cuapr.1] PRINCIPLES OF IMPERIAL CONTROL 1011
establishing a control over rates for cable transit was con-
ditional on the passing of legislation by the Imperial Parlia-
ment to a similar effect. All these Acts, if not passed sulr
modo, would no doubt have required for practical considera-
tions to be reserved.
The absence of special instructions from the royal instrue-
tions was followed in the case of the Commonwealth in 19001,
but not in the case of the Union of South Africa, where the
subject of reservation is mentioned, and the Governor-
General is forbidden to assent to any Bill which he has been
specially instructed by the Secretary of State to reserve, and
is told to take special care not to assent to any Act the
reservation of which is required by the Constitution, and in
particular he is directed to reserve any Bill which disqualifies
any person who is or may become under the laws existing in
the Cape Province at the time of union capable of being
registered as a voter from being registered in the Union on
grounds of colour or race only. This last sentence carries
out a pledge given in Parliament during the discussion of
the South Africa Act.?
In the case of New Zealand the instructions relative to
the reservation of Bills were altered in 1907 to meet the change
of status caused by the elevation of the Colony to the rank
of a Dominion. In the six states and in Newfoundland
there are still instructions, and there were instructions in the
South African Colonies until the Union. Those of the Cape
were on the same model as those of Natal, but excluded any
reference to the reservation of proposed Acts on the ground
that they affected differentially non-European persons,
* The form is as follows: ‘VII. Our said Governor-General is to take
care that all laws assented to by him in Our name, or reserved for the
signification of Our pleasure thereon, shall, when transmitted by him, be
fairly abstracted in the margins, and be accompanied, in such cases as
may seem to him necessary, with such explanatory observations as may
be required to exhibit the reasons and occasions for proposing such laws ;
and he shall also transmit fair copies of the Journals and Minutes of the
proceedings of the Parliament of Our said Commonwealth, which he is
to require from the clerks, or other proper officers in that behalf, of the said
Parliament.’ ? See p. 963, n. 1.
3
or 2
