(d) Bring new subjects within the scope of the Act, as where the operation of the Act depends upon treaties, e.g. The Extradition Act, 1870, and the International Copyright Act, 1886.

(e) Give to a colonial law the force of law throughout the British Dominions, e.g. Colonial Prisoners Removal Act, 1884, § 12; The Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881, § 32; Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, § 264 (application of Part II. by Colonial Legislatures).

The Orders in Council under the Colonial Prisoners Removal Act, 1869, § 4, and the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, §§ 670-675 (Colonial Lighthouses, etc.) are made upon an address of the Colonial Legislature.

4. PREROGATIVE ORDERS, CHARTERS, LETTERS PATENT.Prerogative Orders, including Charters and Letters Patent, are not of the same importance in a settled as in a conquered colony, for as constitutions come to rest more and more on statute, the Prerogative recedes. Its most important exercise is in the grant of constitutions, the establishment of executive authority, the appointment of governors and the definition of their powers, and the setting up of courts of justice. Most of these things in Australia, however, are done by the Crown under statutory authority, and so fall into the last class. The Orders in Council relating to Colonial Currency are a conspicuous case of Prerogative Orders in operation in the colonies.

The Orders in force in 1890 are contained in the collection published "by authority" under the title "Statutory Rules and Orders Revised." The Prerogative Orders are contained in an appendix in volume viii. Later Orders are in subsequent volumes published annually.

5. LAWS AND ORDINANCES OF COLONIAL LEGISLATURES.— Laws and Ordinances made by the Legislature of the Colony, meaning thereby the authority other than the Imperial Parliament or the Crown in Council competent to make laws for the colony. There may be more than one such authority. Some colonies have been formed by separation from others, and inherit the laws enacted by the Legislature

of the mother colony before the separation. Such laws, so far as they apply within her borders, the daughter colony may repeal. In other cases, there may be legislatures with exclusive powers over different subjects or with concurrent powers, but so related that in case of conflict the enactment of the one shall prevail over the enactment of the other. Both these conditions are true of the Dominion of Canada and were true of those colonies of Australasia constituting the Federal Council of Australasia. Generally, these powers are exclusive; but where the same matter is within the power of both the central and the local legislature, the enactment of the central legislature prevails. Each authority retains control over its own laws, and may alone alter or repeal them.

Amongst" Laws and Ordinances made by the Legislature of the Colony" are included many Acts of the Imperial Parliament which have been adopted for the colony by the local legislature. They form part of the ordinary legislation of the colony, and are to be distinguished from other local laws merely by a rule that where a statute has before its adoption by the colony received an authoritative judicial construction in England, that construction is deemed binding in the colonies.1

The powers of Colonial Legislatures are defined by the Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865 (28 and 29 Vict., c. 63). They have power generally to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of the colony. Special powers of legislation have been conferred by the Imperial Parliament by many Acts on various grounds, of which the following may serve as examples:

(a) The general power to make laws has always been limited by a condition that such laws should not be "repugnant to the laws of England." This condition has received widely different interpretations, and the view which has ultimately prevailed has been embodied in the Colonial Laws Validity Act, providing that:

1See Harding v. Commissioner of Stamps for Queensland, L.R. [1898], A.C. 769.

§ 2. Any colonial law which is or shall be in any respect repugnant to the provisions of any Act of Parliament. extending to the colony to which such law may relate, or repugnant to any order or regulation made under authority of such Act of Parliament, or having in the colony the force and effect of such Act, shall be read subject to such Act, order, or regulation, and shall, to the extent of such repugnancy, but not otherwise, be and remain absolutely void and inoperative.

§3. No colonial law shall be or be deemed to have been void or inoperative on the ground of repugnancy to the law of England unless the same shall be repugnant to the provisions of some such Act, order, or regulation, as aforesaid.

But under the influence of narrower interpretations, Acts of Parliament had been from time to time passed to enable the Colonial Legislatures to make laws on specific subjects, e.g. 6 and 7 Vict., c. 22, empowering Colonial Legislatures to make laws for receiving the evidence of barbarous and uncivilized persons. These Acts, although the occasion for them has gone, are generally still in force.

(b) Colonial Legislatures are "local and territorial legislatures," an expression used to denote that their power is different in kind from that of the Imperial Parliament. For while the Imperial Parliament, like the organs of every Sovereign State, is limited territorially by its power through the executive and the courts to give effect to laws, it can constrain every person and every authority within its borders to treat its enactments as valid; and the rule against the extra-territorial operation of statutes is a rule of interpretation merely, over-ruled by any clear indication of the intention of Parliament to apply an Act to persons or things outside of the British Dominions. The territorial limitation on a Colonial Legislature, however, is more than a rule of interpretation; it is a rule in restraint of power, sanctioned not merely by the refusal of foreign courts to recognize rights acquired or acts done under it, but by the refusal of the courts of the colony itself

to treat the enactment as valid. This is the general but not the universal opinion as to the nature of the powers of a Colonial Legislature. Many of the cases relied on for the opinion in question are unsatisfactory in that they are decisions, not of courts of the colony whose power is in question, but of an English court or the court of another colony asked to recognize and give effect to the law on grounds of comity. And adopting the opinion in question, we find no certain test of what is "legislation for the colony."2 The narrow view by which Parliament has sometimes been moved as to the powers of Colonial Legislatures is manifested by the Acts passed from time to time to enlarge their powers in special cases, e.g. 23 and 24 Vict., c. 122, enables Colonial Legislatures to enact that where any person feloniously injured within the colony shall die beyond the limits of the colony, the offence may be dealt with in the colony where the injury was inflicted. Other Acts enable Colonial Legislatures to make laws having a true operation outside their limits (a) as enabling acts of authority to be done, or jurisdiction to be exercised in respect of acts done or things happening, out of the colony, e.g. the Colonial Prisoners Removal Act, 1869, the Colonial Naval Defence Act, 1865, the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, §§ 478 (Colonial Inquiries), 736 (Coastal Trade); or (b) as giving to Acts of the Colonial Legislature the force of law throughout the British Dominions, e.g. 28 and 29 Vict., c. 64, an Act to remove doubts respecting the validity of certain marriages contracted in Her Majesty's Possessions abroad. This is generally effected by an Order in Council made in pursuance of the enacting Imperial Act.

(c) The territorial boundaries set to a colony, whether by the Crown or by an Act of Parliament, and the con

1 See Low v. Routledge (1865), L. R. 1, Ch. 42; 4 E. and I. App. 100; M'Leod v. Att.-Gen. for New South Wales L. R. [1891], A.C. 455; and see the colonial cases collected and discussed by Mr. Lefroy in his Legislative Power in Canada.

Cf. M'Leod v. A.G. for New South Wales and Ashbury v. Ellis, L. R. [1893], A.C. 339.

stitution of a colony bind the legislature of the colony.1 As far as the constitution is concerned, special power has been given in the Constitution Acts of the Australian Colonies to alter the constitution subject to the observance of certain forms, and by the Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, § 5, every representative legislature has full power, and is deemed at all times to have had full power to make laws respecting the constitution, powers, and procedure of such legislature, to establish and reconstitute courts and to make provision for the administration of justice therein. As to the territory of the colonies, this also is the subject of special provision in the Constitution Acts, having in view the great extent of New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia; and very naturally the power of subdivision was, subject to limitations, left in the hands of the Crown. In 1895 the Imperial Parliament passed the Colonial Boundaries Act, which, while conferring general powers of severance and delimitation on the Crown, provides that in the colonies with responsible government-which are set out in a schedule and include all the Australian Coloniesthe power shall not be exercised except with the consent of the colony.

(d) The "local and territorial" nature of colonial legislatures has been regarded as implying the reservation of certain matters in which there must be one law for the Empire, or which fall within an Imperial rather than a local policy. Such matters are of course generally the subject of Imperial legislation, so that any Colonial Act thereon would be over-ridden by the Act of the paramount authority; but the opinion in question is that the matters referred to are excluded from the area of Colonial power, and that an Act of the Legislature under the general power to make laws for the possession would be ultra vires.

Colonial Acts conferring upon aliens the privileges of British subjects within the possession are the most common illustration of matters of this class, as is seen from Chalmers' 1Cf. Reg. v. Burah (1878), L.R. 3, A. C. 889, per Lord Selborne at p.