Colonial Despatches

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 fromit 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 ofHer 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.