The application in this case is founded, substantially, upon the contention that, although the defendants are a company registered in Victoria, and liable to be sued there, they ought not under the circumstances of the case to be sued in Victoria, because it would be inflicting an injustice upon them to put them to the expense of defending the action there. The general principles to be applied in such a case are laid down in the authorities cited to us. I will read one or two passages from the judgment of the President, Sir Gorell Barnes, in which the other members of the Court of Appeal concurred, in Logan v. Bank of Scotland (No. 2)[1]. He said: - "The Court should, on the one hand, see clearly that in stopping an action it does not do injustice, and, on the other hand, I think the Court ought to interfere whenever there is such vexation and oppression that the defendant who objects to the exercise of the jurisdiction would be subjected to such injustice" (I interpolate there the words supplied by Warrington J. in Egbert v. Short[2],) "in defending the action that he ought not to be sued in the Court in which the action is brought, to which injustice he would not be subjected if the action were brought in another accessible and competent Court"; and again[3]: - "Yet it seems to me clear that the inconvenience of trying a case in a particular tribunal may be such as practically to work a serious injustice upon a defendant and be vexatious. This would probably not be so if the difference of trying in one country rather than in another were merely measured by some extra expense ... If, for instance, as was put in argument a dispute of a complicated character had arisen between two foreigners in a foreign country, and one of them were made defendant in an action in this country by serving him with a writ while he happened to be here for a few days' visit, I apprehend that, although there would be jurisdiction in the Court to entertain the suit, it would have little hesitation in treating the action as vexatious and staying it." After giving another instance, he said[]: - "If that were not held, I see no reason why any one abroad might not sue and be allowed to proceed, against a bank which had a branch in this country, in respect of transactions all of which had taken place in another country where the head office of the bank was - e.g., Australia or Brazil - and where the inconvenience of trying the case in this country would be so enormous as practically to work the most serious injustice upon the defendant. This matter is, in this respect, of general importance, because so many banks and other mercantile houses which are established in our Colonies and in the United States and other foreign countries have branches here. To a business concern to allow actions to proceed in such circumstances when there is a proper and adequate tribunal in the place where both parties really are, and dealt with each other, and all the evidence is, would be intolerable." I think that puts the argument as high as it can be put for the appellants.