representing a breach of the public Service.
I was certainly unprepared to find that I had laid myself open to censure for applying hypothetically the term "unreasonable" to a matter of opinion on the part of the Attorney General. I still think we have a prescriptive right to exemption; we have never been assessed before; the question when raised seems to have been settled in our favour on a former occasion; and moreover we do not strictly come under the denomination of a dwelling house; only such limited portions of the building as can be spared after making suitable provision for public business and personal quarters; so that even the Ordinance itself would seem to contemplate the exemption under this view of our case.
But even supposing it doubtful on the points thus advanced I venture to submit with every deference that they are sufficient grounds upon which His Excellency would have been justified in continuing the power of exemption under invested in him by clause 10 of the same Ordinance which authorises "the said Governor with the advice of the Executive Council to exempt such districts or portions of the said Island from the operation of this Act or from the payment of the said rates as to him may seem advisable". The Attorney General might have extended his view of the case by pointing out the existence of this power; for it would not appear, as assumed, that the law is so imperative as to leave His Excellency no discretion in the matter.
A very strict reading of the Act
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