Parliamentary Debates Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ...specific. The honorable gentleman stated that he had no desire to pass an opinion about law, but surely the honorable gentleman must have forgotten his own lectures on ex post facto law. He used to speak dogmatically enough then. The honorable member contended that the legal propositions laid down during this debate by the honorable and learned member for St. Kilda could not be disputed. Well, I have read the speech of the honorable and learned member for St. Kilda, and the only broad proposition that I can find in the whole speech is one with which I agree. This proposition is--and the honorable member laid it down with considerable emphasis and force of language--that "James McCulloch and James Goodall Francis are not the Governor in Council." True there were one or two technical points, motion points, which I need not trouble the House with, but the only broad proposition which the speech contained is the one I have stated. I regret that the honorable and learned member for St. Hilda is not in his place tonight, because the honorable member, when discussing the Border Duties Treaty, was guilty, to my mind, of an extremely ungracious and ungenerous act. He stated that the Ministerial benches were full of legal gentlemen, and at the same time he charged the treaty with a want of legality, with a want of all the principles that constitute a legal document, with, in fact, being scarcely worth the paper that it was written upon. The honorable and learned gentleman forgot that there was, at the bottom of that paper, the name of a gentleman who is as infinitely his superior in the profession as any man can be. The name of the Attorney-General of New South Wales--the leader of a bar which can boast of a Manning, a Darval, and a Robert...