1916] OF THE SENATE. 128

November election, 1915", adding Article XVI to the Con-
stitution, known as the Referendum (Acts 1914, Chapter 673),
upon the time when laws passed by the Legislature become
effective.

All laws now take effect in accordance with the provisions
of this Constitutional Amendment, and not as formerly, in
accordance with Article III, Section 31 of the Constitution.

The effect of this Constitutional Amendment is that "no
law enacted by the General Assembly shall take effect until
the first day of June next, after the session at which it may
be passed, " unless:

(1) "It contain a section declaring such law an emergency
law and necessary for the immediate preservation of the pub-
lic health or safety, and passed upon a yea and nay vote sup-
ported by three-fifths of all the members elected to each of
the two Houses of the General Assembly. "

(2) Or unless it be a "law making any appropriation for
maintaining the State government. "

(3) Or unless it be an appropriation law "for maintaining
or aiding any public institution, not exceeding the next

previous appropriation for the same purpose. "

(4) Or unless it be a law "licensing, regulating, prohibit-
ing, or referring to local option the manufacture or sale of
malt or spirituous liquors. "

Any law which falls within any one of the first three of these
four classes can be made effective at once by the insertion of
the usual clause: "This Act shall take effect from the date
of its passage. " I do not, however, wish to be understood at
this time as expressing any opinion upon the question of
whether the declaration of three-fifths of the membership of
the Legislature that a law is "an emergency law and necessary
for the immediate preservation of the public health or safety, "'
will be final and conclusive upon that question OP not, first,
because this might depend very largely upon the nature of the
particular law in question, and, secondly, because I assume
that the Legislature would not make such a declaration unless
in its judgment it conformed to the facts. Any law of this
character which is made effective at once would, nevertheless,
still be subject to reference to the people in accordance with
the terms of the Constitutional Amendment.

Any law embraced within the second or, third of the above
classes can, in my judgment, be made effective at once by the