cHAP. Vv] THE GOVERNOR AND THE LAW 265 
be incurred under the most serious circumstances. It cannot 
be said that the Secretary of State was wrong in the matter, 
at least in principle : the question is not that the Governor 
must be very chary of breaking the law, but whether in 
the case in question it was really not one of those instances 
where the circumstances are so extremely unusual as to 
justify even so strong a step as a breach of the law, and 
on the whole a calm judgement must say that the Governor 
made out for himself in the correspondence a very strong 
though not necessarily convincing case. 
In the case of the Transvaal an interesting example of 
financial irregularity occurred just before the Colony was 
merged into the Union of South Africa.l There was held 
in 1910 a very short session, mainly for the purpose of 
providing for the election of senators to the Parliament of 
the Union. It was, however, desired by the Government to 
pay to the members of Parliament the full salary to which 
they would nominally have been entitled had the session 
been completed, and as a matter of fact, on April 28 cheques 
for the whole amount were issued to the members of the 
Lower House. The action of the Ministry was by no means 
generally popular, as it was felt that to make full payment 
for so short a period was not a legitimateemploymentof public 
funds, and accordingly an interdict was applied for and granted 
on May 2 by the Supreme Court in respect of the payment in 
question. The matter then came before the Supreme Court, 
and on May 10 judgement was delivered by the Chief Justice, 
which while holding that the plaintiffs had no locus stands, 
laid it down clearly that the payment proposed was a contra- 
vention of Act No. 12 of 1907, regulating payment to members 
of Parliament, and also probably a contravention of the Audit 
Act No. 14 of 1907, inasmuch as money could only be with- 
drawn from the Exchequer Account under cover of a special 
warrant from the Governor in virtue of s. 20 of that Act.? 
! See a full account and discussion in The State of South Africa, iii. 990 
eq. ; iv. 296 seq., 667 seq. 
* This section deals with cases of essential expenditure when Parliament is 
not in session. See Dalrymple and others v. Colonial Treasurer,[191017T.S. 372.