cHAP. vii] RELATIONS OF THE HOUSES 603

again on October 16 rejected by the Council. Ministers this
time advised a dissolution, and the House was prorogued on
November 8 and dissolved on December 30. The general
election followed in February 1868. During the period of
the deadlock the system of confessing judgement for salaries
and paying them without further authority continued, but
in December this plan was upset by the decision of the
Supreme Court in the case of Alcock v. Fergie! It was
arranged in that case by the barristers, who wished to embarrass
 the Government, that indirectly the matter should
be brought before the Court, which decided that the recovering
 of a judgement against the Crown did not authorize the
payment of the amounts of such a judgement unless Parliament
 had previously voted the necessary funds.
The general election increased the majority of the ministers
by making their numbers up to sixty, but Mr. Fellows resigned
 his seat in the Council and was elected to the Assembly.
Meanwhile, however, Lord Carnarvon had succeeded the
Duke of Buckingham as Colonial Secretary. On January 1
he sent a dispatch? in which he told the Governor that he
ought not again to recommend the vote for the expenditure
to the Legislature unless on a clear understanding that it
would be brought before the Legislative Council in a manner
which would enable them to exercise their discretion
respecting it without the necessity of throwing the Colony
into confusion. In a later dispatch? of February 1, on
the other hand, he said that the proposed grant was not
so clear and unmistakable a violation of the existing rule
as to call for the extreme measure of forbidding the Governor
to be party, under the advice of his responsible ministers,
to those formal acts which were necessary to bring the
grant under the consideration of the Parliament, and he
then went on to suggest that the Council should no
longer continue to oppose itself to the ascertained wishes
of the community. On the receipt of the first of these
' See Purl. Pap., H. C. 157, 1868, pp. 41 seq. * Ibid., p. 49.
* 1bid., p. 50. The inconsistency is really rather marked, and it is curious
that the later dispatch ignores the carlier.