cHAP. 1] POWERS OF DOMINION PARLIAMENTS 361
clearly that it was not a sound argument that, because
a change might be deliberately made by Parliament in a
constitution, therefore any ordinary Act whatever might be
passed, though in contravention of constitutional provisions
as they stood.
On the other hand, there may be cases in which the Parliament
has really delegative powers, as under the Coinage
(Colonial) Offences Act, 1858, the Extradition Act, 1870, the
Mail Ships Act, 1891, the Army Act, 1881, ss. 156 (8)
and 169, in which cases the usual rules as to delegated power
would apply.!
8 2. THE LIMITATION OF THE POWERS OF THE
PARLIAMENTS
Although within their own sphere plenary, there are imposed
on the legislative powers of Dominion Parliaments
certain restrictions which may be classed under four heads :
(1) those arising from the essential character of a Parliament
of a dependency as not sovereign in the full sense; (2) the
territorial limits of their authority ; (3) the rule of nonrepugnancy
to Imperial law, and (4) the limitations as to
ronstitutional change.
From time to time, and in various forms, there has
appeared the doctrine that there are certain subjects which
are of so Imperial a character that they cannot be regarded
as falling within the purview of any Colonial Legislature
whatever, however august. Thus Robinson C.J. held in
the case of Tully v. The Principal Officers of Her Majesty's
Ordnance? that it was simply impossible for the Colonial
Legislature to affect a right of the Ordnance, a department
not in the country at all, though officers of it might be. The
same point of view is represented by certain passages in the
U Harrison Moore, Commonwealth of Australia,® pp. 271, 272.
* (1847) 5 U. C. Q. B. 6; Lefroy, Legislative Power in Canada, pp. 333,
758 ; 308. C. R., at pp. 47, 48. In this particular case the doctrine can
be defended on the ground that the consent of the Imperial Government
is necessary for proceedings against the Crown in its Imperial capacity ;
of. pp. 144, 145, and Cape Town Council v. Hoskyn and others, 14 C. T. R.
386 : Palmer v. Hutchinson. 6 App. Cas. 619, Fraser v. Sivewright. 3 S. C. 55.
