The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of the provisions of the Crown Lands Act, 1915, and the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Act, 1917, in the context of possession and termination of agreements for settlement of discharged soldiers on Crown lands.

Lord Warrington of Clyffe. -

By the Crown Lands Act, 1915, of South Australia it was provided (S. 9, xiii) that the Commissioner of Crown Lands might authorize any person to take possession of lands, messuages, or tenements belong ing to the Crown whereon any person is in unauthorized possession or occupation and to forcibly eject every person there from.

Early in May 1923, the appellant, as Commissioner, purporting to act under the aforesaid statutory power authorized certain constables to take possession of the lands now in question and to forcibly eject the respondent therefrom; they took possession of such lands accordingly and ejected the respondent therefrom.

Shortly afterwards the respondent, as plaintiff, instituted the present action against the appellant as defendant, claim ing damages for the entry and ejectment, alleging that it was wrongful.

The appellant pleaded the above-men tioned statute, alleging that the respon dent was in unlawful possession or oc cupation of the lands in question.

The question, then, is whether the res pondent at the time of his ejectment therefrom was in unlawful possession or occupation of the lands.

The action was tried on the question of liability only by Pool, J., who by his judgment dated 17th April 1924, decided in favour of the respondent.

On appeal to the Pull Court this judg ment was reversed by Murray, C. J., Angus Parsons, J., and Napier, J., who by their judgment dated 12th August 1924 allowed the appellant' appeal and ordered the respondent to pay the costs of the action.

The respondent appealed to the High Court of Australia, who, on 17th Decem ber 1925, by a majority (Higgins, J , dis senting), allowed the appeal with costs and restored the judgment of Pool, J

The present appeal is brought by spe cial leave of His Majesty in Council, the appellant undertaking to pay the respon dent' costs of the appeal as between soli citor and client in any event.

There has thus been a very considerable difference of opinion in the Courts of the State and Commonwealth and even those Judges who came to a conclusion favourable to one side or the other were by no means unanimous in their reasons for their decisions.

At the conclusion of the War the Government of South Australia was faced with the problem of dealing with numbers of discharged soldiers, and deter mined, amongst other things, to make provision for the settlement of such men on unoccupied Crown lands and for ad vances out of public funds to men so settled, and for this purpose obtained the passing of the Discharged Soldiers' Settle ment Act, 1917, and subsequent amend ing Acts. The administration of these Acts was entrusted to the Minister of Repatriation, a corporation sole created by the Act of 1917.

The appellant at all material times held the two offices of Commissioner of Crown Lands and Minister of Repatria tion.

It is obvious that for the success of such a scheme two main objects were in view - the proper cultivation and de velopment of the land and the advantage of the men settled thereon. Superinten dents and inspectors were appointed whose duty it was to inform themselves of the conduct and prospects of the sett lers and to report thereon to the Minister.

The respondent, a discharged soldier, who had had some training on a Govern ment training farm, by a letter dated 9th February 1918, applied for a grant of the lands in question, and on 25th February 1918, he was informed by letter of the Minister that his application was granted and of the conditions on which the land would be held. Except that the letter stated that for the first twelve months his occupancy of the land would be strictly probationary, it is unnecessary to set out its terms, inasmuch as they were embo died in the formal agreement to be pres ently mentioned.

The respondent appears to have been let into possession of the lands on 1st March 1918. On 25th April 1920, he made a formal application for the grant to him of an agreement over the land.

The agreement is dated 1