CHAP. VII] THE UPPER HOUSES 557 
ment, exclude the Legislative Council from the power of 
originating or amending Bills relating to such instruments, 
seems to us to be well founded, and we see no answer to the 
suggestion that the privilege contended for by the House 
of Representatives would in effect be the same as, if a stamp 
duty being imposed on deeds in England, the House of Peers 
were thereby precluded from considering whether certain 
transactions should or should not be effected by deed. It 
has never been supposed in England that the privilege of 
the House of Commons as to originating taxation is attended 
with such consequences as these. 
The question again arose in 1872! in an acute form : 
the claims of the Legislative Council may be seen from the 
following extract from the grounds stated for their action :— 
The present Bill, so far at least as concerns the application 
of the immigration and public works loan authorized to be 
raised last year, is not, in their opinion, a Bill of aid or supply. 
It imposes no new burden on the people nor alters any 
existing burden, nor is it a grant of money by way of supply. 
The colonial parliament last year authorized a very large 
loan to be raised on the credit of the Colony to be expended 
strictly and exclusively on immigration, railways, and other 
public works and undertakings specified in the Act. 
It is proposed by the present Bill to divert part of the 
money so to be raised to other objects of a cognate character, 
and to that extent the Legislative Council is prepared to 
concur in the proposed measure. But it proposed further 
to authorize the Governor to pay over one-half of the 
amount so to be diverted to the provinces. 
Such an application of the immigration and public works 
loan authorized to be raised last year is not, in the opinion 
of the Council, right or consistent with the engagements 
apon the faith of which Parliament last vear consented to 
raise the loan. 
The Legislative Council claims its right to exercise its 
own judgement upon that point. The concession of that 
right would so narrow as practically to destroy its proper 
functions as a legislative body in dealing with questions of 
similar character which come before them in a great variety 
of forms. 
The Lower House would not accept the amendments, and 
the arrangement was made to refer home for the opinion 
Constitution and Government of New Zealand, pp. 199 seq.