CHAP. Iv] ALTERATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 439
No. 14 of 1893; it was left for the Governor to reserve if
any essential principle was involved.
In the case of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony the
letters patent of December 6, 1906, and June 5, 1907, consti-
tuting responsible government required the reservation of
Acts altering in any way the letters patent or providing for
the introduction of indentured labour, or imposing! upon
non-Europeans disabilities which were not so imposed upon
Europeans, but the inconvenience of these provisions was
much modified and greatly reduced by the rule that reserva-
tion was not required if the Governor has previously obtained
instructions with regard to such law through the Secretary
of State or the law contained a clause suspending its operation
until the proclamation in the Colony of the royal assent.
§ 5. NEWFOUNDLAND AND THE PROVINCES OF CANADA
Special considerations apply to the alteration of the
federal constitutions, and the question will be more conveni-
ently dealt with in Part IV. There remain Newfoundland
and the Canadian Provinces. In the former there is full
power to change the constitution by a simple Act, though
on the principle laid down in the Queensland case, not by
mere inconsistency. This is, however, subject to the same
doubt as in New Zealand, for an Imperial Act? allows the
Crown to provide regarding the qualification of members
of the House of Assembly, the qualification by residence of
electors, the simultaneous holding of elections, and the
recommendation of Money Bills by the Governor. This
power has been exercised by instructions of May 4, 1855,
confirming earlier instructions of 1842, and, as regards
electoral matters, the rules so laid down appear in the Con-
solidated Statutes of 1892. It is probable that these rules can
be altered by local Act simply under the general power in the
Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865, though it is clear that
the Crown could amend such legislation by fresh exercise of
! Ttis probable but not certain that a consolidating Act does not impose.
There is no legal decision on the point,
* 5 & 6 Viet. ¢. 120, confirmed and made permanent in part by 10 & 11
Vict. c. 44. See instructions of Sept. 1. 1842.
