A.—No. 13.

Acts could be continued or acted upon after their repeal; and in one case, oven enrolment of completed proceedings, merely so as to make them evidence, was refused (Surtees v. Ellison, 2b. and c.750 ; Phillips v. Hopwood, 10b. and c.39 ; Maggs v. Hunt, 4 Bing. 212 ; Kaye v. G-oodwin, 6 Bing. 57G; "Worth v. Budd, 2b. and c.172). The rule has been applied to a felony at common law mado liable to an aggravated punishment by an Act of Parliament, which last punishment it was held by all the Judges could not be inflicted after the repeal of the Act, though the offence was committed while it was in force (E. v. Mackenzie, E. and E.s C. C. 429). The Court of Exchequer also refused an application for costs upon certain proceedings under a Statute repealed after the proceedings were heard, but before the application (Charrington v. Matheringham, 2m. and w.228, and Warne v. Beresford, 2m. and w.848). Most of the cases where the rule has been applied are reviewed by the Court of Queen's Bench in " The Queen v. Inhabitants of Mawgan, 8 Ad and Ell. 476," in which case the Court arrested judgment in certain proceedings against the defendant for the non-repair of a highway under an Act of Parliament, the Act having been repealed pending the proceedings (see E. v. Taylor, Sup. Court, N. Z.). The sum therefore of the preceding judicial dicta is that Acts repealed are (except as to rights acquired) things done and completed, and suits commenced and concluded under them, as completely obliterated by the repeal as if they had never existed (unless the repealing Statute contains a continuing clause). Can then the powers conferred upon the Governor in Council by "The Tsew Zealand Settlements Act of 1863," and exercised by His Excellency by the Order in Council of May, 1865, take rank in the above category, and assert a claim to existing validity, either as :—l. A right acquired; 2. A thing done and completed; 3. A suit commenced and concluded ? It needs no argument to show that the third head can have no application to this question, or that the regulations for the disposal of lands taken under the Act of 1863 can in no sense be called a right. If persons have acquired rights thereunder such rights will come under the second head, viz.:— (2.) Things done and completed. It may be asserted that the Order in Council was immediately that it had passed the Executive Council of the Colony a "thing done and completed." Here, however, is an evident confusion of terms. The words " Order 'in Council" have two significations, the abstract and the concrete, that is to say, the spirit of the thing signified, and the outward visible sign of the thing ; or, in other words, the instrument which evidenced the ideas, and the ideas themselves. Doubtless the " Order," speaking of it as a thing composed out of matter destructible, tangible and composed of atoms that may be separated, was and is perfect and complete in itself, but the Order in its significative sense, as a power to certain persons to dispose of and grant land is a thing incomplete, continuing, and in all respects incapable of becoming a " past transaction" until it is either extinguished, or all the land over which it can possibly work is disposed of under its operation. On the confusion which may be caused in the mind by nomenclatures, and the necessity of nicely discriminating between the outward sign and the inward idea. (See Whately on Logic.) The simple fact that these are still upheld as in process of active administration, and the towns and village sites which encumber this block are maintained as legally constituted thereunder is sufficient to show that the power conferred is still executing and not executed, and no final and undeterminable interest can vest while this condition exists, for every executing power is liable to be defeated. (See Sugden on Powers, p. G6.) Again, where a term is created by a settlement to raise portions with a general power of revocation of the settlement, although the portions become actually due, yet, while the power subsists, it suspends and prevents the portions from being payable, because the donee of the power may revoke at any time before the portions are raised and paid although the right to the portions is become vested under the terms of the settlement. (See Sugden, 131.) Every estate which is executed necessarily possesses a vested interest; on the other hand no interest can be allowed to be vested while it gives an interest which is executory. The notion of an executory interest is irreconcilable with the idea of a vested interest. It follows that the terms " executed " and " executory " contrasted with each other have one sense at least peculiar to themselves, and not common to the contrasted terms "vested " and " contingent." (See Preston on Estates, Vol. 2.) If then the Order in Council constituting these regulations is still to retain any validity the powers contained in it (i.e. its essence) are still subsisting and in process of oxecutiou, and therefore cannot be said to be a "transaction done and completed." But if this delegated legislation with all its attributes is not a " transaction done and completed " it fell with the destruction of the Act which authorized it, i.e. the 18th clause of the Act of 1863. And this is a logical dilemma. The words " things done and completed " will have a direct application to grants signed and sealed before the repeal of the empowering clause, if any such have been made, though the equitable estate acquired under incomplete contracts (if any) must be treated as of no validity, and requiring the interposition of the' Legislature to be again set up. It appears then that the Eegulations for the disposal of lands under the 18th clause of the Act of 1863 fell with the repeal of the clause by the Act of 1865, and all the townships and allotments surveyed and laid out thereunder have now no legal existence, and all contracts for the sale of any parts of them are void, and this block of land can only be encumbered, as to the operations of the Court, by the contracts made with Military Settlers. 2. Contracts with Military Settlers. As before stated, there was a great deficiency of evidence on this matter. The only real evidence before us consists in the terms put in by the Crown Agent, offered by the G-overnment. The first of these documents, dated 6th July, 1863, was issued many months before " The New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863," was passed, and in the absence of any evidence on the subject, the Court was entirely unable to discover on what authority land " between Omata and Tataraimaka" (the parts called A. and B. in this block), were offered to be granted to settlers. One of the papers put in purported to be signed by an individual who accepted the terms, but his signature was dated before the Order in Council confiscating the lands.

7

COMPENSATION COURT AT NEW PLYMOUTH.