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the Commonwealth Government the power of deciding whether or not discipline, as it is understood in the Royal Navy, shall apply to the officers and men of the ships provided by the Commonwealth.

In order to obviate all these difficulties the following proposal is made :-

That the Naval Discipline Act should be so amended as to make it clear that the expressions" His Majesty's navy" and "Ilis Majesty's ship" shall, for the purposes of that Act, include any fleet unit and ships composing that unit respectively, which is provided and maintained by a self-governing Dominion, where the Governor-General in Council orders that the Naval Discipline Act shall apply to the officers and men of the naval force maintained by that Dominion. In the amending Act, power should be reserved to the Governor-General in Council to prevent the application of any sections of the Naval Discipline Act, except those contained in Parts I, II, III, IV, and Section 86 to 98 inclusive of Part VI, and Section 101 of Part VII.

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Further, the Act should be amended so as to provide that the expressions "Admiralty," "Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty," or

Secretary of the Admiralty," should mean in relation to any ship provided and maintained by a Dominion, or to any officer or man borne on her books, the Minister at the head of the Naval Department of the Government in question; and that in Section 46 the expression "United Kingdom" should mean, in reference to any such ship, officer, or man, the Dominion providing and maintaining them. (The object of this last proposal is to maintain inviolate the jurisdiction of the Colonial Courts to try persons belonging to the local force for offences committed on shore in the Dominion against the ordinary law of the Dominion.)

No doubt much drafting detail would have to be considered hereafter to give effect to this proposal, but if the principle is accepted that the Act is to apply to the Dominion Fleet units (though only by virtue of an Order of the Governor-General in Council) all the difficulties mentioned above will be overcome.

(1.) It leaves the Dominion free to decide whether it will accept the code of naval discipline for the time being in force in the Royal Navy; but, if it does accept it, it secures that the code shall be identical throughout, and avoids the difficulties which might arise from parliamentary complications or want of accurate drafting.

(2.) No change will be necessary when, in time of war, Dominion vessels are transferred.

(3.) It avoids the difficult questions as to the power of the Dominions to legislate extra-territorially and yet provides for the code being in full force whether the ship is in home or foreign waters or the waters of another Dominion.

(4.) It settles definitely the status of Dominion officers and men vis-à-vis foreign nations.

(5.) By making the officers definitely officers of His Majesty's navy it decides all questions of naval precedence and courtesy, both among themselves and with regard to foreign officers.

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(6.) It avoids all the difficult questions with regard to courts-martial. officers being officers of His Majesty's navy, and being also members of a force provided and maintained by a Dominion, can be commissioned to order courts-martial either by the Admiralty or by the Minister of Defence, or both, and they would be qualified to sit, in accordance with their seniority, on a court-martial for the trial of an offender of either branch of the service.

So much for the Naval Discipline Act. But the law of the navy is embodied not only in the Act, but also in the King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, and it is desirable that such parts of the Regulations as deal with the duties of the different officers, with discipline, and the powers of punishment vested in the Captains and executive officers, should also be identical in both branches of the service.

It is suggested that on the one hand the Dominions should have the power of making whatever regulations they think fit, provided that they are not inconsistent with the Naval Discipline Act; but on the other hand, the Admiralty consider that they should be free to withdraw the officers and men of the Royal Navy from the Dominion service unless, at least, all those chapters which affect either the fighting efficiency or the discipline of the ship are enacted in identical terms.

Principles only being now dealt with, it appears that the following chapters fall within the above category (a detailed examination will no doubt have to be made at a later stage to see whether any, and if so what, modifications are necessary) :—

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