A.—4.

34

could have used that warrant for disbursing the whole £49,000, without any other intervention on the part of the Superintendent or Auditor. With regard to the introduction of a relator in a case of this kind, I submit that if my friend proceeds advisedly in his capacity as Attorney-General, it is to be presumed that he has proceeded in a matter directly affecting the rights of the Crown, and he ought to be able to satisfy the Court that it is so. If, on the other hand, he admits that it is not a matter that directly affects the rights of the Crown, then he must satisfy the Court that he is dealing with a matter in which some trust is involved, in which case the intervention of a relator is, as Lord Redesdale says, invariable. JUDGMENT. Akney, C. J., delivered the judgment of the Court:— Upon this demurrer the first substantial question raised is, as to the validity of the several proceedings which have resulted in the transfer of the sum of £10,000 from the Provincial Account proper, to the credit of the account styled " The Provincial Account No, 2." These proceedings are impugned in three several stages. The Attorney-General has contended that the Ordinance styled "The Bridges, Koads, and other Works Appropriation Act, 1874," is void as an appropriation of Provincial revenues; that the Auditor's certificate of 27th January, 1874, was illegally given ; and that the Superintendent's warrant itself, on the authority of which the transfer was made, is not a valid warrant under the 25th section of the Constitution Act. Upon all these points there is much to be urged in favour of the view taken by the informant. But on the latter point our opinion is so clear and decided that it is unnecessary to enter upon the discussion of the validity of the Ordinance and certificate. It is, and has been throughout the argument, plain to us that a warrant, which is essentially a mere transcript of the Schedule to the Act of Appropriation, is not a warrant within the 25th section. The Superintendent, as a branch of the Provincial Legislature, has already, by the Act of Appropriation, given his sanction to an expenditure not exceeding the lump sums named in the Act as maxima. The 25th section must mean something more than that the Superintendent should repeat an approval already given. In truth, the 25th section casts upon him a duty of Executive Government quite distinct from the function which, as a branch of the Legislature, he has already discharged. The Legislature having already spoken in general terms, it is made the duty of the head of the Provincial Executive to see that the particular application corresponds with, and keeps within, those general terms. The provision in question makes him responsible for the ultimate issue of the money to those persons who, by performance of the stipulated services, shall have entitled themselves thereto. His warrant should therefore specify the names of these payees, or their agents, and ought only to issue upon due proof that these persons have executed their side of their engagements with the Provincial Government, or at the least that, under some lawful contract, they are entitled to a payment in advance. Imprest advances to officers charged with the execution of particular'services, or to agents of the Treasury at distant places, do not violate the spirit of the enactment. But it seems proper, in the case of such issues of public money, to cover by warrant its ultimate disbursement when the advance is accounted for. The present is no case of an imprest advance ; but the Superintendent has attempted, contrary to all legal principle, to delegate to another person the entire constitutional duty imposed upon himself. But the demurrer raises a more difficult question, namely, whether the Supreme Court, possessing in this Colony the powers of the Court of Chancery, can, in the exercise of its equitable jurisdiction, give the relief, or any part of the relief, claimed in this proceeding by the Attorney- G ener al. It is, as confessed on the part of the informant, impossible to find amongst public bodies known to the English law and Constitution, anything analogous to the Provincial Executive Governments of New Zealand. The many cases which might be cited to show that Municipal Corporations, parish vestries, and public bodies and functionaries exercising special statutory powers are amenable to the jurisdiction of a Court of Equity, in a proceeding of the present kind, arc, therefore, not directly in point. The case is new in the instance, and we are compelled to consider whether the general principles on which a Court of Equity lias exercised its protective and preventive jurisdiction over public funds, justify and require our interference with the acts of the defendant in the manner here prayed. The cases which present the closest analogy to the present are those in which persons invested with statutory powers over the expenditure of funds raised by local taxation have been restrained at the suit of the Attorney-General from the abuse of those powers. These cases are numerous, and we shall have to refer more particularly to some of them. The question for our consideration is, whether there is any essential feature in the case before us which should prevent us from extending to it the jurisdiction which has been exercised in England in the instances to which we advert. It has to be considered by us, what are the principles upon which the Court of Chancery has interfered for the protection of public funds in the eases adverted to; and whether, in the nature of the defendant's office, or of the fund which he administers, viewed in regard either to its source or to the purposes to which it is applicable, there is anything to withdraw the defendant from the operation of those principles. And first it will be convenient to consider the character of the defendant's office. The Constitution Act, as is well known, contains scarcely any provision relative to the Executive