Abstract:
THE necessity for a revision of the Statute Law of the Colony has long been recognized, and for some years past a sum of money has annually been voted by Parliament for the codification of the Statutes. The codification scheme was, however, abandoned, and we were authorized by the Government to bring out this revised edition,
which, it will at once be observed, has been prepared on an entirely different basis from the first edition. The various Statutes, instead of being printed, as hitherto, simply in their chronological order, have been arranged alphabetically according to the subjects to which they relate, all enactments and portions of enactments dealing with the same subject being grouped together. The expediency of this innovation may perhaps be questioned by
some who have been long accustomed to the chronological order; but the advantages of the alphabetical arrangement - which has been adopted in the Australian colonies-are obvious, and we had, moreover, the strongly expressed opinion of the Honourable the Attorney-General in its favour. The chief difficulty in carrying out the present arrangement has been occasioned by the "patchy" nature of many of the Statutes, it being by no means uncommon to find several subjects of a totally different character treated of in the same Act, This has rendered it necessary to print portions of a large number of Acts more than once. The alphabetical arrangement was in itself a matter of considerable difficulty. We have endeavoured to produce one which will, we trust, be found practically useful and convenient: for, in the words of the learned and eminent compilers of the first volume of the Statute
Law, "A scientific, methodical arrangement of the laws under certain artificial heads, indicating' the particular department of polity intended to be embraced, might be useful for the philosopher, and perhaps for the legislator, but for all practical uses by the public in general or by the practitioners of the law, we apprehend it would be
of little use." Advantage has been taken of the provisions of Sect. 12 of Act 5 of 1883 to embody alterations made in the Statutes by subsequent legislation. The text of every enactment has been carefully compared with the
certified original in the office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court, and it may not be amiss to mention that several discrepancies were found to exist between the original and the published copies now in use. This Edition comprises the whole of the Statute Law up to and including the Acts passed during the Session of 1886. It consists
of three volumes, the first two containing the text of the Acts, and the last a full Chronological Table and a complete Alphabetical Index.
