cHapr. v] THE GOVERNOR AND THE LAW 261 
it would remain so. I look with extreme apprehension on 
a state of things in which the Government of a British 
Colony is engaged in collecting money by mere force from 
persons from whom the Supreme Court has declared that 
it is not due. It is an example of violence which may do 
incalculable mischief beyond the limits of the Colony in 
which it has been allowed to occur. 
Next, I do not understand on what ground it can have been 
imagined that you were legally authorised to borrow from 
a private bank large sums of money on behalf of the public. 
No authority is alleged, and I am unable to conjecture any. 
The only excuse for such a proceeding would have been an 
overwhelming public emergency of such a nature as to 
justify what was not justified by the letter of the law. But, 
as I have observed, you had already declared that no such 
emergency existed. And you were right ; no such emer- 
gency did exist. If payments were legally due from the 
Crown to public officers for salaries, or to any other persons 
on any account, it was open to such persons to recover what 
was so due to them in the ordinary course of law. It was 
for one or other branch of the Legislature to yield, or for 
both to compromise their difference. It was not for you to 
give a victory to one or the other party by a proceeding 
unwarranted either by your Commission or by the laws of 
the Colony. I must point out that by such a proceeding the 
Governor and his Government, with the co-operation of a 
local bank, might at any moment withdraw any amount of 
public funds from the ‘ Public Account’ to which it is 
consigned by law, and place it at their own command, 
relieved from all the checks with which the Legislature has 
carefully surrounded it. 
Thirdly, as to the expenditure of the moneys thus obtained, 
I find it difficult to suppose that by the Crown Remedies 
and Liabilities Act the Legislature intended to enable the 
Government to discharge, without its concurrence, those 
ordinary expenses of Government which it reserves to itself 
the right to re-consider annually. It may, perhaps, be 
doubted whether office-holders who are under a standing 
notice that their salaries are dependent on laws, annually 
passed, by the Colonial Parliament, would be treated by the 
Supreme Court as having a claim upon the Government 
independently of any such law. But it is not alleged that 
the Supreme Court was ever called upon to give judgment 
on the question, and you do not inform me of any law which 
would warrant you in paying away any public money except