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1908 NEW ZEALAND.

"THE REPRINT OF STATUTES ACT, 1895" (REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED UNDER).

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

To His Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Plunket, K.C.M.G., X.C.V.0., Governor of the Dominion of New Zealand. Mat it please Your Excellency,— We, the undersigned, being the Commissioners appointed under " The Reprint of Statutes Act, 1895," have the honour to report the practical completion of our labours. Our functions under that Act are to prepare and arrange for publication an edition of all the Public General Acts, revising, correcting, arranging, and consolidating them, and omitting such Acts or portions of them as are of a temporary character, or of a local or personal nature, or have expired, become obsolete, been repealed, or have had their effect. The Act, moreover, directs ns to make such alterations as may be necessary to reconcile the contradictions, supply the omissions, and amend the imperfections of the existing Acts. We have performed these duties with all possible care and to the best of our ability, and as the result, have the honour to submit to Your Excellency an edition of 208 Public General Acts in five volumes. These volumes are accompanied by a Bill which we have prepared in order that the edition may be enacted if the Legislature thinks fit so to do. This Bill provides that the 208 Acts the Short Titles of whioh are set forth in Appendix A thereto, and the full text of which is set forth in Appendix D thereto, and which are contained in the five volumes above referred to, shall be enacted as Public General Statutes of New Zealand. Provision is also made for giving effect to these Acts when passed, and for the repeal of the Acts specified in Appendix B, all of which are consolidated by the Acts contained in Appendix 1). In Appendix C attached to the Bill is set forth the enactments not included in the consolidation, and respecting which some remarks will be found in a later part of this report. In the preparation of the Knacting Bill we have not overlooked the prescription of section 2 of " The Statutes Compilation Act Amendment Act, 11)05 " (which contemplates two Appendices and indicates their sequence). The prescription in question is, in our opinion, purely directory, and, moreover, is applied mutatis mutandis (section Hof the Act of 1903). Of the four Appendices in our Bill, the two which correspond to those prescribed are in the same relative sequence, and this, in our view, is a sufficient compliance. In order to ay. id inconvenience to the public pending the circulation and distribution of the new Acts, a clause has been inserted in the enacting Bill providing for the temporary use of forms, &c, prescribed by or under the previous Acts.