cHAP. X11] LEGISLATION FOR THE DOMINIONS 1327 
a representative legislature under an Imperial statute was 
inevitable in view of earlier legislation in 1840 and 1846, and 
other Acts were needed in 1857, 1862, and 1868 to make the 
path of the Parliament clear by removing obsolete fetters 
on its action! 
The boundaries of a Colony are not open to a Colony to 
regulate ; this follows from the fact that the territory for 
which it legislates is clearly what it has not, but what it 
wants to get. It was long thought that a mere exercise of 
the prerogative in every case was sufficient to transfer 
territory to a Colony, but at last doubts on this head became 
very strong; in some cases the boundaries had received 
incorporation in an Act of Parliament, and it was asked 
whether they could be changed thereafter. Finally, the 
whole matter was determined by the Colonial Boundaries 
Act, 1895, which ratifies all such alterations ex post facto 
and for the future, subject to the reserve that the consent of 
the self-governing Colonies enumerated was necessary. This 
Act was made by the Commonwealth Constitution Act, 1900, 
to apply to the Commonwealth as a whole, and not to the 
individual states. In the case of the Union of South Africa 
it applies to the Union. It may be noted that from their 
establishment to their extinction the Transvaal and the 
Orange River Colony never fell under the protection of the 
Act, which could have been used to alter very considerably 
their boundaries despite any adverse views which they might 
have had. The Act was availed of to transfer territory from 
the Transvaal to Natal after the Boer war, but not to add 
Papua to the Commonwealth. That possession is merely 
under the authority of the Commonwealth under s. 122 of 
the Constitution. 
Other Imperial Acts owe their character to the subject- 
matter. Thus the Act of 1901 regarding the demise of the 
Crown is general in terms and applied to Australia, as was 
seen on the occasion of the death of the late King in 1910, 
when the question was discussed? and so is the Act to add 
* See these Acts in Constitution and Government of New Zealand, pp. 12-17. 
* The Queensland Act of 1910, which re-enacts the provisions of the Act 
02