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40 Pol. Sci. Q. 1 (1925)

handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry40 and id is 1 raw text is: March, 1925 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY THE CONSTITUTIONAL CLAIMS OF THE BRITISH WEST INDIES THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE SLAVE REGISTRY BILL OF 1815 I A S a proposition of law it is no longer questioned that the authority of the British Parliament is unlimited throughout the British Empire. Its claim of abso- lute sovereignty, Professor Dicey tells us, would be admit- ted as sound legal doctrine by any court throughout the Em- pire which purported to act under the authority of the King ,1 and such a statement is not challenged by even the most stal- wart champion of Dominion autonomy.2 Practically speaking, the power of Parliament to legislate for the Dominions has gone to join what Maitland called the ghostly company of legal fictions , and today an act of Parliament interfering in the internal affairs of a Dominion would be called unconstitu- tional and probably could not be enforced, but the word un- constitutional would be used with a meaning different from that which it conveys to an American. By it would be meant that the act in question was contrary to established usage and conven- I7ntroduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 8th ed., pp. xxv-xxvi. The legislative supremacy of Parliament , says Sir Henry Jenkyns in his British Rule and Yurisdiction beyond the Seas, p. 1o, over the whole of the British domin- ions is complete and undoubted in law, though for constitutional or practical rea- sons, Parliament abstains from exercising that supreme legislative power. How- ever extensive the authority of a colonial legislature may be, its enactments may legally be overridden by an act of Parliament; this was expressly declared in the Colonial Laws Validity Act of 1865 (28 & 29 Vict. c. 63). 'See e. g. Sir Robert Borden, Canadian Constitutional Studies, pp. 71-72. I Volume XL] [ Number z

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