16514/6
No. 70.
(TRANSVAAL.)
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
16 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
[Chinese labour. Questions arising under the Letters Patent of 6th December, 1906, and the Labour Importation Ordinances passed previously thereto.]
MY LORD,
Law Officers' Department,
Royal Courts of Justice, May 9, 1907. WE were honoured by Your Lordship's commands, signified to us by Mr. Lucas, in his letter of the 30th April last, stating that he was directed by Your Lordship to submit to us a memorandum laid before him by General Botha, Prime Minister of the Transvaal, dealing with certain questions arising under the Letters l'atent of the 6th December, 1906, which conferred representative Government upon that Colony, and under the Labour Importation Ordinances previously passed
therein.
That he was to request us to take the questions raised into our consideration and to report:-
(1) Whether the Government of the Transvaal has power to legislate with respect to the renewals of Contracts with Chinese labourers introduced under the Labour Importation Ordinances, and to deal by such legislation with labourers whose contracts expired after the Labour Importation Ordinances had ceased to have effect?
(2) Whether any Act of this nature must under the Constitution be reserved? (3) Whether, in the event or in the absence of such legislation, the obligation imposed by the Ordinances to pay the expenses incurred in repatriating the labourers whose contracts expired after the Ordinances had ceased to have effect would still rest upon the employer?"
We have taken the matter into our consideration, and in obedience to Your Lordship's commands, have the honour to
Report--
That, (1) and (2), in our opinion the Government of the Transvaal has no power to postpone the repeal of the Labour Importation Ordinance, 1904, or to legislate for the renewal of contracts made under the authority of that Ordinance except by legislation under Section 36 of the Transvaal Constitution repealing or altering Section 50, which legislation must (under Section 39) be reserved for His Majesty's approval. Under the Constitution as it stands, however, the Legislature is empowered by Section 50, Subsection (3) to regulate by legislation the determination of the system of labour established by the Ordinance, and to provide for all such matters as may become necessary in consequence of its repeal. Thus it may well be necessary to make regulations for the proper guardianship and control both of those labourers whose contracts expire before the repeal of the Ordinance takes effect, and also of the general body of labourers whose contracts continue after that date. It may also be necessary to provide that the labourers awaiting repatriation shall continue at work with their own consent under conditions of control analogous to those now existing. No such laws and regulations, however, would be valid unless of a definitely temporary character and expressly enacted only as part of a scheme for determining "the system of labour deriving effect from the Ordinances" in accordance with Section 50, Subsection (2) of the Transvaal Constitution.
The laws and regulations thus suggested would no doubt subject persons not of European birth to disabilities to which Europeans are not also subjected, and they should therefore he reserved, under Section 39, for the approval of His Majesty, unless the Governor shall have previously obtained His Majesty's instructions upon such law through a Secretary of State.
(3) We think the expenses of repatriating the labourers whose contracts expire after the Ordinances have ceased to have effect would still rest upon the employers
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