1192 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART V
of containing a suspending clause and treating all British
vessels wherever registered alike. S. 735, he considers,
enables a Colonial Legislature to repeal clauses of the Act
of 1894 which apply to a Colony, and he suggests that unless
such repeal is needed, the provisions of s. 735 as to the
insertion in the Act of a suspending clause, and the confirma-
tion by Order in Council, do not need to be observed.
As a matter of fact, the clauses which are now embodied in
38. 735 and 736 of the Act of 1894 were passed to supersede
a system of restriction which would have made legislation
on the subject in question in the Colonies ultra vires as being
repugnant to definite provisions of Imperial laws. Ss. 735
and 736 are really intended to confer powers to deal with
Imperial provisions and to repeal them, and therefore they
contain provisions to secure that the Imperial Government
shall be fully consulted before these wide powers are carried
out. Moreover, both these sections are adequate to confer
extra-territorial validity on the laws of the Colonies passed
onder them, When this is recognized it will be seen that
the clauses are at once enabling and restrictive; they give
a power to a Colonial Legislature which was greater than it
would normally have possessed, but on the other hand they
imposed conditions upon the exercise of that power, and
these conditions, in view of the great Imperial interests
involved, cannot reasonably be held to be unfair or unjust.
Nor is it possible to accept the view apparently suggested
in a dispatch from Mr. Deakin of June 15, 1908, that the
Constitution Act of 1900 implicitly repealed the Merchant
Shipping Act of 1894. This principle has been contended
for by Canada in respect of copyright, but may be regarded
as definitely impossible to be upheld! Moreover, it was
admitted in the discussion between the delegates and
Mr. Chamberlain in 1900 that the Colonial Laws Validity
Act, 1865, must apply to the Commonwealth.
It is another and very difficult matter to decide exactly
how far the Merchant Shipping Act restricts Colonial legisla-
- Cf. ¢ Historicus’s’ letter to The Times, June 1, 1876, where in connexion
with merchant shipping this doctrine was definitely refuted.
