UNIFORM LEGISLATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17227, 5 April 1930, Page 15

UNIFORM LEGISLATION

DOMINIONS AND BRITAIN PROPOSAL FOR CHARGES IM PERTAL CONFERENCE REPOR'J LONDON, Feb. 20. The report of the conference on the operation of Dominion legislation ant merchant shipping legislation which sat during the. last months of .1929 lias beei published as a While Paper. Sir .lame; Parr and Mr. S. G. Raymond, K.C., represented New Zealand at the conference and Mr. ('. P>. Burdekin acted a; secretary for the New Zealand delegates The conference owes its origin to ; recommendation contained in the Report of the Imperial Conference of 1926. Tin [ntcr-Imperial Relations Co littcc o that conference made a recommendation which was approved of by Hie full con ference, that a committee should be set up to examine and report upon ccrtan questions connected with the operatioi of Dominion legislation, and that. ; sub-conference should be set up simul taneouslv to deal with merchant shipping legislation. This recommendation was approved by the Governments concern ed. and the present conference was es tahlished to carry out those tests. The. task of the conference was to re prut upon existing provisions by whirl the assent of His Majesty is requirec for certain Dominion legislation : (hi qxtra territorial legislation of the Domin ions, the position of the Colonial Law; Validity Act, and merchant shipping legislation. POWER OF DISOLLOWANCE in regard to disallowance, or the right of (he Crown, on the advice of the Ministers of the United Kindom. to anna an Act passed by the Dominion Legis lature, the report points out. althougl such rights exist, they have not in faei Keen exercised for many years, not since 1873 in Canada, or 1867 in New Zealand, and never in relation to tin Commonwealth of Australia or tin t'nion of South Africa. The report slates : "The conference agrees that the pre sent constitutional position is that thi power of disallowance can no longer hi exercised in relation to Dominion legis lation. Accordingly, those Dominion! which possess the power to amend theii Constitutions in this respect can, by fol lowing the prescribed procedure, abolisl the legal power of disallowance if the\ so desire. In the ease of those Domin ions which do not possess this power, il would bo in accordance with constitu tional practice that, if so requested b> the Dominion concerned, the Govern ment of the United Kindom should as! Parliament to pass the necessary legisla tion." SUCCESSION TO THE THRONE The laws relating to the succession to (lie Throne, and tho Royal Style anc Titles as matters of equal concern to al should, the, conference recommends, b< settled bv a convention in the following terms: ''lnasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British commonwealth o nations, and as they are united by i common allegiance, to the Crown, it would he in accord with the establisb.ee constitutional position of all the mem hers of the commonwealth in relation t( one another that any alteration in th< law touching the succession to tin Throne or the Royal Style and Title; shall hereafter require, the assent as wel' of the Parliaments of all the Dominion; as of ihe Parliament of tho United King dom." The conference adds that it is important that in tho Act making those changes it shall be made plain that nc change is taking place in the British North America Act of 1867, or in the Acts setting up the Commonwealth o [ Australia and the Dominion of New Zea land. Tho Constitutions of South Africa and the Irish Free State make arrangement for constitutional amendment. In regard to merchant shipping legislation, the report says the general posi lion is that the Dominions are empowered to enact laws relating to merchant shipping subject: to varying limitations. All doubt should be removed as to the full and complete power of any Dominion Parliament- to enact legislation in this field, with full power over all ships in its own territorial waters and over its registered ships.