CO885-(11-13) — Page 519

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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C.O.

Reference :--

885

12 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

No. 247.

(NEW SOUTH WALES.)

LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.

MY LORD,

We are honoured with your Lordship's commands, signified in Mr. Herbert's

Temple, 8th February 1881. letter of the 26th January last, stating that he was directed by your Lordship to trans- mit to us the transcript of a Bill passed by the Legislative Council and Assembly of New South Wales, and reserved by the Governor of that Colony for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure thereon, entitled "An Act to declare the entire management " and control of the lands commonly known as the Church and School Lands, and the appropriation of the income derived therefrom, vested in the Legislature of this Colony, and that from and after the thirty-first day of December one thousand eight "hundred and eighty-two all such lands and income shall be respectively held and

applied for the purposes of public instruction only."

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66

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2. That petitions to the Queen praying Her Majesty to withhold her assent to this Bill had been received from the Bishop of Sydney, on behalf of the Church of England in the Colony, and from Archbishop Vaughan, in the interests of the Roman Catholic Church, and that representations had also been received from Mr. Gordon, acting as solicitor on behalf of the Bishop, and Mr. Leathley, acting in a similar capacity for the Archbishop, requesting that the petitioners might be heard by counsel before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

3. That copies of those petitions and representations were annexed, and that Mr. Herbert was further to enclose a copy of a despatch from the Governor of New South Wales, enclosing, among other papers, a Minute of the Minister of Public Instruction, giving the views of the Colonial Government upon the subject of the Bill. 4. That it would be observed that the two petitions above referred to were couched in similar terms, and that the chief grounds on which the petitioners' objections to the Bill were based were the following:-

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1. That (par. 8) the lands were charged with a specific trust which could be enforced against a private individual, and that (par. 11) Her Majesty's honour and dignity were pledged to carry out the trust, and that the Bill in its present form would interfere with the privileges and compromise the honour and dignity of Her Majesty.

2. That (par. 12) the religious bodies which had hitherto shared in the benefits of the trust were entitled to ask Her Majesty to perform the trust as fully as they might enforce the same against a private individual holding the property on such a trust.

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3. That (par. 14) the Supreme Court having in an unreserved judgment declared the property in question to be vested in Her Majesty, subject to such specific trust, and not to be vested in the Legislature, it was an excess of the powers and authorities vested in the Colonial Legislature for that body to appropriate the property in the manner proposed by that Bill.

4. That (par. 15) it was contrary to all precedent in legislation to appropriate property the subject of a specific trust, in whomsoever vested, in the manner proposed by the Bill, without making an adequate compensation in respect of the property, and that (par. 17) the provision in the Bill was not an adequate or indeed

any substantial compensation.

5. That the previous history of the lands to which the Bill applied would be found in a letter addressed from your Lordship's Department to the Law Officers of the Crown in January 1862, which was recited in their reply dated the 17th of that month, a printed copy of which, as well as of a despatch in which the Duke of Newcastle communicated the Law Officers' opinion to the Governor of the Colony, would be found among the papers transmitted.

6. That a copy of the judgment of the Supreme Court referred to by the petitioners was annexed, and that Mr. Herbert was to observe in reference to it that the Governor of New South Wales in 1865 reported that on a change of Government his Ministers had abandoned an appeal against that judgment which their predecessors had initiated.

▲ 12196.-230. 25.-12/84.

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