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 24 up some fifty per cent.; and natives of the West Indian Islands form no small proportion of the balance. Mixed as it is, it is overwhelmingly British in its attachments, traditions, and sympathies.’

In Ceylon, if the Roman-Dutch Law is not so firmly established as it is in South Africa, yet it is not, as in British Guiana, in danger of immediate extinction. It seems more likely that in this Colony it will die slowly of asphyxia, smothered beneath legislation which may, however, continue in a greater or less degree to reflect its principles.

In re Insolvent Estate of Loudon, Discount Bank v. Dawes (1829) 1 Menz. at p. 388, the Court observed: ‘When this Colony was settled by the Dutch the general principles and rules of the law of Holland were introduced here, but by such introduction of the law of Holland it did not follow that special and local regulations should also be introduced; accordingly the provisions of the Placaat of 5th February, 1665, as to the payment of the 40th penny (3 G. P. B. 1005) have never been part of the law of this Colony, because this tax has never been imposed on the inhabitants of this Colony by any law promulgated by the legislative authorities within this Colony. In like manner until a law had been passed here creating a public register the provisions of the Placaat of 1st February 1580 (? 1st April—1 G. P. B. 330), were not in force or observance here.’

In Herbert v. Anderson (1839) 2 Menz. 166, the following Placaats were said to be merely fiscal and revenue laws of Holland, which had never become or been made law in Cape Colony, viz. Placaats, &c., of June 11, 1452 (3 G. P. B. 18), January 22, 1615 (1 G. P. B. 363), April 1, 1580 (Art. 31, 1 G. P. B. 337), March 29, 1677 (3 G. P. B. 672), April 3, 1677 (3 G. P. B. 1037). This decision was quoted with approval by Kotzé C.J. in Eckhardt v. Nolte (1885) 2 S. A. R. 48, who