Lord Dunedin :-

The question in this case arises under the Indian Immigration Act of Natal, being Law 25 of 1891. By S. 50 of that Act, it is provided: that the Immigration Trust Board are authorized "to appoint a duly qualified medical practitioner to attend upon the Indian immigrants employed upon any estate or elsewhere, and upon any such appointment the proprietor of the estate or the employer of such immigrants shall be released from his obligation to obtain a duly qualified medical practitioner to attend upon such immigrants. And every employer of Indian immigrants not being free domestic servants, on any estate or place for which estate or place the said Board may have appointed a medical practitioner as aforesaid, shall pay quarterly on or before January 10th, April 10th, July 10th, and October 10th in each year to the Protector of Indian Immigrants" (for whom for this purpose the appellants were substituted by S. 10 of Act No. 17, 1895), "a sum not exceeding 1s. sterling per month for every male statute adult immigrant in the service of such employer."

A medical officer was so provided by the appellants and they applied to the respondents, who employed Indians, for their con