gratuity is based on length of service. In the case of soldiers embarked before November 10, 1918, the gratuity is calculated at the rate of Is. 6d. for each day's service, and in the case of those who embarked after that date and of certain members of the Naval Forces who did not serve on a sea-going ship the rate is Is. per day. The Act contains detailed provisions dealing with the method of calculating the period of service. In most cases the period is from the date of embarkation or of taking up duty on a sea-going ship until June 28, 1919.

Where the eligible person dies (whether before or after the commencement of the Act) before payment of the gratuity or is mentally unfit it may be paid to his dependents. Except in certain specified cases the gratuity is not payable in cash, but in Treasury Bonds maturing not later than May 31, 1924, and bearing 51 per cent. interest free of incometax.

War Precautions.-The War Precautions Repeal Act, 1920 (No. 54 of 1920), repeals the War Precautions Act, 1914-18, and makes provision for certain matters arising out of this repeal, such as the continuance for a limited period of the War Precautions Regulations relating to the control of coal and of wharves and to the registration of companies, firms, and businesses.

The Act also authorizes the Prime Minister to enter into certain arrangements in regard to the marketing of primary products. Under the Act British subjects arriving from overseas may be compelled to make an oath or affirmation of allegiance before being permitted to land, and may be deported if they are afterwards found to have said or done anything in violation of that oath or affirmation. The Act also deals with unlawful assemblies in the vicinity of Parliament House and with seditious statements, etc.

Another provision requires agents of oversea companies and firms to furnish annually to the Collector of Customs certain information in regard to such companies or firms. Regulations may be made under the Act dealing (inter alia) with the publication of books, pamphlets, etc., purporting to be records of the services of any Naval or Military Expeditionary Force raised in the Commonwealth, the publication of newspapers or periodicals in a foreign language, and the use of the word "Anzac."

2. NEW SOUTH WALES.

[It is hoped to publish the Summary of Legislation in the next Review.]

3. QUEENSLAND.

[Contributed by the HON. LITTLETON E. GROOM, M.A., LL.M., and J. F. GAMBLE, Esq., B.A., LL.B.]

Acts passed-12.

Owing to the 1919 session of the Parliament extending into 1920, and to the holding of elections, the amount of legislation passed during the 1920 session was small.

Agriculture. The Wheat Pool Act of 1920 (II Geo. V., No. 4) authorizes the appointment of a State Wheat Board consisting of representatives of wheat-growers in the State to deal with the marketing of the wheat

harvest of the season 1920-21, and makes provision for extending the Act by Proclamation to subsequent crops. This Board has power to sell or arrange for the sale of wheat, to employ such agents as are necessary, to arrange for financial accommodation, and to set aside and store wheat for seed. As a general rule, no wheat can be sold or purchased except through the Board. All wheat must be delivered in the name of the grower, and the Board must grade the wheat and pay the grower for f.a.q. wheat at the rate of 9s. per bushel seaport basis; but the Board does not pay for the wheat in cash. Upon delivery of the wheat it issues a certificate to the grower and makes advances thereon from time to time until the full amount is paid. No wheat can be gristed without the authority of the Board, and provision is made for the registration of liens on wheat and for the making of regulations dealing with meetings of the Board, the making of contracts for the sale of wheat, and other matters arising in connection with the administration of the Act.

Banking. The Commonwealth Bank Agreement Ratification and State Advances Act of 1920 (II Geo. V, No. 5) ratifies an Agreement made between the Commonwealth Bank and the Government of the State of Queensland with respect to the transfer to the Commonwealth Bank of the business and assets of the Queensland Government Savings Bank. The functions of the Savings Bank Commissioner in regard to State Advances are transferred to the Treasurer, and for this purpose the Act incorporates the office of Treasurer as a Corporation Sole by the name of the State Advances Corporation." The Agreement in relation to the transfer to the Commonwealth Bank of the assets and business of the State Savings Bank is set out in the Schedule.

"

Local Authorities.-The Local Authorities Acts Amendment Act of 1920 (11 Geo. V, No. 11) makes a number of changes in the system of local government. The franchise for elections of members of Local Authorities has been widened and the right to vote at such elections extended to all persons whose names are on the Electoral Roll for the election of members of Parliament. All persons on the Roll must vote or send to the Returning Officer a valid and sufficient excuse. The chairman of the Local Authority (who in the case of a town or city is the Mayor) instead of being chosen by the members of the Local Authority, will be elected at the same time as the Members of the Local Authority and on the same franchise. The chairman may authorize works which in his opinion are urgent provided the cost does not exceed £20 or such amount as the Local Authority may determine. The powers of the Local Authority in regard to houses unfit for occupation have been extended. The Local Authority may serve notice on the occupier of any such house requiring him to purify, repair, or alter the house or to cause it to be pulled down. In case of default the person notified will be liable to a penalty of Ios. per day during which the default continues, and in the last resort the Local Authority may cause the house to be pulled down or destroyed and may recover from the person in default the expenses incurred.

The Act increases the power of Local Authorities to levy General Rates and authorizes them to remit rates in the case of incapacitated returned. soldiers, persons suffering from industrial diseases as defined by the Workers' Compensation Acts, and persons in receipt of invalid or old-age pensions. In the case of farm land adjacent to a town or city, if the land is not in demand for residential purposes and more than half of it is

cultivated annually for purposes of food production, the Local Authority may reduce the General Rate. The provisions in regard to borrowing money have been altered. Under the previous Act twenty rate-payers affected could, on payment of a deposit of £10, demand a poll in regard to any proposed loan. The present Act requires 10 per cent. of the electors of the area affected to make such demand and abolishes the condition requiring a deposit. The Act increases the power of a Local Authority to borrow in cases where, owing to circumstances beyond the control of the Local Authority, the amount borrowed for any particular work has proved inadequate.

Miscellaneous.-Other Acts were passed amending the Liquor Act, the Mining Acts, and the Income-tax Act.

4. SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

[Contributed by A. J. HANNAN, Esq., M.A., LL.B., Parliamentary Draftsman, South Australia.]

In all, forty-three Acts were passed by the South Australian Parliament during the 1920 session. Of this number, five Acts were purely private in character; three dealt with Appropriation and Supply; and three (Nos. 1419, 1431, and 1433) were of administrative interest only. No. 1429 authorized an increase in the Government subsidy to the Police Pensions Fund, and No. 1432 raised the limit of rating power of the Renmark Irrigation Trust. No. 1435 authorized the carrying out of a huge water-conservation scheme. These Acts will not be dealt with in this Summary. There were two semi-private Bills taken up by the Government and treated as public matters, and both dealt with private charities: The Lady Kintore Cottages Act (No. 1430) makes provision for the taking over by the Adelaide Benevolent and Strangers' Friend Society, Incorporated, of the administration of the trusts concerning certain cottages known as the Lady Kintore Cottages, which had been purchased by private subscription for the use of indigent widows and deserted wives and their families. The other semi-private Act, Succession Duties (Peter Waite Benefactions) (No. 1422), provides that certain gifts of real and personal property to the Adelaide University by Mr. Peter Waite, of Glen Osmond, to accrue after his death, are to be free of succession duty.

Post-war Legislation.-The Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act Further Amendment Act (No. 1439) makes an important amendment in the Act of the same title passed last year. That Act conferred upon the Minister power to acquire compulsorily any "large estate" for the purpose of soldier settlement. It contained a provision whereby the owner of any large estate, a portion of which was to be acquired, could require the Minister to take all the lands belonging to him which adjoin or are occupied together with the desired portion. This Act provides that where the owner avails himself of this right and requires the Minister to take the whole of the estate and the Minister does not desire to do so, the Minister may revoke his notice of intention to acquire and may withdraw the proceedings altogether, and the owner is to have no claim against the Minister by reason of the giving of the notice or of its revocation.

The War Terms Regulation Act (No. 1448) prohibits the use for business purposes, or in connection with the nomenclature of private

residences, boats, vehicles, or institutions, of any of the terms "Anzac,” "Aussie," "Returned Soldier," "Returned Sailor," "Repatriation," "Australian Imperial Force," " A.I.F," or of any other word or expression associated with the recent war which is declared by the Governor to be a "prohibited word" for the purposes of the Act. As a direct method of enforcing the Act, the Registrar of Companies is directed to refuse registration to any company or firm in the name of which is included any prohibited word. The Act was passed in pursuance of an agreement between the States for uniform legislation on these lines.

Wheat Marketing and Transportation Act (No. 1426). This Act continues the scheme for pooling and marketing the Australian wheat crop for each season rendered necessary by the effects of the war, this time expressly in collaboration with the Commonwealth and the States of New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia. The objects of the Act are twofold and are sufficiently set out in the preamble to the Act. The first part of the preamble reads: "Whereas owing to the continuance of the great scarcity of the means of transportation which resulted from the existence of a state of war the satisfactory marketing of the Australian wheat harvest of the season 1920-21 is endangered: And whereas certain Ministers of the Crown of the States of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia have in a conference held for the purpose outlined a proposed scheme for concerted action by the Governments of the said States, in co-operation with the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, if it agrees to co-operate with the said Governments, or, failing such co-operation, then independently of the Government of the Commonwealth, for utilizing on a fair basis the means of transportation available and for the marketing of the said harvest at prices based on those obtainable on the overseas wheat market, with certain deductions: And whereas it is expedient to empower the Government of South Australia to join with the said Governments . . .," etc. The second part reads: "And whereas, during the year ending on the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty, the Minister in exercise of his powers under the Wheat Harvest Acts, 1915 to 1919, has sold to various millers wheat for gristing into flour for Australian consumption during the said year, and may, during the remainder of the said year, sell to millers further wheat for the like purpose: And whereas it is desirable that flour gristed from such wheat, and whether remaining in the possession of millers or disposed of by them, shall not be accumulated for the purposes of sale after the expiry of the intended consumption period. . . .

The first purpose of the Act is achieved by the same scheme that has already been explained in previous summaries of legislation in dealing with Acts of similar title, with the exception that the Minister, instead of being merely the agent or bailee of the grower for the purpose of marketing, under this Act buys the wheat straight out from the grower and becomes the absolute owner. The defect of the old method was that the Minister was liable to actions for negligence in his capacity of bailee of the wheat pending sale. At the end of the war a great quantity of old wheat was stacked at various ports and railway stations awaiting shipment, and this had suffered deterioration through a mice plague and a weevil plague. An action has actually been begun against the Minister, claiming very heavy damages for alleged negligence in storing and protecting the wheat.

The scheme for effecting the other purpose of the Act, set out in the concluding lines of the preamble above quoted, may be shortly outlined as follows: The Minister appoints a "return day" on which every person holding flour exceeding one-half ton in weight must make a return to the Minister of the flour held by him on that day. The wheat equivalent of this flour was purchased by the miller or baker required to make the return at 7s. 8d. per bushel. The Minister on the return day fixes the price of wheat for gristing into flour for Australian consumption at some higher rate (9s. was actually fixed). The holder of the flour then becomes liable to pay to the Minister the difference between the value immediately prior to the "return day" of the wheat equivalent of his flour and its value at the price so fixed by the Minister. The scheme thus discourages the accumulation of stocks of flour, and renders the holding of them for a rise in price altogether nugatory; any increase must be paid to the Minister.

Financial. City of Adelaide Municipal Loan Act Amendment Act (No. 1445). This Act increases the Adelaide City Council's power of borrowing for certain specified works, such as street paving, from £125,000 up to an amount not exceeding the sum that would result from a rate of ten shillings in the pound on the assessed annual value of the rateable property within the city of Adelaide. The reason is the inadequacy of the previous amount in view of the great rise in prices of material and labour due to the war.

The Public Purposes Loan Act (No. 1438) authorizes the raising of loans to the amount of £12,605,550 by the issue and sale of Inscribed Stock or other public securities for the purpose of various public works. The main items are £4,000,000 for the settlement of discharged soldiers on the land and £3,200,000 for the provision of homes, mainly for discharged soldiers. The Main Roads Fund Act (No. 1424) authorizes the raising by the same means of £150,000 for the reconstructing of the main roads of the State, which have been allowed to fall badly into disrepair during the

war.

The Taxation Act Further Amendment Act (No. 1434) repeals the exemption from income-tax of income derived from land not exceeding £1,000 unimproved value, and declares that the tax on such income is to be first payable in respect of income for the financial year 1919-20. The exemption was an anomaly and relieved from payment of income-tax a number of farmers, orchardists, and dairymen who earned fairly large incomes from their land. The super-tax of 25 per cent. imposed on income by the Act of 1919 is continued in respect of income for the year 1919-20.

Industrial.-Industrial Code (No. 1453). This Act consolidates the existing legislation on industrial matters, with some important amendments. Only these amendments are here mentioned. The Act repeals all the pre-existing Factories and Industrial Arbitration Acts, but most of their provisions are re-enacted. The Act is very voluminous, running to 135 pages.

1. The Act extends the right of access to the Industrial Court to daily- and weekly-paid employees in the service of the Government and of the South Australian Railways. This is a very far-reaching provision and was strongly opposed in Parliament on the ground that its effect would be to do away with any effective control by Parliament over the annual Estimates of Expenditure. Parliamentary control is considered to have been preserved by s. 48 (1), which provides: No award or order of the Court shall, as regards Public Service employees or Railway employees,