Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/681

 Notesonthe ADELAIDE AND VICINITY v Constitution of South Australia • The expressions that the Queen assents to or vetoes a Bill, although accurately describing the reality, are not correct if we consider the theory. The words used when a Bill is assented to by Her Majesty are (in the old NornnuvFrench still employed) ''La Reync le veult" — "The Queen wills it"; or, if she wishes to exercise what is miscalled her veto, she says, "La Rcyne savisera" — that is, "The Queen will think about it." This question of Bills illustrates how widely divergent theory is from reality. The reality is that the Crown has no real power at all in the making of laws. If the two Houses of Parliament agree, the Bill which results from such agreement becomes law in England as a matter of course. The miscalled power of veto has never been exercised thus since 1707, when the Crown refused to niiike the Scotch Militia Bill, which had been agreed to by both Houses of the Imperial Parliament, into a law ; and in .South Australia there has not been since 1857 any instance of a local Bill passed by both Houses, to which the Governor was clearly empowered by his instructions to assent, failing to become law. King in Council in theory governs settled colonies with no Parliamentary Constitution The King, however, had other dominions beside PLngland, and as the King's Council of Parliament was originally his adviser for England only, he ruled and governed other parts of his dominions, such as Ireland, Normandy, or Jersey, either with or without the advice of other Councils. Lord Mansfield, in the celebrated case of Campbell z>. Hall, said : — " Whatever changes were made in the laws of Gascony, Guyenne, and Calais must have been made by the King's authority ; if by Act of Parliament, that Act of Parliament would be extant, for they were conquered in the reign of King P^dward III." There are no such Acts. That is to say, the King made laws for those countries without the advice or consent of the Houses of Parliament. No doubt there always has been a distinction drawn between conquered countries and colonies acquired by the settlement therein of the subjects of the King, but this distinction has no bearing on the fact that the P2nglish Parliament was not the King's adviser in matters of legislation outside of P^ngland. Subject to certain rights of the colonists themselves in reference to taxation, etc., it was settled and established that in any of the dominions of the King which had been acquired by the setdement therein of his subjects, and which had consequendy no local civilised form of government except such as was introduced by such settlement, the sovereign power was vested in the King with the advice of his Privy Council. So that originally in theory the King in Parliament was the Sovereign of Great Britain, and the King in his Privy Council was the Sovereign of His Majesty's colonies acquired by settlement. This statement is illustrated by the fact that, even to this day, the ultimate court of appeal from all judicial decisions in Great Britain is to the House of Lords ; that is to say, to the Queen in Parliament, which, even as late as the Api)ellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876, is described as " Her Majesty the Queen in her Court of Parliament," and that from all the colonies the ultimate court of appeal is to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council — that is, to the Queen in her Privy Council.