless, having regard to the length of time which had elapsed since the date of annexation, it was desirable to extend that Act to Ashanti by the passing of an Ordinance under the provisions of Section 7 of that Order in Council.
That the Transvaal was annexed on the 1st of September, 1900, and the Orange River Colony on the. 24th of May, 1900. That a telegram was sent to Lord Milner on the 19th of February last, instructing him to proclaim the Foreign Enlistment Act in both Colonies, if that step had not already been taken, but that there would be no difficulty in passing an Ordinance in each of those Colonies should we consider that the steps already taken were insufficient.
That Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape Colony by Act 39, of 1877, which came into operation on the 15th of August, 1879. That by a Proclamation dated the 28th of September, 1870, the Foreign Enlistment Act was proclaimed in the Cape Colony, and that Mr. Cox was to enquire whether under the Act of 1877, which annexed Griqualand West to the Cape Colony the Foreign Enlistment Act came into effect within the province of Griqualand West, or whether legislation was
necessary.
25 W 661 4,04 D & B
B 17653