COLONIAL LEGISLATURES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4812, 24 August 1876, Page 5

COLONIAL LEGISLATURES.

The following letter from Mr. Hugh O. E. Childers to the Editor, appeared in The Times of the 10th June “ Will you allow me to correct what appears to me to be an entire misapprehension of the purport of a question which I put to the Government on the third reading of the Merchant Shipping Bill ? Your leading article of the Ist inst., and the letter signed ‘ A.M.’ in The Times of the sth, both of which I have read while travelling on the Continent, attribute to mo a share in the discussion which I must wholly disavow. The question which I put to the Government had no reference to the powers of Colonial Legislatures under responsible government, but solely to the suggestion made a few days before in The ■Times —viz., that after the passing of the Dominion Act of 1867 a ship registered in the Dominion was no longer a ‘British’ ship (within the meaning of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854), but a Canadian or ‘ Colonial’ ship. This doubt as to the effect of the Dominion Act of 1867 affected many millions of capital invested in ships registered in Canada, and it appeared to me very important that the doubt should be set at rest. I had always, rightly or wrongly, understood that the Dominion Act of 1867 in no way altered the relations between the Mother Country and the North American colonies, the latter having acquired ‘ responsible government’ many yearsbefore,butoulysettled the relations of those colonies inter se, and the relative power of the new Dominion Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures. It seemed, therefore, to me unlikely that the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854, could have been impliedly repealed by the Dominion Act; and before the Bill passed the House I was anxious to obtain the opinion of the Government on this point, for if the suggestion made in The Times were well founded, the Bill should have been entirely recast. My question was not pre-arranged with Sir Charles Adderley or any member of the Government ; and, indeed, I expected that it would be answered by the Attorney-General. I spoke for, perhaps, five minutes in elucidation of it, but at a very late hour; and I am not surprised that your reporter condensed what I said into a small compass. But as the result has been to attribute to me views with reference to the powers of Colonial Parliaments with which I entirely disagree, and which on former occasions I have done my best to combat, perhaps you will be good enough to publish this explanation.”