Council on the subject of that Ordinance, twice (May 23rd and June 3rd) sent for non-official Justices to assist him in cases in which the Crown was prosecutor, and these Justices, representing; the interest of house owners, emphatically concurred in his interpretation of the Building Ordinance. Thereupon the Governor addressed (August 19, 1856) a severe remonstrance to the Justices of the Peace, blaming- all for habitual neglect of their duties in not giving regular attendance at the Petty Sessions (at which half of them had never attended at all) and censuring four Justices with having (May 23rd) concurred in a decision by which the obvious intent of the law was abrogated, and with having (June 3rd) supported the Magistrate in his determination not to give effect to the law. An angry correspondence ensued, in the course of which the Justices, alleging that they had attended in Court whenever they were requested to do so, claimed the right to frame their decisions according to their own convictions and characterized the Governor's action as an attempt to intimidate the stipendiary Magistrate. 'The question at issue,' they wrote, 'is in effect this, whether the law is to be administered according to the judgment of the Magistrates who are sworn to dispense it according to the best of their knowledge and ability, subject to correction by appeal to the Supreme Court, or according to the dictation of the Governor and Executive Council.' The dispute culminated in a passionate public meeting (October 16, 1856). This meeting complained of the retrospective character of the new Building Ordinance (8 of 1850) and the insufficiency of the Surveyor General's staff, of the right given to the Crown to recover costs at common law (Ordinance 14 of 1856), of the exclusion of the public from the meetings of Legislative Council and of the absence of a Municipal Council. In his reply the Governor clearly had the best of the argument but promised a reconstruction of the Legislative Council. He added, however, that this reconstruction would not be based on a representative principle, 'to which the circumstances of Hongkong are, in the judgment of Her Majesty's Government
