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 em- 
barrass the Government, that indirectly the matter should 
be brought before the Court, which decided that the recover- 
ing of a judgement against the Crown did not authorize the 
payment of the amounts of such a judgement unless Parlia- 
ment 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 re- 
signed 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.