Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/251

 them, and the reaction seemed complete, but a point of law raised for them was reserved. The Supreme Court quashed the conviction on the ground that the word "trustee" ought to have been used in the Act instead of the word "agent," and because the declaration required was one which (under an old Act of Parliament) ought to have been made before a Justice of the Peace. Is it necessary to argue that this was solely the blunder of the draftsman or the Attorney-General, under whose authority he acted? A little earlier I advised all persons who had been disappointed in obtaining land to summon the fraudulent selectors before a Sheriff's jury, and several immediately did so. When the proceedings commenced, however, it was discovered that there was no power to compel the attendance of witnesses, and from this defect the agency of Sheriff's juries, from which so much had been expected, was almost abandoned. There was another provision in the Act intended to secure the land to actual cultivators. It was provided that if the selector did not, within one year from selection, erect a habitable dwelling upon his allotment, or surround it with a substantial fence, or cultivate at least one acre in ten, he should be liable to a penalty of 5s. per acre. It is plain that this penalty would make it in most instances impossible for the squatter or monopolist to hold the land, as the penalty, in addition to the interest on his purchase-money, would amount to more than the most profitable pasturage would repay. But the Act omitted to make the assign of a selector liable to the penalty as well as the selector himself; and the consequence was that when the decision of the Supreme Court stopped the prosecution of fraudulent selectors they were enabled to assign the land to their dishonest employers, and these employers escaped the penalty of 5s. an acre. Thus every defect in the Act was a defect in its legal structure, not a defect in any of the principles it was intended to carry out! In the consternation which these failures produced, I took a course which would have been indefensible under ordinary circumstances. I insisted on submitting the opinion which the Law Officer sent for my guidance to a barrister unconnected with office, and sent it to Mr. Higinbotham, who advised that I was bound to follow the opinion of the legal