RATIFICATION PASSED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 307, 9 October 1942, Page 4

RATIFICATION PASSED.

THE STATUTE OF WESTMINSTER. y ' ' f AUSTRALIAN LEGISLATION. LONDON, October 8. The Bill to ratify the Statute of Westminster has passed all stages in the Australian House of Representatives -without .amendment. The effect, of the Bill, as explained by the Australian Minister of External Affairs (Dr. H. V. Evatt) is that in future acts passed by the United Kingdom Parliament will apply to the Commonwealth only if both' Houses of the Australian Parliament agree. The Statute of Westminster, passed by the British Parliament in 1931, acknowledges perfect equality between the Dominions and Great Britain and among the Dominions themselves. It provides: (1) That the Parliament of Westminster ceases to have the right of revision affecting legislation passed by the parliaments of the Dominions (2) that a Dominion possesses full authority to make laws possessing extraterritorial validity and (3) that, when there are discrepancies between a Dominion law and an existing law of the United Kingdom, this fact shall not render the Dominion jaw invalid. In general, the Statute confirmed the resolutions of the Imperial Conference of 1926, defining the mutual relations and status of Britain and the self-govern-ing Dominions, and exempting the Dominions from the Colonial Laws Validity Act.