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and independence of the Bench, have not yet had much time to become established in the public mind, to try to subordinate the judiciary to themselves. What the legislature has established as the law, it is argued, the legislature can interpret. The legislature is supreme, as the representative of the people; and the legislature, which, for the purpose, means the Government, knows the intention with which particular laws were passed. Hence a quite frequent (though, to the English mind, all but incredible) recourse to retrospective legislation; and, especially in the smaller colonies, a parallel and growing tendency to obstruct or prevent Petitions of Right. Nor is this subordination of the Courts to the Executive confined to the more corrupt communities, though its most flagrant and most complete manifestation has been in the most corrupt of all, the Transvaal. It is quite compatible with the purest and most disinterested zeal for democracy or for the immediate public good; and may be the fruit, at times, of nothing worse nor more uncommon than narrow views and an ignorance of law. The Commonwealth Bill provides for the establishment of a Federal High Court of Australia, to hear and determine (1) all cases of dispute between the Federated States, or all cases in which State rights are concerned; and (2) private cases, except such as the subsequent legislation of the Federal Parliament shall permit to be taken to the Privy Council. In Canada, the Act of 1875, which was drafted by Sir John Macdonald in 1869, gave the Supreme Court final and conclusive jurisdiction, "saving any right which Her Majesty may be pleased to exert by virtue of her royal prerogative." These last words, it has since been held, leave untouched the prerogative to allow an appeal, and the correlative right of every subject of the realm to make one. Consequently appeals from Canada, as from all other parts of the Empire, to the Privy