1028 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PARTY
same principle is illustrated very neatly by a very recent
cage. In 1908! the Parliament of New South Wales passed
an Act, which was intended to confirm a previous Act by
which it had been intended to lay down certain steps to
dispose finally of the question of various land licences
granted by the Minister of Lands, who had been found to
have been guilty of serious misbehaviour in regard to this
question, It was provided in the original measure that
the various cases of grants made by him should be carefully
considered and disposed of by a committee appointed for that
purpose. This was done, but the parties who had acquired
land from the Minister, either directly or indirectly, were in
some cases aggrieved by the decisions, and took advantage
of a flaw in the Act of bringing the matter into the Courts ;
the Government then introduced a Bill to confirm the
decisions arrived at under the previous Act, and this Bill
was assented to by the Governor, though there were addressed
to him and the Imperial Government, various petitions
alleging that the decision was unfair, and that it affected
injuriously holders of land who lived in the United Kingdom.
But the petitioners were not granted the relief they
craved, and indeed it would be impossible to assent to
the doctrine that an Act should properly be interfered
with by the Imperial Government because it affected
absentees. Thus the Land Tax Acts of the Commonwealth
Nos. 21 and 22 of 19102 are deliberately intended to affect
such absentee owners, on the very ground which has been
adopted in New Zealand as a fixed principle that owners
of land in the Dominion who are not resident there, and
do not allow the country to benefit by the expenditure there
of the revenues it produces, should pay an extra contribu-
tion to the state revenues.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule; for example,
* See Times, June 27 and July 3, 1908, for an attack on the Colonial Act
and for the reply of the Agent-General; Acts No. 42 of 1906; 4 of 1908.
* A request that the Governor-General be instructed to reserve was
declined, and petitions for disallowance rejected. Its validity has been
upheld by the High Court in Osborne v. The Commonwealth.
