Charter for the Grand Lodge of Australasia.

Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

To all whom it may concern:

Know Ye, That the Grand Lodge of the United States of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, as the source of all true and legitimate Odd Fellowship in the United States of America, and by virtue of its constitutional authority to organize Lodges and Encampments, Grand and Subordinate, in Foreign Countries, doth hereby create and erect into distinct sovereignty the various Grand and Subordinate Lodges and Encampments now existing in the country known as Australasia, including Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and other islands, by the name and title of

The Right Worthy Grand Lodge of Australasia, I. O. O. F., to be independent of the Grand Lodge of the United States in all respects, excepting as follows:

First. The said Grand Lodge of Australasia shall not at any time hereafter in anywise alter or repudiate any of the signs, tokens, passwords, lectures or charges, or any other portion or part of either the written or unwritten work of the Order as known and practised within the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of the United States.

Second. This Grand Lodge reserves to itself the right to give said Grand Lodge of Australasia the annual traveling password to be used within the jurisdiction thereof, and to prescribe the form of card; and both jurisdictions shall use the same traveling password; and also, the right to furnish all books containing the lectures and charges, and such cards and certificates as are now or may hereafter be prescribed by it.

Third. The qualifications for membership in the Subordinates within the jurisdiction of the said Grand Lodge of Australasia shall be as provided in Section 2, Article XYI. of the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of the United States.

The said Grand Lodge of Australasia shall have power to establish and grant Charters to other Subordinate Lodges and Encampments, and to other Grand Lodges and Grand Encampments within its jurisdiction; and when such other Lodges or Encampments, Subordinate or Grand, shall be so established, they shall sustain the same relations to the said Grand Lodge of Australasia as like Lodges and Encampments sustain to this Grand Lodge.

The said Grand Lodge of Australasia shall pay due respect to the Grand Lodge of the United States, and conform to the provisions of this instrument, otherwise this dispensation to be of no force or effect.

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Given under our hands and the Seal of the Grand Lodge of the United States, at the City of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, [Seal.] this the fourth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and Seventy-eight, and of our Order the fifty- ninth.