No. 99
19 December 1867
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 139 of
the
18th October in which you state that the question as to the
relative positions of
Mr. Needham and
Mr. Begbie is becoming more
embarrassing every day, and that you see no satisfactory issue from
it save in the removal of one of the Judges.
In reply I have to inform you that the question appears to me
one which presents no real difficulty if only your government and
Legislature address themselves to it in earnest. I have given you my
instructions on the subject, and am unable to add anything to them,
but I think it right to observe that if any Officer of the Colony,
whether Judge or otherwise, refuses to conform his conduct to the Law
of the Colony passed in the opinion of Her Majesty's Advisers by a
competent authority, it will become a question whether the public
interest will not require that Her Majesty should be advised to
remove him.
I have etc.