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dependent Legislature. The judgment contains the following passages:—
"After a colony or settlement has received legislative institutions, the Crown (subject to the special provisions of any Act of Parliament) stands in the same relation to that colony or settlement as it does to the United Kingdom. It may be true that the Crown, as legal head of the Church, has a right to command the consecration of a Bishop; but it has no power to assign him any diocese, or give him any sphere of action, within the United Kingdom. The United Church of England and Ireland is not a part of the constitution in any colonial settlement."
"Pastoral or spiritual authority may be incidental to the office of Bishop; but all jurisdiction in the Church, where it can be lawfully conferred, must proceed from the Crown, and be exercised as the law directs; and suspension or privation of office is matter of coercive legal jurisdiction, and not of mere spiritual authority."
Doubts, not wholly unreasonable, may, I conceive, be suggested as to the exact force and extent of this decision. The force of a decision depends on the jurisdiction of the Court; the extent of it depends, not on the language employed, but on the question presented for adjudication. No Court can decide a question not brought before it; nor can language the most laboriously positive transform a dictum into anything more than an expression of opinion. The question submitted by Dr. Colenso to Her Majesty in Council was, whether Dr. Gray had, or had not, authority to deprive him. Authority to deprive may exist (a) by law; (b) by virtue of a contract previously entered into by the person deprived; (c) by the terms of a trust, of which the person deprived claims the benefit. Whether, in adjudicating on the petition, Her Majesty in Council assumed jurisdiction as
