This part is in response to an article on the Sovereign Union website Who deleted the phrase “Heirs and successors”?

Just to be clear, I’m not ‘attacking’ the Sovereign Union or Michael Anderson here. I am just confused.

This post I will focus on the alleged doctoring of text – but there are other problems with this article.

As for the original article – TL;DR – Michael Anderson claims there are versions of the Pacific Islanders Protection Act 1875 that have been doctored from the original Act, and are circulating in Australia and on the Internet. And these have been doctored to delete the words ‘her heirs and successors‘ from section 7.

Yes, there was a deletion of text from the 1875 act.

But the deletion itself is not a mystery.

This below is grabbed off the Sovereign Union post. For some reason the Sovereign Union article links to the pre-Fiji 1872 Act that doesn’t even include the edit that the article discusses. But the article also includes this screenshot to the correct 1875 Act, and to section 7. Saving of rights of tribes – which I lifted here, and added the red box to.

The red box refers to an amendment of section 7. It says;

This section is printed as amended by the Statute Law Revision Act, 1898 (61 & 62 Vic. c, 22).

This Statute Law Revision Act of 1898 is;

An Act for further promoting the Revision of the Statute Law by repealing Enactments which have ceased to be in force or have become unnecessary. [25th July 1898.]

And in this Statute Law Revision Act, the deletion of her heirs or successor is noted (bolded by myself for emphasis);

1. The enactments described in the first part of the schedule to this Act are hereby repealed, subject to the provisions of this Act and subject to the exceptions and qualifications in the said schedule mentioned; and every part of a title, preamble, or recital specified after the words “in part, namely,” in connexion with an Act mentioned in the said schedule may be omitted from any revised edition of the statutes published by authority after the passing of this Act, and there may be added in the said edition such brief statement of the Acts, officers, persons, and things mentioned in the title, preamble, or recital, as may in consequence of such omission appear necessary.

…

THE SCHEDULE.

FIRST PART.

…

c. 51. – The Pacific Islanders Protection Act, 1875.In part, namely,—Section seven, the words “her heirs or successor”

Statute Law Revision Act, 1898

There you have it; there was text removed by this Statute Law Revision Act.

But it looks like the original words should have been “her heirs or successor“; not “her heirs and successors”.

In the Sovereign Union article, Michael Anderson says he has a photocopy from the London archives that says “her heirs and successors” – but he hasn’t posted his photocopy.

So overall, it is very confusing. Given that there’s no proof provided, I’m skeptical that there was any tampering.

Image by Lilliane YC from Pixabay