556 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [PART mr 
seven years unless the certificate was endorsed by the 
Governor and sealed with the public seal, the amounts due 
on such signing and sealing being paid. The question raised 
by the Lower House was whether, the House of Representa- 
tives having imposed upon a Crown grant, or an instrument 
in the nature of a Crown grant, a certain tax or duty, it 
was competent to the Legislative Council to introduce an 
enactment to the effect that no transaction should take 
place under another class of instruments affecting native 
lands until such instruments had been practically transmuted 
into or changed for Crown grants, so in effect rendering the 
latter class of instruments liable to such tax or duty. The 
law officers advised that the claim of the Lower House 
that a breach of privilege had taken place was ill founded. 
They said :— 
We are of opinion that, if in a Bill introduced in the 
House of Representatives and passed through that House 
a certain tax or duty has been imposed upon a Crown grant, 
or an instrument in the nature of a Crown grant, it is com- 
petent to the Legislative Council without any breach of 
the privileges of the House of Representatives to make the 
efficacy for any given purpose of another class of instruments 
intended to affect native lands under the provisions of the 
same Bill dependent upon their assuming the form of Crown 
grants, on which the tax or duty has been so imposed 
by the House of Representatives. It is, we think, a fallacy, 
to represent this as a case in which the Legislative Council 
takes upon itself to impose any tax or duty. It merely 
provides that a particular kind of instrument shall be neces- 
sary to produce a particular effect. It has a right to decide 
for itself upon the form and character of the instrument 
which shall be sufficient for that purpose, and it cannot be 
deprived of that right merely because the form of instrument 
which it prefers is one on which a duty may have been 
already imposed by law or will be imposed if the Bill should 
pass—the imposition of the duty on that form of instru- 
ment being the act not of the Legislative Council but of the 
House of Representatives. We do not agree with the argu- 
ment that the 2s. 64. was not in its nature a tax or duty, 
but the other argument urged on the part of the Legislative 
Council that the House of Representatives cannot, by 
imposing a tax or duty on a particular kind of legal instru-