600 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [PART III
place in 1865.1 It was then proposed by the Ministry of
the day to pass a Protectionist Tariff, and as the Ministers
knew that the Upper House, in the agricultural interests,
would not be willing to accept it, they attempted to
produce the result by tacking this provision to the
Appropriation Bill of the year, adding also the repeal of
the gold tax. It was argued in favour of their action that
it was not a real case of tacking, as the matters were not
substantially distinct, but it would be difficult to maintain
this view in the ordinary sense of the word ‘tacking’.
The Council laid the Bill aside on July 25, and a deadlock
ensued. The Prime Minister then introduced into the Lower
House a resolution which asserted practically the same
powers for the Lower House as had been asserted in 1861
by the Imperial House of Commons. The Governor was
induced to consent to raising revenue on a resolution of
the Assembly alone, it being argued that this was con-
formable to the practice in force in the United Kingdom,
where the House passes a resolution as soon as the Chancellor
of the Exchequer delivers his Budget speech, on the strength
of which the revenue is collected. Petitions were filed by
merchants in the Supreme Court, and the judges decided
that the demanding of duties under the mere resolution
of the Legislative Assembly was illegal? The London
Chartered Bank of Australia, whose only resident director
was the Prime Minister, agreed to make advances upon
no other sccurity than the pledge of the Government for
the repayment of the amount advanced, so that the dispute
between the Council and the Assembly could be arranged.
Then the London Chartered Bank brought an action for the
moneydue; the Attorney-General confessed judgement, so the
case did not come before Court, but the money was paid.
! See Parl. Pap., March, May 28, June 1866; H. C. 310, 1867; H. C. 157,
April and June 1868 ; C. 2173, pp. 103-13; Rusden, Australia, iii. 286 seq.
* Stevenson v. The Queen, (1865) 2 W. W. and A’B. L. 143. Cf. Lefroy,
Legislative Power in Canada, p. 747, note 1. The case in England in 1909-10
was analogous, but the claim to levy was not made of right and the levying
was therefore voluntary, and was legalized by the Act of 1910,