char. v] THE GOVERNOR AND THE LAW 263 
therefore briefly review the circumstances under which this 
Address has been adopted by the Petitioners. 
The course pursued in the Assembly with respect to 
the Tariff and Appropriation Bills was not warranted by the 
practice of the English House of Commons, to which, by 
the Constitution Act, it was intended that the Assembly of 
Victoria should generally conform. Here, not only is a Bill 
introduced on the very day on which Resolutions for the 
alteration of Customs duties are agreed to, for the purpose 
of giving effect to those Resolutions, but every exertion is 
made to pass the Bill with as little delay as possible. Again, 
no practice is more carefully observed than that which 
avoids what is called tacking, or the combination of any 
other enactments with the Bill of Appropriation. But still, 
in the case which has occurred under your government, the 
delay of the Tariff Bill, and its union with the Appropriation 
Bill, were exposed to the same checks to which the like 
proceedings, if resorted to, would be exposed in this country. 
The Supreme Court was able to vindicate the right of any 
subject who might complain that duties were levied from 
him illegally, and the Legislative Council was able to main- 
tain its own privileges by laying aside the compound Bill. 
I do not think it would have been desirable for you to interfere 
in any such manner as to withdraw these matters from their 
ordinary sphere, and so give to the dispute a character, 
which did not naturally belong to it, of a conflict between 
the Assembly of Victoria and the Representative of the 
Crown. 1 am not able to say that, in the actual circum- 
stances of the case, you had it in your power to influence or 
control the course of affairs without incurring the risk of 
such a consequence. 
But you ought to have interposed, with all the weight of 
your authority, when your Ministers continued to levy the 
duties notwithstanding the adverse decision of the Court. 
Still more evidently was it your duty to withhold your 
personal co-operation from the scheme of borrowing money 
in a manner unauthorized by law. I say unauthorized by 
law, because the loan itself had not been sanctioned by the 
Legislature of Victoria, and because the judgment which 
enabled you to repay that loan, having been obtained as it 
was, can be regarded only as a form under colour of which 
the substance of the law was evaded. By these proceedings 
the Supreme Court and the Legislative Council were prac- 
tically deprived of the power with which the Constitution 
intended to invest them. This conduct on your part