No one seems to know or care exactly what the State of Queensland does since the Privy Council told it that it could do as it liked. The statement was of course law, but it dodged trouble, and the men described as the "sleepy old persons on the Privy Council bench," according to the late Mr. Alfred Deakin, one time Australian Prime Minister, have handed down a very acute problem to their successors. The other day this Government, with a majority of one in the only House of Parliament, found that two persons had tried to bribe its majority. It first {rapped them, and then prosecuted. The men were men of straw, but £3,200 was found upon them. The Government practically offered to Tet them off if they would say who supplied the £3,200. They were convicted, given three months and fined £500 each. Tf the fine was not paid then they had to serve an additional nine months. Whoever was responsible for putting the bribers forward was to be discovered. The men proposed to pay the fines out of the £3,200, and it was here that the truly Slavonic idea came in. A bill was hastily passed through the single House amending the Criminal Code in such a way that the money found on the men would be confiscated, and an Imperial Governor hurriedly put his signature to the entirely un-British document. At dead of night an order was signed by a judge, and the Government seized the money found in the pockets of the villains
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.