Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/689

 n ,:>^°'^f^"t .r ADELAIDP: and vicinity xiii Constitution of South Australia So far as relates to the relative powers and privileges of the two Houses, if any analogy at all could have been drawn, it should have been drawn between the Legislative Council and the House of Commons. The number of registered electors for the Legislative Council in 1857 at the first election was 10,092. The estimated population in 1857 was 109,917 ; so that the proportion of electors for the Legislative Council to population was i for every 1 2, including women and children. In 1862 the number of electors for the House of Commons was 1,187,897 ; the population was 29,204,983, or i in 24. The Council in South Australia represented, as did the Commons in England, that portion of the population which paid the greater part of the taxation, and the Assembly was not analogous to any existing body in the mother country. This, however, is j^erhaps of only historical interest. The proviso to Section I. before mentioned was inserted, and in 1857 a dispute arose as to its true meaning and as to the true meaning and interpretation of the Constitution Act of 1855-6 generally. The Tonnage Duties Repeal Bill was originated in the House of Assembly. It repealed a tax on the tonnage of shipping and substituted a wharfage rate. The Bill was amended in the ordinary manner by the Legislative Council. When the amendments were received by the House of Assembly a question of privilege was raised. The House of Assembly declared that it was a breach of privilege by the Legislative Council to "modify any Money Bill passed by the House." To which the Council rejoined that it had " an undoubted right to make amendments in all Bills whatsoever sent up to the Council by the House of Assembly." This dispute was, after many messages between the two Houses and protracted debates, finally settled by a compromise, commonly called "The Compact of 1857." The dispute was whether or not the Council had the right to amend in the ordinary manner Bills which the Constitution Act said must originate in the Assembly. This "Compact" defines those Bills, which the Council cannot amend in the ordinary way, as being " all Bills the object of which shall be to raise money, whether by way of loan or otherwise, or to warrant the expenditure of any portion of the same," and provides that " it shall be competent for the Council to suggest any alteration in any such Bill (except that portion of the Appropriation Bill that provides for the ordinary annual expenses of the Government)." If the "Compact "was literally construed it would authorise the Council to amend or alter all clauses in Bills which are not " Suggestion Bills," even though those clauses impose taxes or appropriate revenue, and would prohibit the Council from making any amendment at all except by way of suggestion in " Suggestion Bills," even though the clauses proposed to be amended had nothing to do with money. But it must, however, be read and considered as illustrated and modified by the messages between the Houses of which the " Compact " itself forms a part. And its results, as construed in practice, are as follows : — (a) All Bills for appropriating (i.e., whose primary object is to appropriate) revenue, or for imposing, altering, or repealing (as above) any tax, rate, duty, or impost, must originate in the House of Assembly. (d) Any other Bill can be introduced in either House. (c) If a Bill is introduced in the Council, the primary object of which is not to appropriate revenue, or to impose, alter, or vary any tax, rate, duty, or impost, but which contains, or ought to contain, in order to carry same into effect, clauses of that nature, such clauses should either be not inserted or struck ont in committee and inserted in the House of Assembly.