on; the Chief Magistrate (H. T. Davies) had not been consulted and thought water-works more urgent; the Surveyor General (Ch. St. G. Cleverly) said he had changed his mind; and all of them claimed the right of voting against the Government.
It must be said to the credit of Sir John that he did not dispute the right of the official Members of Council to vote according to their conscientious convictions. But he had not expected them to vote against his darling scheme without giving him previous notice. Sir John, however, drew one important lesson from this painful fiasco of his Praya Bill, viz. that the leading firms can defeat a Governor and that the public service must suffer if functionaries and especially the higher ones (Attorney General and Surveyor General) are allowed to accept private practice. 'The enormous power and influence of the great commercial houses in China, when associated directly or indirectly with personal pecuniary advantages which they are able to confer on public officers, who are permitted to be employed and engaged by them, cannot but create a conflict between duties not always compatible … One of the peculiar difficulties against which this Government has to struggle is the enormous influence wielded by the great and opulent commercial Houses against whose power and in opposition to whose personal views it is bird to contend.' These words of Sir John, as well as the whole story of this first Praya Bill, indicate a recognition of the fact that the commercial aristocracy created by his predecessor had by this time commenced to exercise a political influence liable to be inspired, occasionally, by the interests of individual firms rather than by unselfish consideration of the public good.
The legislative activity of the Council was, particularly after the arrival (in spring 1856) of the Hon. Chisholm Anstey, the Attorney General, somewhat excessive. He had a passion for reform and set to work, revising local procedure in civil and criminal cases (Ordinance 5 of 1856) and in Chancery (Ordinance 7 of 1856), limiting the admission of candidates to the rolls of practitioners in the Supreme Court (Ordinance 13 of 1856), regulating the summary jurisdiction of the Police Court
