1012 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PARTY
because in the Cape the existence of the suffrage for natives
rendered such a clause needless, while in the Transvaal and
the Orange River Colony the provision for the reservation of
such Bills was put in the letters patent, and there was also
a clause in that instrument requiring the reservation of any
Bill for the importation of indentured labour, and for the
reservation of all Bills affecting the provisions of the letters
patent,! a restriction which was not found necessary in the
Cape or Natal. The insertion of the provisions in the letters
patent of course made an essential difference in the result of
an inadvertent assent : under the Colonial Laws Validity Act
the assent, if the instructions are the only instrument con-
cerned, is valid, but if the instruction to reserve is embodied
in the instrument of government an assent is a mere nullity.
The terms of the instructions in the case of Newfoundland
and of New South Wales, with which the rules in the case of
the other states are identical, are as follows, those for New-
foundland dating from 1876,2 and being in the antique style,
while the omissions of military and naval matters and duties
from the state form is because these are matters for Common-
wealth legislation, and are not needed especially in a state
instrument. With these the Natal instructions of 1893 may
be compared :—
Newfoundland
XVII. Our said Governor is not to assent in Our name
to any Bill of any of the classes hereinafter specified, that
is to say —
1. Any Bill for the divorce of persons joined together in
Holy Matrimony.
2. Any Bill whereby any grant of land or money or other
donation or gratuity may be made to himself.
3. Any Bill whereby any paper or other currency may be
made a legal tender, except the coin of the realm or other
rold or silver coin.
! Transvaal Letters Patent, December 6, 1906, s. 49; Orange River
Colony Letters Patent, June 5, 1907, s. 51.
' The older type, those of May 4, 1855, contain very many more restric-
tions, and so in the older Canadian instructions printed in Canada Sess.
Pap., 1906, No, 18.
