260 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART II 
Account’ was kept, to lend you or them certain sums of 
money, and to carry that money to a separate account, which 
was to be acted upon by you or them without the concurrence 
of the Audit Commissioners; and it was agreed that the 
Bank should at once petition the Supreme Court under the 
Act 28 Vict. for repayment of this loan, that your Govern- 
ment should at once confess judgment, and that you should 
thereupon enable them to repay themselves out of the * Public 
Account’ the amount they had placed to this new account. 
I do not quite clearly understand whether the concurrence 
of the Audit Commissioners was necessary, or was obtained to 
this repayment. But this is of minor importance. The effect, 
practically, was to transfer the public money out of the 
“ Public Account ’ from which the Bank could not ordinarily 
issue it, without the Audit Commissioners’ certificate, to an- 
sther account entirely under the control of the Government. 
The money so obtained has, I understand, been applied 
by the Executive Government to the payment of salaries, 
and I suppose to other immediate purposes specified in the 
Appropriation Bill, which the Council refused to pass. 
[ infer that it is by the extension and continuation of this 
process that the Government has been since carried on. 
This, I think, is a correct statement of the material facts, 
on which I proceed to express my opinion. 
First. I have no hesitation in saying that independently 
of the Judgment of the Supreme Court, no consideration, 
at least none that is discernible in your despatches, should 
have induced you to give your concurrence to the levying of 
these duties. 
The plea that taxes are levied in this country on a vote 
of the House of Commons before they are imposed by law is 
manifestly irrelevant. Such taxes are so levied because it is 
not doubted that the Bill imposing them as from the date 
of the Resolution of the House of Commons on which the 
Bill is founded (and after which only they are levied), will 
become law, by the concurrence of the two other Branches 
of the Legislature. If such concurrence were withheld, the 
sums so levied by anticipation would be repaid. and they 
would of course be no longer levied. 
But in the present case you and your Government were 
perfectly aware that the Bill would not receive the sanction 
of the whole Legislature, and the exaction of these duties 
was not in anticipation but in defiance of the judgment of the 
Legislative Council. It was, therefore, not only in its origin 
anlawful, but there even was every reason to presume that