cusp. m1] REPUGNANCY OF COLONIAL LAWS 403 
Committee of the Lower House, which evidently in great 
measure understood the position, allowed him the full right 
of such examination, as did the Governor. Then he im- 
peached the validity of the Constitution Act itself, No. 2 of 
1855-6, on various grounds. For one thing, he thought that it 
was not possible to abridge the prerogative of dissolving an 
elective House, viz. the Council, as was done by the Act, 
unless the Imperial Parliament gave express authority to 
do so. He also held that it was not possible for the Colonial 
Legislature to abridge the prerogative by requiring that the 
Attorney-General should be selected from officers in Parlia- 
ment, and he criticized the provisions of the Act for omitting 
to require re-election of members who accepted office after 
being in Parliament. He also impeached the validity of the 
Real Property Act, because it deprived the suitor in real 
property cases of a jury trial as laid down in Magna Charta, 
and further because the Bill should, in his opinion, have 
been reserved under the royal instructions, and had not been 
reserved. He persisted in this view, though the Governor 
pointed out to him that Lord John Russell had expressly 
laid it down that the instructions were not a legal matter 
which if disobeyed would invalidate assent, but a direction 
to the Governor which he had a personal duty to obey, but 
disobedience to which did not render an assent invalid. He 
also held that the Electoral Acts were invalid because they 
had not been reserved as required by the constitution, and 
that all the Customs Acts were invalid for the same reason. 
There can be no doubt that in some respects the judge 
was unreasonable and wrong-headed: he went so far as to 
declare that an Act was invalid which imposed a duty of 
ten shillings on the importation into the Colony of French 
brandy, because it was at variance with a treaty, the truth 
being that in the treaty with France the Queen had under- 
taken to recommend to Parliament the levying of a duty 
of eight shillings on brandy imported into the United 
Kingdom. On the other hand, the law officers in England 
upheld him on one point, and that unfortunately of cardinal 
importance : they held that it was necessary that the 
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