It would be absolutely impossible for justice to be done if it could be allowed that false testimony should be given without punishment being at tached to it. Yet we know, all of us who have to do with the administering of justice know, that it is but too common that perjury is committed in the course of trials in every court. Even this court is not exempt from it. I do not think I should be over-stating matters very much if I said that there was hardly an im portant case tried in any court in this part of the colony in which perjury was not com mitted on one side or the other. It seems a strong statement to make, but I venture to say that the experience of those who have to administer justice would show that the statement is not without a shadow of foun dation, at all events. And the reason for it, I take, is that prosecutions for perjury have been so rare as they have been in the past. Out of a hun dred cases in which perjury is undoubtedly committed it is only in one out of the the hundred that a prosecution for perjury takes place. But it does not follow that perjury is not of the utmost importance, though it has not been the subject of criminal investigation to the extent that I venture to thiuk it ought to have been. There are difficulties surrounding prosecu tions for perjury which it is sometimes impossible to overcome. It is not, for instance, because one witness swears one thing which is false and another tells the truth that therefore there can be prosecu tion for perjury. It wants something con siderably more than that. There must be a balance of testimony clearly establishing that the person charged with committing perjury actually did so. It is not enough to contradict him by a person who is telling the truth. You must have two persons who are undoubtedly telling the truth to prove that he is not telling the truth, or you * must have substantial corroboration of the evidence of one person in addition to the establishing of the truth by means of that testimony. It is therefore, I say, a very serious question which you have to consider to-day. 