Lord Cairns who delivered the judgment of the Privy Council observed that "[b]eyond all doubt, one of the privileges and one of the most important privileges of the House of Commons is the privilege of committing for contempt; and incidental to that privilege, it has . been well established in this country that the House of Commons have the right to be the judges themselves of what is contempt, and to commit for that contempt by a Warrant, stating that the commitment is for contempt of the House generally, without specifying what the character of the contempt is. ' Then he considered the merits of the argument that the relevant Constitution Act did not confer on the Legislative Assembly of Victoria the incidental power of issuing a general warrant, and rejected it. "[Their Lordships] consider", said Lord Cairns, "that there is an essential difference between a privilege of committing for contempt such as would be enjoyed by an inferior Court, namely, privilege of first determining for itself what is contempt, then of stating the character of the contempt upon a Warrant, and then of having that Warrant subjected to review by some superior Tribunal, and running the chance whether that superior Tribunal will agree or disagree with the determination of the inferior Court, and the privilege of a body which determines for itself, without review, what is contempt, and acting upon the determination, commits for that contempt, without specifying upon the Warrant the character or the nature of the contempt." According to Lord Cairns, the latter of the two privileges is a higher and more important one than the former, and he added that it would be strange indeed if, under a power to transfer the whole of the privileges and powers of the House of Commons, that which would only be a part, and a comparatively insignificant part, of this privilege and power were transferred(1).