vexed question

I could see that a powerful effort was needed to keep him off the vexed question of the cask of beer, but he made it.

She had not liked this quotation from Mrs. Owen's utterances on this vexed question of higher education.

A commission of nine was appointed to settle the vexed question of Kings Province.

To be able to say of a vexed question, "Gano agrees with me," was to turn the scale at once in the speaker's favor.

On these matters even more ink has been expended than on the vexed question of her birth, and with far less satisfactory results.