1206 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [part Vv
payable to him under the articles and the wages current
at the time in the coasting trade of New Zealand.
It is difficult to see how direct repeal of a provision of an
Imperial Statute differs substantially from the power claimed
for the Dominion Parliament by the majority of the Court.
It is clear that the intention of the section of the Imperial
Act in question is that a seaman shall be entitled normally
only to sue for wages in the United Kingdom, and the wages
in question are clearly those stipulated for in his agreement.
To give him the right to higher wages during a portion of his
service, and to enable him to sue for the difference between
his ordinary wages and the higher wages, is in everything
but form to alter substantially the section of the Imperial
Act. It is a difficult question why the majority of the
Court were not content to hold that the power to regulate
the coasting trade was sufficiently wide to enable the Parlia-
ment to repeal provisions of the Imperial Act which would
otherwise normally apply. It may indeed be doubtful as
a matter of history whether in giving in 1869 to Colonial
Parliaments the power to regulate the coasting trade it was
meant to do more than confer upon the Parliaments the
right of opening or closing that trade to such vessels as they
thought fit ; but the Act must be read not with regard to
the original intention of the clause, but to the effect of the
wording, and the power to regulate the coasting trade as
given in the Act of 1894 (s. 736) is so widely expressed that
it seems clear that it must extend to repealing provisions
of the Imperial Act which would otherwise be inconsistent
with the local legislation.
Tf this were not the case the power to regulate the coasting
trade which has been conceded by the Imperial Government
as belonging to the Parliaments of the Dominions would
become little more than meaningless, and it would seem
simpler to place on the power of regulating a wider meaning
than to accomplish the same result by ingenious efforts to
reconcile the provisions of the Dominion and the Imperial
legislation.
It must also be remarked that in the case in question the
