LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 10 February 1876)

§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to Legislation in India with a view to the consolidation thereof, said, it was the same as that which received unanimous support last Session in the House of Lords, but which had to be abandoned through the want of time to pass it. The Bill would consolidate into one Act certain powers conferred on the Governor General contained in three different Acts of Parliament. At present the Governor General could not pass any law which might in any way affect any part of the unwritten law or Constitution of the United Kingdom wherein might depend in any de- 199 gree the allegiance of any person of the United Kingdom. These words were so vague and so unmeaning that they were very mischievous, and it was proposed to omit them. The Bill would define more accurately the limits within which the Governor General might legislate, and it would alter the machinery by which these limits were at present tested, which was by a multitude of appeals from the local Courts to Courts of Appeal, and terminating in the High Courts of the Presidency. A practice had lately sprung up, where any act of the Governor General was involved in any suit, for counsel to contend that the law was ultra vires, on the ground that the Governor General had exceeded his powers in passing it, and if the Governor General was no party to the suit he had no power to appeal. This Bill proposed to remedy it by declaring that no Court except the High Court of Appeal of any of the Presidencies should have power to declare the law to be ultra vires, and if the Court decided that it was so, the Secretary of State for India would have an ultimate appeal to the Privy Council. The provisions of the Bill had been sanctioned by every Secretary of State for India, and by everyone who had occupied an administrative position in India, and unless some such Bill were passed serious political dangers might arise in India. The Bill gave a clear, distinct, and indisputable title to the Governor General in India to exercise those powers with which he had been invested.