JN276 223082 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE 90 VIMU AIMBOLIAD PREFACE THE time was, we are told, when a knowledge of the laws of his country was a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman. The great mass and confusion of the Statutes at large have long made this impossible; and a commission in the Guards is often the modern substitute for attendance at one of the Inns of Court, in the case of a future country magistrate. But an exception to the rule that confines the knowledge of Acts of Parliament to the trained lawyer may well be made, when the Statutes are in question, which embody (to a great extent at least) the political Constitutions which have been evolved by the needs of the peoples of Canada, Australia and South Africa. At a time when our own unwritten Constitution is in the melting-pot, it is surely a matter of importance that we should know the exact significance of the precedents which, with a light heart, our selfconstituted political guides quote to us from their respective platforms. 'So, do I find example, rule of life; So, square and set in order the new page.' An apology is, then, perhaps scarcely needed for putting together in a handy form these 'fundamental Constitutions', together with some other documents which may assist in their elucidation, introduced by an historical account of the circumstances in which they rose. To the professed lawyer and historian |