The President of the Bank of New Zea land, when under examination by the Select Committee of the House of Repre sentatives, having declined to give any information regarding individual accounts of customers of the Bank, it may be interesting to state what are the powers of tiie House in such a case, in accordance with the precedents of the House of Com mons. May, in his ‘ Parliamentary Prac tice,’ states that tiie journals abound with cases in which witnesses have been punished by commitment to the Sergcant-at-Anns and to Newgate for prevaricating, or giving false testimony, or suppressing the truth ; or “for refusing to answer questions “or to produce documents in their pos session.” No period of imprisonment is in such cases named by tiie Commons ; but the prisoners committed by them, if not sooner discharged by the House, are immediately released from confinement on a prorogation, whether they have paid the fees or not. If they Were held longer in custody there is no doubt that they would be discharged by the Courts on a writ of habeas corpus. The judg ment of Lord Denman in Stockdale v. Hansard is quoted by May in support of this view. “ However flagrant “ the contempt, the House of Commons “can only commit till tiie close of the “ existing session. Their privilege to “commit is not better known than this “limitation of it. Though tiie party “should deserve the severest penalties, “ yet his offence being committed the day “ before the prorogation, if tiie House “ordered ids imprisonment but for a “ week, every Court in Westminster Hall “ and every judge of all the courts, “would bo bound to discharge him by “ habeas corpus .” There would seem to be no question as to the right of tiie New Zea land House to judge contempts of its authority and to punish them. This right lias been exercised by colonial Legislatures, notably in Victoria in the famous case of Dill, the editor of the Melbourne ‘ Argus,’ and also on the North American continent. In the United States, where the Constitu tion is silent on the subject, it has been repeatedly exercised not only by the House of Representatives but State Legislatures, and has been upheld by the Supreme Court on the ground of inherent ■right and necessity. 