Sitting of 22 June 1852

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—2° Colonial Bishops.
3° Militia Ballots Suspension; Militia Pay; Consolidation Fund (Appropriation); Nisi Prius Officers; Common Law Procedure; Master in Chancery Abolition.

MILITIA PAY BILL.
Order for Third Reading read.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third Time."
COLONEL SIBTHORPsaid, he had supported the Militia Bill because he believed the enrolment of the militia was necessary for the proper defence of the country, but he was very much disappointed at the manner in which this important measure was proposed to be carried out. The right hon. Secretary at War had issued a circular with regard to the Chelsea Pensioners and the militia which, in his opinion, was highly objectionable. The militia, if he understood the circular rightly, were to be drilled by pensioners, and not in battalions by field officers, but in squads; and he had no hesitation in stating that if that arrangement were carried out, the militia would be found to be a very inefficient body. The experiment, he was convinced, would disappoint the country, and he had therefore felt it to be his duty to warn the Government of the error they were falling into.
SIR DE LACY EVANSsaid, he begged to ask what was the intention of the Government with regard to the policy of allowing the formation of voluntary rifle corps? The time had arrived when the public ought to know what were the reasons why the Government refused to accept the offers which had been made for the voluntary formation of such corps. An opinion had been thrown out, that as the persons making the offer belonged to the middle orders of society, the Government did not like to trust arms in their hands; but that he did not for a moment believe. He would take that opportunity of putting a question to the right hon. the Secretary at War. It appeared to be the intention to attach a portion of the militia force to the artillery. He hoped, in that case, means would be adopted to give the men a more able tuition than was usually given. Though he did not approve of the Militia Bill, still, as the country was to have it, he was anxious that the force

1179
should be made as efficient as possible. With regard to the accoutrements and arms of the men, he hoped such alterations would be made in them as the experience of medical and scientific men had of late years suggested and recommended.
MR. BERESFORDsaid, that this was not exactly the time for making the observations which the hon. and gallant Member had offered to the House, as the Bill now before the House was merely the Annual Bill for the payment of the staff for the militia, and quite distinct from the Militia Bill. But he should be sorry, however, to pass by in silence the points adverted to by the hon. and gallant Member. It was quite true that it was proposed to take 3,000 of the men to be raised under the Militia Act to be trained to artillery practice, and these would have a trifle extra pay for their services. This portion of the force would be sent to the artillery to be instructed with them and by their officers by which the expense of drilling by separate officers would be saved. He expected that in a very short time, under such instructions, the men would be so far efficient as to be able to perform the secondary duties of artillerymen. With regard to the clothing of the men, the Master General of the Ordnance would provide it. Patterns had already been considered. With regard to the arms, should the militia be embodied, the Government would endeavour to give them a better description of musket than was formerly used.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, in reply to the question respecting the acceptance of the offers made to form rifle corps, he could assure the hon. and gallant Member (Sir De L. Evans) it was not from any feeling of distrust of the middle classes that the Government had declined those offers. On the contrary, if any necessity for such volunteer corps arose, the Government would not only not refuse any such offers, but would accept them with gratitude. As to the question whether the Government was now prepared to sanction the voluntary system, it should be remembered that the Government had to get the militia in the first instance by voluntary enlistment, and, should that fail them, they would have to resort to the compulsory method of the ballot. Now, what would be the effect of having a voluntary enlisting militia in the first instance, and also accepting the services of voluntary corps, if, after all, you should be obliged to have recourse to the
1180
ballot? It must be quite obvious that you would be taking away many men who would be liable to the ballot; and in that case you would be making the ballot operate with greater severity upon the remaining portion of the community who would be liable to that compulsory proceeding. It was therefore as a matter of prudence and precaution that the Government were not willing to sanction the formation of these volunteer corps at the present moment, when there was no immediate necessity for them.
Bill read 3°, and passed.

THE COLONIES—JAMAICA—NEW SOUTH WALES.
MR. BERNALsaid, he wished to put a question to the right hon. Secretary for the Colonies in reference to letters which he (Mr. Bernal) had just received from Jamaica, dated May 23, stating that the smallpox was raging in that island, and that the ravage among the labouring popluation was frightful. The question he wished to put was whether the Colonial Office had had time to turn their attention to the point of affording assistance to the Colony in the way of supplying labour, and whether there was any chance in a short time of applying means for the furtherance of that object?
SIR JOHN PAKINGTON, in reply, stated that the question was similar to that which had been put on a former occasion. It appeared that attention had been freshly drawn by the arrival of a new mail. He was aware of the arrival of the mail that morning, but had not yet seen the papers which it had brought. But it was quite impossible for any fresh papers to have arrived which could strengthen his conviction of the painful distress under which the Colony was labouring. And, when his hon. Friend asked him whether he could hold out any hopes of assistance being rendered to the Colony, he (Sir J. Pakington) must say that it was his duty to be cautious how he raised hopes which it might not be in his power to fulfil. He could not, therefore, add anything to the answer which he had already given, that he would lose no time in devoting his serious and anxious attention to the subject, to see whether there were any means in existence by which the supply of labour and the pressure of the labour laws could be relaxed in favour of the West Indies. Since the question was before the House, on a former occasion, he had been prevent-

1181
ed by the pressure of Parliamentary business, night and day, front paying that attention to the question which he desired.
MR. HUMEsaid, he begged to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington) to the petition which had been presented from the Legislative Council of New South Wales. It was a protest and a remonstrance on the part of the former Legislative Council against the conduct of the British Government towards that Colony. That protest was afterwards adopted by the new Legislative Council. As to the facts stated in it, he (Mr. Hume) could bear witness to their accuracy; and he would exhort the Government not to let the experience of former days pass by. Let them recollect the population of that Colony, and yield to their reasonable requests. They asked no more. If nothing should be done by the Government before the new Parliament, he should, if he had a seat in that House, feel it his duty to bring the matter forward early in the Session. The second subject which he wished to make some observations upon, was relative to the state of the Ionian Islands. All he had now to say upon that subject was, that every act of which we complained of Louis Napoleon towards the French, had been committed by the English Government in the Ionian Islands, and that the only difference between the two cases was, that the French people were satisfied, and the Ionian people were disgusted. What were the cruelties that bad been practised? As an instance he would mention the case of a member of the present Parliament of those islands. He was dragged from his home, and transported to a small, bare island, there to linger in captivity; and Madame Dominichini, the wife of that gentleman, was now undergoing the greatest sufferings. Every island under the Governor of the Ionian Islands was the abode of unfortunate captives, men without trial, without sentence, and without crime. The whole system was a discredit and disgrace to people owning the name of Englishmen. All regular government had been suspended, and violence and lawlessness had been established throughout the islands. He hoped when Parliament met again they would meet under different auspices. Early in March last he had moved for papers on this subject, but they had not yet been presented. He was sorry he was precluded by circumstances from doing more than entering his protest against the system now pursued in the Ionian Islands.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he did not think it necessary to follow the hon. Gentleman into all the points he had touched upon, but he certainly must complain of the manner in which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hume) had brought subjects of such immense importance before the House. He (Sir J. Pakington) was placed in a somewhat extraordinary position, for the hon. Member had on such an occasion as the present embraced subjects of no less importance than the recent petition sent home from the Legislature of New South Wales, and the present state of the Government of the Ionian Islands. He would, however, briefly reply to the hon. Member on both those subjects. With regard to the first point to which the hon. Member had adverted, namely, the petition from the Legislature of New South Wales, he thought that petition embraced a subject of too much importance and magnitude to be lightly and incidentally dealt with. Upon that subject he would only say, that although he believed the Legislature of New South Wales were not borne out in all the allegations which the petition contained, he was ready to admit that the petition was entitled to the deepest and most respectful consideration of Her Majesty's Government. He at once acknowledged that it was their duty, and he assured the House, that individually it was his inclination, to concede to the Colonies every fair right they could claim, and which could tend to promote their prosperity and liberty, consistently with the maintenance of the connexion between them and the mother country. Acting on that principle, he could assure the House and the hon. Gentleman that between the present time and the next Session he would make it his duty carefully to analyse every part of the prayer of that petition. But he should also beg the House to remember that two of the most important prayers in the petition related to the management of waste lands, and the management of the casual revenues derived from mineral sources. He hoped the House would do him the justice to recollect that, in the Bill which they had lately passed for the better government of New Zealand, he had conceded to that Colony that very prayer relating to the management of waste lands; and he trusted the House would also recollect that Her Majesty's Government had conceded to the Australian Colonies, and also to New Zealand, if it should be necessary, the management, distribution, and expenditure

1183
of any revenue they might derive from minerals found in their respective Governments. He had, therefore, the satisfaction of feeling that in these two important points, in the one case as regarded New Zealand, and, in the other, as regarded all the Colonies in the same quarter of the world, Her Majesty's Government had already anticipated the prayer of that petition. He would next advert for a moment to what the hon. Gentleman had said on the subject of the Ionian Islands. He made no objection to the hon. Gentleman's having thus a second time brought that subject before the House; but he thought he had a right to make some objection to the manner in which the hon. Member had discharged that duty. The hon. Member had that day introduced that delicate and difficult question, as he had done on a former occasion, without having given notice of any particular Motion with respect to it. The hon. Gentleman had previously brought the subject under their notice on a Motion for a Committee of Supply; and although the Government had at that time been only recently formed, he (Sir J. Pakington) had felt it his duty to state at some length what were their views and feelings with respect to the conduct of Sir Henry Ward, and more especially as an event of some importance had, a short time previously occurred, namely, the prorogation of the new Parliament in the Ionian Islands within a few days after its having first met. But he thought he had a right to complain that a high public officer, placed in the extremely difficult and arduous position in which Sir Henry Ward stood, should be thus exposed to an incidental attack of that description, without any warning whatever as to what the nature of that attack was to be. When the hon. Member had brought that subject before the House at the beginning of the Session, he had stated that after the Easter recess he would make a Motion with respect to it. And why had not the hon. Member redeemed that pledge, and made that Motion? [Mr. HUME: Because you have not given the papers I asked for.] If the conduct of Sir Henry Ward, in the discharge of an important public duty, was to be made the subject of grave complaint, he was entitled, as a public officer, to have that complaint brought forward after due notice; and he himself (Sir J. Pakington), as the Colonial Minister, ought to have been made acquainted with the case with which he was to have to deal. He thought
1184
it was not fair to Sir Henry Ward to introduce grave attacks against him in that casual and incidental manner. Why had not the hon. Gentleman made a Motion on that subject? The hon. Gentleman said it was because he (Sir J. Pakington) had not produced the papers relating to the case. Now, it was true that those papers had not yet been laid before the House; he was sorry for it, and he would tell the hon. Gentleman how that had happened. When the hon. Gentleman had moved for the papers, he (Sir J. Pakington) had told him that they would be very voluminous, and that he could not give them without a reference to the Ionian Islands. He had referred to those islands; but the papers which had then been sent to him had been incomplete, and he had found it necessary to make a second reference to the Ionian Islands on the subject. He was happy to be able to add that the papers were at present complete, and were nearly ready, and that they would be laid before the House in a very few days. But he should like to ask whether the hon. Gentleman had been induced to refrain from bringing forward a Motion on that subject by a recollection of the fact, that, when he had a few years ago introduced a similar Motion, he had found thirteen Members only to support him. He (Sir J. Pakington) was disposed to think that that circumstance had something to do with the determination of the hon. Member not to bring at present any substantive proposal under the consideration of the House. [Mr. HUME: Not at all.] All he could say was, that whenever the hon. Member brought forward the question in the shape of a Motion, he (Sir J. Pakington) should be prepared to vindicate the conduct of Sir Henry Ward, who had no political connexion with the present Government, if he should think it could be vindicated; and if he should not think so, he should be prepared frankly to make an admission to that effect. But he should express a hope that, under any circumstances, the question would be fairly brought forward. He thought he had reason to complain of the hon. Gentleman's having introduced the case of Madame Dominichini's petition in order to excite the sympathy of the House. It was not the Government that was answerable for the melancholy position of the wives of men who had drawn down on themselves the vengeance of the law by their own misconduct. He was sorry for the position of Madame Dominichini; but he believed the

1185
conduct of her husband had been such as fully to deserve the punishment he was suffering. The conduct of Sir Henry Ward in dealing with the press had been much censured by some parties; and he (Sir J. Pakington hoped the House would allow him to read a few words from one of the Ionian papers, which had partly led to those acts of Sir Henry Ward of which complaints had been made. The following was a translation of a passage in the Rigas, a Zante paper, and was an article or a specimen of articles for which Pizzara was banished:—
"The ferocious and insane Ward, the type and image of Turkish brutality and silliness, after shamefully treading the heroic soil of Cephalonia, stained in all its Hellenic parts with his inauspicious name, returned to Corfu, torn with remorse of conscience, inflamed with a fever of vengeance, and showing in his dark and hangman face that savage and Attilian brutality which his Colleagues have displayed in India and other places, where, through Divine permission, the British sword has appeared."
And then further on the writer proceeded as follows:—
"But how is this, while we are at liberty to express our wishes as to our fate, while through our representatives we possess a sovereign will, may we not freely utter our firm opinion that we do not desire you for our protectors—that we do not wish to be governed by you—for we have another national mission, and we seek another political destiny, incontestable, and suggested by the inalienable rights of nations? How, are we not masters, to send you whence you came, miserable being, who for our misfortunes have trodden this land of Paradise, and made it a hell, and a source of death and of tears."
He would only read that one specimen from the press of the Ionian Islands. He hoped that while a Governor had to contend with a people willing to support such a press, some allowance would be made for the acts of rigour to which he might feel compelled to resort. He would only repeat that if Sir Henry Ward were to be attacked at all, he ought to be attacked in a fair and open manner, and upon a Motion of which previous notice had been given.
MR. HUMEbegged to explain that he had spoken to the right hon. Gentleman more than once, in order to ascertain when the papers would be produced on which he intended to found a Motion. Dominichini was a Member of the House of Representatives, who was torn from his family and imprisoned in a rock.
SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTHsaid, he must beg to express his satisfaction at
1186
the statement of the right hon. Gentleman as to its being his intention carefully to consider the condition of New South Wales. He hoped the wise policy which the right hon. Gentleman had pursued towards New Zealand, would be pursued towards all the other Colonies. He considered the giving up the revenue of the mineral discoveries to the Colonies, did the right hon. Gentleman the greatest credit; and by pursuing the same course in other respects, the right hon. Gentleman would at once prove himself to be the wisest Colonial Minister the country had ever possessed, and the adoption of this measure would strengthen, more than any other means, the union between the Colonies and the mother country.
LORD DUDLEY STUARTsaid, he thought that if the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Pakington) took credit to himself for defending the conduct of the Governor of the Ionian Islands, though Sir Henry Ward was not a member of his political party, that his hon. Friend (Mr. Hume) was still more entitled to credit for consistency and fairness, for Sir Henry Ward was a political connexion. The right hon. Baronet had read a violent invective published in the Ionian Islands against the Governor; and he (Sir J. Pakington) had stated that when a Governor was attacked in that way, some excuse ought to be made for the means of repression which he might adopt. That might be true, but he could not help remembering that he had heard that when there was a disturbance in the Ionian Islands on a former occasion, Sir Henry Ward had resorted to means of repression which brought disgrace upon the British name, by publishing and proclaiming a reward for all offenders who should be brought up dead or alive. Such a proceeding was unknown to civilised Governments, and was only practised by the despots of Austria.
MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEsaid, he believed the conduct of the noble Lord who had just addressed the House, and of the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume), on that subject, could not be sufficiently deprecated. He had been several times in the Ionian Islands, and he could tell the noble Lord and the hon. Member that the course which they had pursued had contributed to create or to aggravate those unhappy feelings which had been productive of so much misery in those islands. He could find no justification for the charges they had brought against such a

1187
high-minded and honourable gentleman as Sir Henry Ward. Subject dropped.

METROPOLITAN BURIALS BILL.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
Clause 2 (Her Majesty may order a discontinuance of burials in any part of the metropolis).
SIR WILLIAM CLAYmoved to add the following Proviso:—"Provided that no burial ground in the metropolis where burials should have been discontinued by such order as aforesaid, shall be allowed to have any dwelling-houses, shops, or warehouses erected thereon." The only ground of objection he could anticipate to this Motion would be in fact obviated by the clause to be proposed for compensation, which he understood would not be opposed. He therefore could not see any reason why the Government should not endeavour to make some provision to obviate the violation of decency and public feeling which would take place if burial grounds were allowed to be devoted to building purposes.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, he fully concurred in the feeling expressed by the hon. Baronet on this subject. Burial places ought not to be applied to any other purposes than those to which they were originally devoted, but there was a difference between consecrated and unconsecrated burial grounds. The consecrated grounds were already protected by the law, but the unconsecrated burial grounds were not. It might, therefore, be necessary to bring up a clause to effect that object. He would suggest to the hon. Baronet to postpone his Amendment till the bringing up of the Report.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn; Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 2 to 9 inclusive.
Clause 30 (The Burial Board may lay out burial ground and build a chapel; that a portion of the ground may be consecrated, and a portion not consecrated).
SIR WILLIAM CLAYsaid, he should move to strike out the Proviso at the end of this clause, which provides for liberty in the parish board to have part of the new parish burial ground unconsecrated, and to substitute the Proviso of which he had given notice. The clause provided that the board may build a chapel on the burial ground for the performance of the funeral service according to the rites of the Church of England, and that such
1188
burial ground should be consecrated by the bishop of the diocese; it then provided that a portion of the ground might be set apart which should not be consecrated, and that a chapel might be built thereon for the performance of funeral service. This distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated ground was of recent invention, having originated from the establishment of commercial Cemetery Companies, and was intended to obviate the opposition of the bishops in the House of Lords. The clause, as it stood, involved either an absurdity or an injustice. If they built a chapel for the members of the Church, and another for Nonconformists out of the rates, they saddled the ratepayers with a double expense, which was an absurdity; but if they did not intend to build a chapel for the Nonconformists, then they would do them a great injustice, by requiring them as ratepayers to contribute to the building of a place of worship of which they could not make any use. It was an indirect mode of extending the system of church-rates. There was no objection on the part of Nonconformists to be buried in consecrated ground. Nor would they have any objection to a portion of the funeral service on occasion of the interment of their relatives or friends being performed in the chapel provided for the use of members of the Church. It should be recollected that a chapel for such purpose was not strictly a place of worship, there being no direction in the Rubric for any portion of the funeral service being performed within the walls of a consecrated building. There was a precedent in an Irish Act of Parliament (the 5th of George IV.), which contained this clause:—
"To the end thereof that all classes of His Majesty's subjects may be permitted to have the said easement of burial according to the rites of the several religions professed by them, be it enacted, that from and after the passing of this Act it shall and may be lawful for the officiating minister of the Church of Ireland by law established, in each and every parish in Ireland, upon application being made to him in writing by any clergyman or minister of any church or congregation not being of the Established Church of Ireland, duly authorised by law to officiate in such church or congregation, stating the death of any member or members of such church or congregation, for permission to perform the burial service at the grave of such person or persons in the churchyard of such parish according to the rites of such church or congregation, to grant permission accordingly; provided always, that such permission for the performance of such burial service at the grave, according to the rites of such church or congregation, shall be in writing."

1189
They had therefore a precedent for doing away with the invidious distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated ground; and thus Nonconformists might be able to use the same building as the members of the Church of England. This was an opportunity for doing a gracious act. He knew the power of parties in another place to oppose this proposition; but he would warn the members of the Established Church that the time was coming when it would be worth while for them to conciliate friends. which they could now do without shocking the feelings of any party. This was not a time for adding to or continuing religious divisions among the people; but, on the contrary, they should seize the occasion to introduce conciliation and goodwill between the different religious sects, who agreed in so much and differed in so little. Lot them not continue their religious differences beyond the grave. In the name of their common humanity, and in the name of common sense, be would recommend to the Committee the adoption of the change he had suggested in this portion of the measure.
SIR JAMES DUKEseconded the Amendment, and hoped the noble Lord the Chief Commissioner of Works would remove from the Bill, which in other respects was so acceptable, a clause that was most unfair and unjust towards the Nonconformists.
Amendment proposed—
"Page 9, line 3, to leave out from the word 'providing' to the end of the Clause, in order to add the words 'every case in which the party having the direction of the funeral of a person whom it is intended to inter in such Burial Ground shall give notice to the keeper of the said ground, that the services of a Minister of the said United Church of England and Ireland will not be required thereat, it shall be lawful to inter in any part of such Burial Ground the body relative to which such notice shall have been given without the services of any such Minister, and to have the Burial Service performed as well in the said Chapel as in the said Burial Ground, according to the usages of the religious denomination to which the deceased, or the party having the direction of the said funeral, may have belonged, or belong."
LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he deeply regretted that the hon. Baronet (Sir W. Clay) should have felt it his duty to propose this considerable alteration in the Bill. So far from believing that the Amendment would have the effect of checking those religious discords of which he complained—so far from believing that it would have the effect of keeping these
1190
burial grounds free from the painful scenes which they must all deprecate and deplore, he was deeply persuaded that the Committee could take no course more fatal for the preservation of religious peace than by adopting this Amendment. One would suppose, from the speech of the hon. Baronet, that it was proposed to deprive the Dissenters of some right which they at present enjoyed. The Bill did no such thing. Every right which the Nonconformists enjoyed by law, they would enjoy under this Bill. The hon. Baronet had referred to an Irish precedent, but it was not wise to select an isolated piece of Irish legislation and apply it to a measure of this nature. In every Act for the formation of Cemeteries similar provisions to those contained in this Bill were adopted without opposition. The clauses were inserted, not in hostility to the Nonconformists—God forbid!—but with their approbation and approval. The hon. Baronet had now asked them for the first time to depart from this way of moderate arrangement, which conciliated all religious feelings, and did injustice to none. The clergy of this metropolis had acceded in the most frank and fair spirit to the various provisions of the Bill, which certainly in many respects materially trenched upon their incomes. He had felt it his duty not to take into his counsels the clergy of this metropolis; thus guarding himself by anticipation against any imputation of that nature. And now having, with the assent of the clergy, brought this difficult measure up to this point, they were met by the hon. Baronet with a proposition which, if carried, would materially, if not altogether, tend to defeat the beneficent objects which were contemplated by the Bill. It was for the public convenience, and for the well acting of this Bill, that the Committee should adhere to those provisions which in all previous instances had been found to work satisfactorily in promoting religious peace among the people. He must, therefore, however painful to himself, resist the proposal of the hon. Baronet.
MR. BERNAL OSBORNEsaid, feeling the spirit of fairness and equity with which the noble Lord had conducted this Bill, it was with regret that he differed from him in this instance; but, as he thought the clause was lessening the common-law right of the Dissenters, he felt bound to support the proposition of the hon. Baronet (Sir W. Clay). The Com-

1191
mittee ought to remember that the Dissenters would be deprived of their own burial-grounds by this measure. Their claim, therefore, was more imperative that this clause should not pass in its present form.
ADMIRAL STEWARTsaid, he could bear testimony to the fact, that the Nonconformists had no objection to be buried in consecrated ground. The noble Lord the Chief Commissioner of Works said that no injustice would be done to Dissenters by this Bill, but he would mention a case in which great injustice would be inflicted on their feelings. It was a feeling of our common nature that we all wished to lie by the side of those whom we loved when living. Well, suppose the parents should be members of the Church, and the children should be Nonconformists—in that case the parents would be buried in the consecrated portion of the ground, and the children would be obliged to be buried in the unconsecrated portion. He thought the distinction was most injudicious and uncharitable.
LORD DUDLEY STUARTsaid, if the clause remained in its present form, the Nonconformists would have to contribute to the expense of a chapel which they could not use, and the members of the Church would also have to do the same.
MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, this Bill differed from all other Bills, this being a general Bill, whereas all former were Joint Stock Cemetery Company Bills.
MR. TENNYSON D'EYNCOURTsaid, he considered this provision of the Bill calculated to create more heartburnings than had ever existed before between Dissenters and members of the Church of England.
MR. WALPOLEsaid, the common law assumed that every man belonged to the same religious community, and was therefore entitled to burial in the same consecrated ground, and by the same religious ceremony. But, since there were many persons who dissented from the Church, it was necessary to provide them with a burial ground also. Again, with respect to the chapels—a chapel was provided for the members of the Church, and also one for those who dissented from the Church. These appeared to him to be very reasonable provisions. There was no objection to Nonconformists being buried in consecrated ground, provided they would submit to have the burial ceremony performed by a minister of the Church of England.
LORD SEYMOURwished to remind the Committee that if the whole ground were consecrated, it would be under the authority of the bishop, and any monumental inscription to which the bishop might object, however agreeable to the feelings of the friends of the deceased, might by his order be removed. He thought great inconvenience also might arise from the use of the same chapels by Nonconformists and members of the Church.
MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, persons of all persuasions were buried in Bunhill-fields burial ground, and he had never heard of any difficulties arising therefrom.
MR. PETOsaid, he must complain of the conduct of the clergy of the Church of England refusing to perform the funeral service at the funeral of a Dissenter, ro of permitting the service to be performed in the churchyard by his own minister. But the Dissenters of this country were too numerous, too important, and too powerful a class long to submit to this amount of degradation, which was so undeserved.
LORD ROBERT GROSVENORsaid, he did not see the necessity of the distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated grounds, and, as the chapel was erected simply as a place of shelter and not of worship, he was of opinion that the ratepayers should not be put to the expense of building two chapels. But that was a small part of the question. It was important they should not make these distinctions.
COLONEL THOMPSONsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. the Home Secretary, whether he had correctly understood him to say, that Dissenters might be buried in what was called the consecrated ground, if no objection was made to the Church of England's service. If he was assured of this, it went to remove much of the difficulty before the House. He took for granted, few Protestants attached much more importance to the consecration of ground, than to the consecration of bells, candles, oxen, asses, and various other matters which were made the subject of consecration in another Church; unless in so far as the practice had a tendency to secure respect and repose to the remains of the deceased. But if this was so, it made it a peculiarly impolitic ground to enter into contest with the Dissenters on; and he hoped the Government would think so.
Question put, "That the words 'pro-

1193
viding any Burial Ground such Board shall' stand part of the Clause."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 62; Noes 40: Majority 22.
Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 31 to 38 inclusive.
The House resumed. Committee report progress.

CASE OF MANUEL PEREIRA.
MR. MONCKTON MILNESsaid, he rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps had been taken to expedite the course of public justice in the case of Manuel Pereira, a coloured seaman, under British protection, detained in the prison of Charleston, in the United States, in consequence of the vessel in which he was employed having put into that port in distress, and in whose favour Mr. Matthew, Her Majesty's Consul at that place, had applied for a writ of habeas corpus on appeal to the Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina, in session at Columbia, which Court had now postponed the hearing of the said case till January next?
LORD STANLEYwas glad his hon. Friend had put this question, because he thought it desirable that public attention should be drawn, both in this country and in the United States, to the harsh and oppressive working of those laws of the Southern States which related to British coloured seamen. It was true that a British vessel, coming from Jamaica on her homeward voyage, having struck on a reef near Charleston harbour, had been compelled to put into that port in a sinking state. Among her crew was one Manuel Pereira, a coloured man, a native of the Cape Verd islands, and consequently a Portuguese, and not a British subject, though being at the time an articled seaman on board a British ship, he was under British protection. In conformity with the law of South Carolina, this man, on the arrival of the ship in port, was taken out of her, and lodged in the common gaol. The vessel was condemned and sold: the master and crew, after a short delay, the exact length of which was not stated, were able to leave Charleston; but when they applied for the release of Pereira, the master was charged with the expenses of his detention in gaol, and, refusing to pay, went away, leaving the unfortunate man in confinement. It was stated that Pereira had applied through the master to the Portuguese Consul on the spot, and to the Minister of his country at Washington, but that no notice had been
1194
taken of cither application. He then had recourse to Mr. Matthew, and these cases being unhappily not of rare occurrence, Mr. Matthew had received previous instructions how to act. A question arose, whether it would he better to apply to the State Court of South Carolina, or to the District Court of the United States: a legal opinion was taken, and it was decided to apply to the State Court. The circumstances immediately following were detailed in Mr. Matthews 'despatch:—
"I have to state that Judge Withers (of the South Carolina Court), attended by the State Attorney General, has received the application (for a writ of habeas corpus) in court, and has refused it without argument, reserving his opinion for the Upper Court, to which, consequently, an appeal has been taken. This court, which meets in Columbia in May, is empowered, if so inclined to take up, on petition, the hearing of the case, which would be otherwise deferred to the November term in Charleston; and an immediate hearing would be very desirable, as forwarding greatly, in time, the ulterior appeal (should such be requisite) to the Supreme Court at Washington. I am not very sanguine of success, however strong the ground of a vessel in distress, in the State courts: hut I can scarcely entertain a doubt of the decision of the Supreme Court; it will then rest with the Federal Government to enforce in this State the decision of that tribunal."
And in another despatch, dated May 28th, which was the latest information Government had received on the subject, Mr. Matthew spoke of the case as still pending in the State Court of Appeal. With regard to the laws under which Pereira was imprisoned, he must observe that this was by no means the first time they had been the subject of discussion. The question was not a new one: it was one of great difficulty, and which required very delicate handling, for every one who knew anything of America, knew that there was no single political question in the United States, on which a greater diversity of opinion prevailed, or which had given rise to more party feeling, than that which related to the mutual rights and obligations of the provincial and federal Legislatures. Energetic remonstrances had been addressed to the American Government, on more than one occasion, and, greatly to his honour, by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, when Foreign Secretary. A relaxation had already taken place in the laws of one State, Louisiana, on this subject: and he confidently hoped that, sooner or later, the influence of public opinion on a nation which claimed, and justly claimed, to he one of the most enlightened on earth, would do away with enactments

1195
which, as they now stood, were a disgrace to any civilised community.

APPORTIONMENT OF LAND TAX.
MR. WODEHOUSEbegged to put a question to the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer, relating to the subject of the inequalities in the apportionment of the land tax, and would refer more particularly to the evidence given by Mr. J. Wood, the chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, before a Committee of the House of Lords, on the subject of the burdens affecting real property, in 1846.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that, as far as he understood the hon. Gentleman's question, what he wished to know was, whether there was any prospect or any possibility of obtaining a better adjustment of the land tax. He would, therefore, inform the hon. Gentleman, that the question whether under the existing laws it might not be possible to effect a better adjustment of the land tax, was now about to be solemnly argued in the Court of Queen's Bench, on the first day of next Michaelmas term. The parish of Tower Hamlets had obtained a mandamus against the local commissioners, and it had also obtained a rule nisi. If that rule was not set aside after argument, then a more equal adjustment would, of course, be secured under the present law; hut if the mandamus was refused, then the time might arise when the subject should be considered by that House. But under the present circumstances, while the question was about to be solemnly argued in one of the Superior Courts, he thought it unnecessary to speculate regarding a legislative remedy, when the existing law might he ruled by the court, so as to give the relief which the hon. Member desired.

EMIGRATION.
MR. BONHAM CARTERbegged to ask the right hon. Secretary for the Colonies if he had directed his attention to the subject of the assistance which might be afforded to emigration from this country by obtaining the co-operation of the local Legislatures in Australia, in facilitating the recovery of loans advanced in England, in individual cases, for emigration purposes?
SIR JOHN PAKINGTON, in reply, said, that he admitted the importance of the question, which had received his best attention. He very much doubted whether any Legislature, home or colonial, could
1196
remove the difficulty and remedy the grievance to which the hon. Gentleman alluded. It would he most difficult to devise any means whereby sums advanced as loans to emigrants in this country would be recovered in the Colonies from those emigrants. He believed the existing law in the Colonies was adequate to the recovery of loans under ordinary circumstances. There were several cases in which benevolent persons had raised the necessary funds and sent out emigrants, who were well selected, and who, acting with a feeling of honour and honesty, returned the loans so made, in the hope, as was generally expressed, that other members of their family would be sent out. But, looking at the great extent of territory which we possess in this part of the world, compared with the scattered nature of the population, it was plain that there must be the greatest difficulty in recovering, by legal means, the loans so made—first, in proving the debt; and, secondly, that the defaulters were in a position to return the money. He feared, therefore, that any exertions of the Home and Colonial Legislature to achieve this object would be unavailing.
MR. HUMEwished to know whether the Government had made up its mind to assist emigration from the distressed and populous districts of Scotland.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONreplied, that considerable relaxation in the rules laid down for the guidance of the Emigration Commissioners had already taken place in order to promote this object.
Subject dropped.

VALUATION (IRELAND) BILL.
Order for Committee read; Motion made and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
MR. F. SCULLYsaid, it was his intention to move that the Bill be committed that day three months. The valuation of Ireland had been in progress for the last six years, in consequence of a Committee of that House which sat in 1845. Six counties had been valued under the 9th and 10th Victoria, which Act was the result of the labours of the Committee to which he had alluded. But this Bill proposed to legislate in direct opposition to the principles of that measure. He thought the Bill which had been prepared for the purpose of ascertaining the value of agricultural produce ought now to be produced, for it was a necessary concomitant to this measure. The prices of agricultural pro-

1197
duce were to constitute the basis of this Bill, but there was no regular or correct mode of ascertaining such prices—none, except by vague rumours and newspaper reports. No less than seventy amendments had been moved, and many more would have been moved, but the Irish Members thought the Government would not have pressed the Bill at so late a period of the Session. The great mistake in the valuation of Ireland was in the mode in which the valuation had been carried out. The great objection to the present law taken by Mr. Griffiths, the Chairman of the Board of Works in Ireland, was to the principle of a tenement valuation, in opposition to a townland one; but lately, Mr. Griffiths, the Chairman, changed his mind, and was now in favour of a tenement valuation. But, in truth, as he had already stated, the real objection lay not against the form of the law, but to the mode in which it was now worked out. He must object to the power of appeal which was now proposed to be given; and he maintained that it was not right that a measure of this importance should be pressed forward in the absence of Irish Members, of whom not more than nine were at present in the House at the present moment. However, if this measure passed, he should not think that the question was settled; for early next Session, if he was honoured with a seat in that House, he would move for an inquiry into the whole subject, with a view to put the state of the law relative to the valuation of land and agricultural produce in Ireland on a more satisfactory basis.
SIR DENHAM NORREYSseconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed, "To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'this House will, upon this day three months, resolve itself into the said Committee,' instead thereof."
MR. MONSELLsaid, he believed that this Bill would remedy many of the evils which were complained of in connexion with the present system of valuation in Ireland. That system was costly, and had produced the most disastrous results. The noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland had promised that he would next Session introduce a measure on the subject of the valuation of agricultural produce, and under these circumstances he hoped that the present measure would be allowed to proceed; for he believed that the universal
1198
feeling of the people of Ireland was in support of it.
SIR DENHAM NORREYSsaid, he differed from the hon. Member (Mr. Monsell), and he hoped that the Bill would not be pressed forward during the present Session. The subject was far too important to be brought forward at this period of the Session, for it required the united attention of every one connected with Ireland. He admitted that the present system had produced disastrous results, but he did not think that this measure would remedy them. This Bill introduced an entirely new system of valuation, differing from every Bill which had preceded it, and he considered it entirely unjustifiable to press it at this late period of the Session when so few Irish Members were present. He objected to the whole system of valuation in Ireland. He was not averse to the Government exercising a supervision over the valuation; but considering that the present system cost about 2l. 10 s. per cent, while the best private valuations only cost 5s. per cent, he thought he was fully justified in asking that the system should not be renewed without giving an opportunity for full examination into its actual working. Were they quite sure that they had grounds to stand upon now more sure than those they worked on hitherto? Had the system contained in that Bill ever been discussed in that House as yet? He thought it a cruelty to force on this measure, and would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman opposite as a far better course that he should as early as might be next Session appoint a Committee, which could have witnesses over, and thoroughly examine the system before there was any more legislation upon it. All he wanted was a fair relative valuation, but this the Bill was not likely to give. There was the grossest injustice in it as between town and country; and besides, examination, if time were allowed for it, would probably show that the system might be greatly simplified and improved.
SIR WILLIAM SOMERVILLEsaid, the hon. Member's speech should have been delivered on the second reading. The hon. Member had appealed to right hon. Gentlemen opposite not to press the Bill at this period of the Session; but he thought it most desirable, in the present state of affairs in Ireland, that the House should at once go into Committee on the question. He had himself introduced a Bill last Session upon the subject; but

1199
many objections having been made to it he had withdrawn it, because he was anxious to give a fair consideration to those objections. The Bill which they were now discussing was to a great extent similar to that of his introduction; and seeing the condition of this question in Ireland—seeing how absolutely necessary it was to set these matters to rights there—he thought it must be a subject of regret if the House did not do something this Session. He hoped therefore that the Government would persevere, and that in a very short time the Bill would become law.
MR. VINCENT SCULLYadmitted that the system of valuation now in force in Ireland was almost as bad as possible. They were all, no doubt, most anxious to have a good and perfect mode of making valuations in Ireland, and therefore he should be very sorry indeed to oppose the present measure, if he entertained the belief that it justly merited the commendations which it had received from the right hon. Baronet. But even were the present Bill an improvement upon the existing system, it ought not to be hurried through its various stages at so advanced a period of the Session, and in a House which necessarily exhibited so very small an attendance of Irish Members. He had recently urged the same objection against the Crime and Outrage Bill, and he was answered by statements on the part of Government that that Bill was merely for the purpose of continuing in force a necessary measure. But there were no such excuses for now introducing and urging forward a Bill, not for continuing any existing mode of valuation, but for setting aside all former modes of valuation, and substituting an entirely new system. A mere glance at the Bill would suffice to satisfy the House that the subject was one which required the most mature deliberation. It had occupied the attention of successive Governments from a period antecedent to the time of Sir William Petty, during Cromwell's Protectorate, and Parliament had been attempting to legislate upon it for the last twenty-six years, within which period they had passed no less than six different valuation statutes, including the latest Act of 9 & 10 Vict., c. 110, which had purported to terminate all the difficulties of the question. The Bill introduced last year by the late Chief Secretary for Ireland differed wholly from that Act as well as from the present Bill. That Bill of last Session was referred to a Select Committee, which he believed had
1200
done little more than merely approve of a bad measure, and had not done its duty by inquiring fully into the whole subject. By the present Bill they were called upon, without any sufficient time for due consideration, to set aside all former modes of valuation, and to settle suddenly what had continued unsettled during so many years. There were many matters which required deliberation in connexion with the present Bill. In the first place, the great defect in the past valuations of Ireland was that which had been already so well pointed out by the hon. Member for Tipperary. The primary valuations made on the spot by professional valuators were usually completed many years afterwards by a staff of inexperienced clerks in an office in Dublin. He would not dilate upon the evil effects of that vicious practice; but until it was wholly altered, they might pass a new Valuation Bill every Session of Parliament, and the result would still remain of the same unsatisfactory character. It was now proposed that in future the value of land should be assessed according to the average prices of agricultural produce, taken in forty market towns of Ireland, as stated to have been collected from loose and conjectural entries found in some local newspapers. It was very well known that with the exception of wheat and oats in the single city of Dublin, there was never any official mode of ascertaining the average prices of any sort of produce in any town in Ireland; and it had been distinctly proved before the Devon Land Commissioners, that even in Dublin the averages were of a most unsatisfactory character, and could not be depended on at all, inasmuch as they were purely voluntary returns, and were based chiefly upon the prices of large quantities of foreign wheat and oats sold in the Dublin markets. He had upon the former discussion of this Bill pointed out the absurd character of the averages upon which its scale of prices professed to be based. He thought it undesirable to base a valuation upon the average prices of produce until after some correct mode for taking them should have been provided; and he wished now to obtain from the Government some distinct pledge that they would introduce a proper Bill for ascertaining the averages. Various comments had been made on the mode of procedure, which the present Bill proposed to adopt in assessing the value of land. It appeared to him that it would be very desirable that, independently of valu-

1201
ing land according to the average prices of produce, the valuators should also be directed to ascertain its net letting value. He thought that this would be most useful for many purposes apart from those of taxation; and amongst others it would act as some sort of check upon the accuracy of the valuations. For instance, in appealing from a valuation, suppose a person found his farm valued at 20 l, a year, and that he knew quite well its fair letting value was only 15 l. a year, he would possess some sort of guide to enable him to determine whether or not he ought to appeal. But under the proposed system of valuation, to be based entirely upon an arbitrary scale of prices of several articles of agricultural produce, it would be practically impossible for any person to judge for himself whether he ought to appeal, and it would be equally impracticable for his attorney or counsel to understand his grounds of appeal, or to make them intelligible to a court of quarter-sessions. His suggestion of a contemporaneous valuation, based upon the net letting value, as well as upon the prices of produce, would not involve any additional expense. In one respect he entirely approved of the principle of the present Bill, for it proposed to introduce one uniform mode of levying both poor-rates and county rates. Being anxious to affirm that principle, and hoping that the Government would cither have adopted his former suggestions or have deferred the further consideration of the Bill until a future Session of Parliament, he had voted for its second reading. They seemed, however, now resolved to cany through this Bill in its present objectionable form; and of course in the absence of the other representatives of Ireland, it was not in his individual power to offer any effective opposition. He felt that in the necessary absence of so many of his brother Members, he was forced to form one of a sort of forlorn hope, in resisting the introduction of ill-advised or immature measures. The Bill, as it then stood, provided no mode whatever for auditing the accounts and expenditure. He had already shown that the past expenditure had amounted to about 300,000 l., and in the single county of Tipperary to near 30,000 l. for not one shilling of which had the grand juries or the ratepayers received any sort of account or audit. In conclusion he would only repeat, that he entirely felt the futility, under present circumstances, of attempting to oppose the Bill, or to im-
1202
prove it in any material respect, and he should therefore, for his own part, content himself with simply suggesting to the Government the adoption of some minor amendments—at the same time protesting in the most emphatic terms against this annual system of crude and hurried legislation upon important Irish subjects at the close of each Session.
MR. F. SCULLY, in the present state of the House, agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for Cork county, that it would be perfectly unavailing to proceed further in their opposition. He would, therefore, now leave the matter in the hands of the Government, and on their shoulders let the consequences rest of imperfect legislation.
Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
House in Committee.
Clauses 1 to 46 inclusive agreed to.
Clause 47.
SIR DENHAM NORREYSsaid, he would beg to move to add to the end of the Clause the Amendment of which he had given notice.
Amendment proposed—
"Page 20, line 22, at the end of the Clause to insert the words, 'and the person occupying the property so rated for County or other purposes shall be at liberty to deduct from the rent payable by him on account of the tenement whereon the rate has been levied, such proportion of the rate paid as he would have been entitled to deduct had the rate been levied for the relief of the Poor.'"
Question put, "That those words be there added."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 3; Noes 81: Majority 78.
Clause agreed to; as were the remaining Clauses.
House resumed. Bill reported.

PATENT LAW AMENDMENT BILL.
On the consideration of this Bill as amended,
MR. S. CARTERmoved the adoption of a clause, providing that—
"If any person should, by himself or by the agency of any other person, knowingly and fraudulently pirate or manufacture, for sale or profit, any article or part of an article protected by Letters Patent under this or any other Act, he should he guilty of a misdemeanour, and on conviction thereof before any Court of General or Quarter Sessions, should be liable to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding twelve calendar months, with or without hard labour, or to pay a fine not exceeding 100 l., with or without imprisonment; provided always, that no conviction for this offence should prevent or defeat any civil remedy

1203
which the party aggrieved might have by action or otherwise."
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EHCHEQUERsaid, that it appeared to him that this clause appeared to he taken from the Whiteboys Act. A more monstrous proposition he certainly never heard; and that it should have been made by an hon. Member distinguished for his extremely liberal principles, was exceedingly remarkable. It was perfectly opposed to the spirit of modern legislation, and he trusted that the House would not sanction for a moment a proposition which would inflict upon any ingenious person who might violate the law by any manufacture, a punishment of so savage and almost of so sanguinary a character as that now proposed. He believed that no House of Commons of the nineteenth century would sanction such a proposition, more especially when hon. Members were about to appear before their constituents so shortly. He trusted, therefore, that the hon. Member would not persist with his clause.
Clause negatived; Bill, as amended, agreed to.

PIMLICO IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Order for Third Reading read.
COLONEL SIBTHORPsaid, he must object to proceeding with the Bill at so unseasonable an hour. The Bill was called the "Pimlieo Improvement Bill," but it was in reality a Bill to carry out the private views of certain interested parties at the expense of the public, and that, too at a period of great distress, and when the country was groaning under the continued imposition of an odious income tax. He had ventured to raise his voice against the job of removing the Marble Arch, and he had been told that that object would be effected without any cost to the public. Old birds, however, were not to be caught with chaff, and it appeared that a very large sum of money had been exhausted in the removal of the fright. Then there was the National Gallery, upon which the public had lavished so large an amount of treasure; and what a miserably ludicrous spectacle it presented! He objected to this system of picking the pockets of the public by what were termed public improvements.
Bill read 3°, and passed.
The House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Consolidated Fund (Appropriation); Militia Ballots Suspension; Militia Pay; Metropolis Water Supply; Holloway House of Correction.
2a Pharmacy; County Rates.
Reported—Appointment of Overseers; Hereditary Casual Revenues in the Colonies.
3a Passengers Act Amendment; Loor Law Commission Continuance (Ireland).

THE "BIRKENHEAD"—DISCIPLINE OF THE ARMY.
The DUKE of WELLINGTONsaid: My Lords, in consequence of what passed in the debate on the second reading of the Militia Bill, I have felt it my duty to inquire into the state of discipline of the body of men who were embarked for the Cape in Her Majesty's steam ship, the Birkenhead. As detailed reports have been received, and as all are interested in ascertaining the truth of those reports which have been made relative to the matter in question, and as to the state of discipline of the regiment on board that steam ship, it is my duty to move that the reports received be laid upon your Lordships' table. I have, therefore, to move—
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for a Copy of the Order given on the 18th of December last to the several depots of Regiments that sent men to the Regiments at the Cape of which such depots formed part, which men embarked in Her Majesty's late ship Birkenhead; also for a Copy of the Order of the 16th of June requiring the Commanding Officers of the several dep6ts to report whether the men embarked in the Birkenhead were instructed in firing with ball cartridge; and also for Copies of the Reports received from the several depots in consequence."
Motion agreed to.

RAILWAYS IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA—EXPLANATION.
EARL GREYtook the opportunity of correcting a statement he had made on a recent occasion, when the subject of railways in British North America was discussed by their Lordships. He found he

1131
was mistaken in stating that the person through whom Mr. Chandler first received instruction of the final decision of the Government, an officer of an association which desired to graft a system of emigration upon the scheme of a railway, was a person against whom the Emigration Commissioners had felt it to he their duty to caution the public, to the effect that they should not listen to his schemes. But he was perfectly correct in saying that the association and all the persons connected with it did not hold such a position in the commercial world that it was proper they should he made the channel of so important a communication. [See page 92.] He (Earl Grey) found on inquiry that the association had been holding out that which tended to create the impression they were under the patronage of the Government. Undoubtedly, they had opened an account at Masterman's bank; they had paid in 18 l. and drawn out 17 l.
The EARL of DESARTsaid, the communication to Mr. Hincks was of the same date as the communication to the association referred to.

SUITORS IN CHANCERY RELIEF BILL.
LORD LYNDHURSTpresented a petition from the Managing Committee of the Metropolitan and Provincial Law Association, praying that the provisions of the Bill may be extended according to certain views mentioned in the petition. The petition contained points which he considered of great importance, and to which he wished to call the attention of his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack. The Bill to which his remarks had reference stood for Committee that evening, and was founded on the recommendations of the Report of a Select Committee of the other House of Parliament. In that report it was recommended that orders of course should be abolished, with certain exceptions to be decided on by the Lord Chancellor. Now, on looking at the Bill, he found that it did not contain any reference to those orders of course. This was a matter closely connected with the remarks which his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack had made on the second reading of the Bill. He wished to ask his noble and learned Friend to explain why the recommendation of the Select Committee had not been acceded to. The petition also recommended the entire abolition of the Accountant General's Office, on the ground that the Bank of England afforded a suffi-
1132
cient guarantee for the security of all sums paid into it. Another point in the petition well worthy of consideration was, that fees for services not now rendered were still paid into the suitors' fee fund. Now, in that fund there was a surplus, and that surplus ought not to be paid into an accumulating fund, but ought to be applied to the reduction of fees. The petitioners desired that his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack would take measures to secure the application of that fund to other purposes than that of forming an accumulation fund.
The LORD CHANCELLORobserved, that as he had heard nothing before of the omissions in this Bill to which his noble and learned Friend had called his attention, he could not be expected to meet him on the moment with a satisfactory answer. With regard to the abolition of motions of course, he could give no explanation of the causes why they were not provided for in the Bill then before their Lordships. He had had nothing to do with the preparation of the Bill. The Bill was introduced into Parliament before the present Government came into office, and came up in its present shape from the other House of Parliament; he, therefore, thought it to be his duty to take it up with the sole view of passing it through their Lordships' House. It was a Bill on which many persons set great value, and he really believed that it was a valuable Bill. He was, however, of opinion that there were many clauses in it which required revision; but it was now so late in the Session that he could not undertake to revise and correct them himself. He had, therefore, only this choice left to him—either to let the Bill drop, which would have given satisfaction to no party, and would have created great dissatisfaction in the House of Commons, or to let it pass in its present shape, and to correct its errors when they became apparent in its operation. He could not send it up for consideration to a Select Committee of their Lordships at this period of the Session, and he was therefore under the necessity of moving either that it be now read a second time, or of allowing it to drop for this Session. With regard to the proposition for the abolition of the Accountant General's Office, it was quite impossible for him to give at once a hasty opinion; but with regard to the surplus of the Suitors' Fee Fund, he was of opinion it should be applied to the relief of the present suitors, because nothing was more

1133
vexatious than to go on abolishing unnecessary offices and diminishing the expenses of the Court of Chancery, and yet to find that the suitors had to pay the same amount of fees. He should, therefore, have very great satisfaction in addressing himself, as soon as possible, to providing a remedy for that state of things.
LORD LYNDHURSTsaid, that he was informed that the accumulated fee fund now amounted to 200,000 l. He was quite satisfied with the answer which he had elicited from his noble and learned Friend on that point; but he was sorry that his noble and learned Friend had not been able to give him a more satisfactory and conclusive answer on other points.
Petition to lie on the table.

NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
The EARL of DESARTsaid, he rose to move the Second Reading of one of the important measures which Her Majesty's Government had considered it to be its duty to bring forward in this anomalous Session of Parliament; and he could assure their Lordships that there were few Bills of greater importance than that which he then submitted to their approbation. It concerned not only the destiny of one of our most rising colonies, but also the interest of many individuals, who, though separated from us by long distance, were still anxious for the general prosperity of the great Empire of which they formed a component part. He was sorry that a Bill of such vast importance should have been intrusted to a person comparatively of such small experience as himself, who was scarcely competent to undertake a task of such magnitude; but he had this consolation to support him—that this Bill was no party measure. He, therefore trusted that the same forbearance which had influenced hon. Gentlemen in the other House of Parliament would also induce their Lordships to consider this measure favourably, and to realise the wishes of their fellow-countrymen for the future good government of this colony. He did not know whether it was necessary for him, as their Lordships were all of them well acquainted with this subject, to enter into a history of the fortunes of this colony; but still it might be expected that he should give a slight but free sketch of them. The number of European inhabitants in New Zealand amounted to 26,000 souls, scattered over nine different
1134
settlements. One of those settlements contained a population of 9,000 persons, while a population was scattered over the other eight not exceeding 17,000 persons. There was no communication between these different settlements except on horseback, and they were divided from each other by mountains and rivers over which there were no bridges. The constitution which had been given to the colony in 1847 had been suspended for five years, and the approaching expiration of that term rendered it necessary to frame an Act capable of surmounting the difficulties attendant on all past legislation for this important colony. There was, however, one circumstance which gave the Legislature considerable facilities in this task. The native inhabitants of New Zealand were far superior to all those with whom our attempts at colonisation had hitherto made us acquainted They understood agriculture, they made good sailors, they were anxious for the advantages of civilisation, they understood its power, and they were ambitious to obtain for themselves a higher scale among the nations of the earth than they could ever hope to obtain in a state of barbarism. With these facilities he hoped that we should be able to incorporate these aborigines with our European colonists, and to merge them gradually with our own people into one great, useful, and intelligent community. It was proposed by this Bill to make a beginning of such a good work by establishing six provincial councils, embracing all the nine different settlements of New Zealand. The legislative functions of these councils were distinctly defined; and the first change which he had to mention in the scheme formerly framed for the constitution of the colony was, that the superintendent officer of these councils, instead of being nominated by the Crown should be an elective officer, and that he should be elected by the same machinery as that which returned the elective council. He confessed that at first he had entertained doubts as to the policy of such a regulation; but on mature deliberation he thought that the advantages to be derived from it, outweighed the possible evil that might result. Having said thus much regarding the provincial councils, he had next to state that it was proposed that there should be a Central General Assembly within the colony, consisting of the Governor, a Legislative Council, and a House of Representatives. The members of the Legislative Council would hold their

1135
appointments for life, and would be 10 in number; while the Members of the House of Representatives would be elected by the same machinery as that used in the election of the provincial councillors, and would hold their seats for five years, unless the General Assembly was sooner dissolved. He did not think that it was necessary for him to go further into the details of the measure then before their Lordships, except to allude to one important provision. The waste lands of New Zealand were placed under the control of the General Assembly, but under certain provisions clearly defined. The Crown reserved to itself the power of regulating and controlling all transactions between the aborigines and the colonists relative to the sale of such lands. No one could be more averse than himself to yield at once to the unreasonable claims of the colonists to obtain the entire management of the waste lands, wherever they were settled. The concession would be dangerous to the colonists themselves, when they could neither alienate nor improve them. His objections to such a concession did not apply so strongly to the colony of New Zealand as to our other colonies, for the aborigines of New Zealand, as he had before stated, were anxious to associate themselves with Europeans, and as many of them had funds under English protection—one of the chiefs to the amount of 500 l., and others to the amount of 300 l. and 200 l.—we had a right to expect that before long there would be a general fusion between them and the English colonists; and if such should be the case, we should accomplish a greater benefit for the colony than any which could be derived from any other measures. These were the principal features of the Bill. Suggestions would be made, no doubt, which would receive due consideration. But the question was not a party one, and he hoped that the Bill, as regarded its general principles, would be adopted without alteration. He was not one of those that desired to plant constitutions upon the English model in every colony, however fitted or unfitted for their growth; but there was always a time when it was for the interest of the parent country as much as for that of the colonies that all restrictions should be withdrawn and free institutions granted. The question then was, whether New Zealand was in that condition, and he thought it was. He dared not speak with certainty; the whole thing was an experiment; but it was
1136
one in which he saw some future prospect of civilisation for that country. Moreover, England was now fulfilling that high mission which Providence had confided to her, and there was every reason to hope she would be successful in propagating along with political liberty those blessings and advantages to the people which Christianity alone could afford.
Moved—"That the Bill be read 2a."
LORD LYTTELTON: My Lords, being connected with one of the settlements in New Zealand, and having much interest in that colony generally, I venture to address the House this evening. I would first acknowledge, and I believe I might do so in the name of almost all the colonists of New Zealand, the good-will towards that colony which moved Her Majesty's Government to introduce this Bill, and in circumstances of considerable difficulty to carry it through to the present stage. My Lords, I rejoice to believe that the Bill is now beyond the reach of serious harm. If it were not so, or if I were a person of that weight in this House that any remarks which I could make could have any effect in obstructing the progress of a measure like this, I should certainly abstain from making any attempt to criticise this Bill; believing, as I do, that with all its defects it will be a most acceptable boon to the colony, and that it is the largest instalment of right legislation on these subjects that has been made for more than a hundred years. But as it is, I shall venture freely to point out what seem to me the main defects in this Bill—defects which are not connected with the particular colony of New Zealand, but depend on general principles of colonial policy. I would measure those defects by a reference to what I conceive to be the great standard of right principle on this subject—the constitutions given to our early North American colonies; and as a specimen of those constitutions, I will take the charter given to the colony of Maryland, as in many respects one of the best. A proprietary colony it was, and I would not be understood as advocating that particular form of tenure and of local government. But in a question of political rights and franchises, as between the colony and the mother country, this point may be of no great importance. Nor would it make any difference if I were to take one of the charters of the New England States instead—Connecticut or Rhodes Island for example, as the provisions are mainly the same in the two cases. Now, the leading features

1137
of those constitutions, as I apprehend, were these. In the first place, the colonists were given unlimited freedom of legislation as to their internal affairs. In the next place, they were given the complete control of the land of their settlement. In the next place, they were given the appointment and the payment of every officer of their establishment, from the Governor downwards. In the next place, they were given an unfettered trade. In the first place, they were charged with the entire care of their own defence. In the next place, they were given the uncontrolled right of self-taxation. And in the last place, the whole cost of their maintenance, without an exception, was thrown upon them. On some of these points, which have been recently conceded to the colonies, or which are now for the first time conceded by this Bill, I shall say very little. It is to the honour of Her Majesty's present Government, and of this Bill, that it for the first time gives to the colonists to whom it relates the control of their own land. Complete liberty of trade has also been given to our colonies, though only very recently, to the disgrace of this country, and of its state of advancement in political science. Nothing could be more inconsistent with the principles of our early colonisation in this respect than the system of colonial trade regulation, known by the name of the colonial system, which grew up too soon after the time of those early settlements, and which was so fixed in the mind of the people of this country, that even Mr. Burke, far in advance as he was of his contemporaries, in liberality of feeling on colonial subjects generally, could speak without scruple or disguise of that system as one quite distinct from the rest of our colonial legislation; and as one which was contrived solely for the supposed benefit of this country exclusively, without the least regard for the colonies. This system is now done away with. Liberty of self-taxation is almost entirely now conceded to the colonies. The command of the land fund, indeed, is given for the first time by this Bill; and there still remains some shadow of that great absurdity called the colonial civil lists. But it is hardly more than a shadow, because of the power allowed to the colonial legislatures to deal with those civil lists when established, though their establishment is still provided in the Acts. With regard to the appointment of their officers, I admit that I do not attach the importance which some do to the election of the Governors
1138
by the colonial communities, though I do not object to it. But I think the present system, by which the Governors are named by the Crown, is a good one, and might work very well, if the Government would but put an end to that mischievous modern innovation, according to which a colonial Governor is understood, by a sort of arrangement between him and the Government at home, to hold his office for a fixed term of years, five, six, or seven; an arrangement which prevents his identifying himself with the colony over which he presides, makes him always feel himself a stranger there, and very much prevents the public opinion of the colony from acting upon him. A colonial Governor should be appointed, like any one else, capable, of course, of promotion, like another servant of the Crown, but without any definite arrangement for his removal at a certain time. In the remaining and perhaps more important points, I conceive that this country has still much to do. I say that the early colonies had an uncontrolled power of legislation in their own affairs. They had not an uncontolled power of legislation. Their power was controlled in their charters in two ways—in one by express enactment, in the other by implication and inference from the whole spirit and object of the instrument. As to the latter, they were restrained from legislating in derogation of their allegiance to the Crown of England, or of imperial policy and interests. As to the former, they were restrained by those remarkable words, which occur in all these charters, requiring that their laws shall not be "repugnant to the laws of England." With regard to these words, it is known that they have had a very vague and uncertain operation. It has been investigated with much ability by a distinguished writer, lately a Colleague of the noble Lord behind me (Mr. Cornewall Lewis). He has shown that those words have been held by the Courts to mean, that the laws in question shall not be repugnant to English law, in so far as it is applicable to the circumstances of the colonies. Of course such a provision could not but have rather a vague effect. But, nevertheless, I do not object to these words, which I see I are repeated in the present Bill. I am not aware that they have ever had an injurious effect, and they have probably had some good tendency in keeping colonial legislation in harmony with the principles of English law. But the great point, with respect to both the subjects last mentioned,

1139
is, that if any question arose under these charters, with regard to the proper limits of the colonial legislation, it would have to he decided according to the legal construction of a public written instrument, and in an open Court of Law. No colonist could object to that. It is essentially different from the modern system which has grown up since, by which every particle of the colonial legislation on all subjects, great and small, is sent home for allowance or disallowance by what is in fact a secret tribunal—the Colonial Office. In those early days the Colonial Office did not and could not exist. The first trace of the modern system is to be found, not in the first charters, but in a later one—in the second charter given to the province of Massachusetts in the time of William III. It is there provided that all colonial Acts shall be sent home for the consideration of the King; a provision that does not appear to have been generally acted on, that gave great dissatisfaction to the colonists when passed, and that stands out in singular contrast to the general spirit of the previous enactments in the matter. The only answer which the noble Earl (Earl Grey) has ever given to the obvious arguments against this general power of disallowance, is one the inadequateness of which is so manifest, that it is astonishing how a man of his great ability and acuteness of mind should fail to perceive it. It is, that, as it happens, he, in the plentitude of his liberality on these subjects, and perhaps some of his predecessors, have not, in fact, exercised this veto more than in a very few cases, two or three per cent, and in which its propriety was indisputable. How is this a satisfactory reply to colonists at the Antipodes? How do they know what Secretary of State is in office? How do they know which measures these two or three per cent will be, which he considers open to his objections? But this point has been so much argued of late, that I shall not detain the House further upon it. With regard to self-defence, the words of this charter are most explicit, in giving to the colonists both the right and the responsibility of defending themselves against all enemies whatsoever. And so as to their own support, there is no reservation whatever; but the whole cost of their establishments is thrown upon themselves. No doubt, in neither of these last cases is it meant that there was never to be exceptions, in which the mother country might give aid to her dependencies; but the ques-
1140
tion is as to their normal state. It was then indisputably one of self-support; whereas now, at least as to military defence, the case is distinctly reversed, and we regularly undertake for the protection of our colonies in all parts of the world. Such, my Lords, as I conceive, is an outline of our early colonial system. As far as it went, that New South Wales petition, lately presented in this House, coincided with that system; and we are told that it is inconsistent with the principle of a colonial empire. I ask, was it so found? For this system was not a mere paper one, but was in actual life and operation for the better part of a century, up to within a certain number of years before the American revolution. And I say that during that time these colonies were the pride and the glory of this country, and that they were a colonial empire in the sense in which we ought to wish to have one. For I would wish, again and again, to impress upon those who take an interest in those subjects, that we ought not to desire to have colonies for the sake of any supposed gain to ourselves, or of any selfish object, but in order, as is often recited in these ancient charters, to propagate through the world the religious and civil institutions of England, and to rear up races of manly, and generous, and self-relying men; and I say that such these colonies were. Try it in reference to some of the more importants points I have mentioned. I say those colonies did support themselves; and that their people could not even have conceived such things as we have seen in modern days, when South Australia was not ashamed to receive 150,000 l. in a Parliamentary grant; and, still worse, when Prince Edward's Island, Western Australia, and, as will be remembered hereafter as the disgrace of the early history of this great colony, New Zealand, have not scrupled to subsist for years for the supply of their daily wants on the reluctant alms of the mother country. Those colonies did defend themselves against all difficulties and dangers. Some time ago evidence was given by a most excellent and valuable servant of the Crown, Mr. Elliot, of the Colonial Office, before a Committee of this House on emigration, in which he made some comparisons between our early colonies and some of the modern ones, especially the Australasian colonies, as to their advance in material prosperity; and he said that Virginia had been destroyed four times over before it, as it were, got under weigh, whereas the

1141
Australasian colonies had made the rapid progress which we know. The instance was not a happy one, inasmuch as the early charters of Viginia were very much move restrictive than those of the later colonies, and gave much more power, partly to the Crown and partly to a company at home. But it may freely he admitted that some of our modern colonies have arrived at a much higher pitch of merely material success than those ancient ones did. I must again press on your Lordships that that is not the point, hut what sort of men they were, and what were their characters? For example, could any one conceive it for a moment to he possible that any of those early colonists should have done what we saw the other day in a memorial from some of the border colonists at the Cape, which I read with the greatest shame and indignation, setting forth in distinct terms their own unwarlikeness of disposition? Aye, these unhappy creatures actually were not ashamed to address the Crown and the Governor, stating, as if they were so many-women and children, that they were incapable of self-defence, and begging that something like men might be sent out from home to take care of them. Assuredly such was not the spirit in which those ancient colonists went forth. They went forth, well knowing that they were to encounter difficulties and dangers of all sorts; and in that spirit they coped successfully, year after year, with savages much more warlike and ferocious than those whom our colonists have met at the Cape and in New Zealand, and the fear of whom has so discouraged colonisation to those countries; in that spirit they repeatedly, by their own voluntary offer, took a part, to their own great burden and risk, in the general wars of the Empire; and in that spirit, too, when, as has been said—
"Like a large and patient sea,
Once roused by cruel weather,"
when, at length goaded beyond endurance by the folly and oppression of England, they rose against it, and at a blow dashed from them that misused and pernicious—pernicious only because misused—domination. But not till it was so misused. For I would ask your Lordships, in the third place, how stands the comparison with regard to the local feelings of our colonies? I do not deny that there is a strong feeling of loyalty at present in our colonies. But this I know, that whenever any petty grievance is felt in North America or in Australia, we hear talk and ru-
1142
mours of separation from this country. No doubt this is partly owing to change of times and circumstances; but still there the feeling is, and it is most widely different from the feeling which prevailed in those old colonies. Nothing in history is more remarkable than the ineradicable and inextinguishable loyalty of those men. Who (as I suppose) is the best witness of the state of feeling in America previous to the Revolution? Franklin; his memoirs and correspondence. And long after the time when Mr. Crenville, the Duke of Grafton, Lord North, and the rest of the most infatuated statesmen (so called) of those days, had not only begun, but carried on their system of contempt and oppression towards the colonies, yes, up to the veryeve of the outbreak of the war, up to 1774 or 1775, he could not even conceive the possibility, much less entertain the desire, of a separation of the Colonies from England. My Lords, I will only add on this general question, that I believe we are returning to that earlier system; that the modern one has been gradually undermined for a long time, and that if—as I hope and believe we shall—if we do keep our colonies, some of us will live to see our ancient principles restored in their essential features. Adverting now briefly to the provisions of this Bill, it is plain that it is to be looked at in two aspects—as it relates to the general government of New Zealand, and as it relates to its provincial constitution. There seems to me to be more that is good in the latter than in the former. In the former, as I suppose, what is good is first, that the general legislature has the control of the land; secondly, that the constitution of the assembly has avoided that mischievous device of modern times, the intermixture in the same council of the members elected by the people with the temporary nominees of the Crown; and, thirdly, that the members of the Legislative Council are nominated for life. For I am unable to go so far as many persons who desire to see both the chambers wholly elective. I certainly think that some persons of much authority on these subjects go too far in their admiration of the United States as our model in such questions. I do not wish in all points to copy them as they have been since the American war, but rather to copy them as they were when they were our colonies, long before that war. And I am disposed to hope that the important provision which I have referred to, by which the members are no-

1143
minated for life, may be found to be in this respect a sufficient improvement. But the most valuable part of this Bill, as I consider, is that which relates to the provinces into which it divides the colony. Her Majesty's Government have brought in a much better Bill than they are at all aware of, or than they had any intention of bringing in. The right hon. Gentleman who, with so much credit to himself, fills the office of Secretary for the Colonies, has frequently said that he looks on these six provinces merely as little municipalities, petty boroughs, like those which are to be found in this country, and which therefore may well be allowed to elect their own officers, as mayors are elected, and so on. My noble Friend (Lord Grey) took a much juster view when he said in that despatch of his, which accompanied the draft of his Bill, that these provinces could not be looked on as mere municipalities, but were really colonies; and therefore, according to what he has, unfortunately, always maintained, he retained for them what is too well known as the home veto on their enactments. Happily the present Government, looking on them as I have said, have destroyed that veto, and given it to the Governor of New Zealand, thereby doing away with very much of the objection to it in respect of delay; and also, though I should have preferred its being left with the superintendents of the several provinces, giving it to one who may be hoped to be more influenced by the public opinion of the colony, and to take a more considerate view of the subjects referred to him than has sometimes been the case at home. The provinces have also the advantage of purely elective councils, and that in their individual case at least there is no reservation at all of a civil list, and they have a real control of their own revenue. The only point in the Bill which seems to me bad enough to deserve notice, but which I cannot wonder at, with the opinions the Government entertain as to the relative position of the central Government in the colony and the provincial bodies, is the concurrent power of legislation given to them. I cannot but sincerely wish that some delimitation of subjects had been provided between those powers. My Lords, I remember the slight, but I fear well-deserved, sneer of the noble Earl at the head of the Government, in his speech at the opening of this Session, at the degree of interest and of knowledge concerning New Zealand possessed by Members of this
1144
House. Nevertheless, I am assured that no one who has attended to the question will deny its importance, or that the consideration which had been bestowed in the present Bill has been well bestowed. Of course, if I had any hope that amendments such as I have indicated could be passed, I should feel it my duty to press them upon the House; but, as that is not the case, I will only add, that I shall be well content if this Bill should pass without any material alteration.
LORD WODEHOUSEsaid, he thought that those who had paid any attention to the framework of this Bill would readily acknowledge that, in a theoretical point of view, many objections might be made to it. It was certainly not a perfect model of a constitution, neither did it contain any leading principles of government whatsoever. In addition to this want, he thought that there was a most disproportionate amount of government provided for so small a community; and it was moreover very probable that considerable difficulties would ensue from the existence of six different codes of law, passed by the six local legislatures, a seventh code enacted by the General Assembly, and the continued existence of remnants of native usages in some parts of the Colony. The proposed Government would consist of six provincial legislatures, a general Legislative Assembly, a Governor in chief, and six provincial governors—and all this for a population not numbering 20,000 Europeans. In such a state of things there could not fail to be an absence of that harmonious working which was necessary to the success of the new constitution. He believed that the colonists would look rather to the powers conferred upon each legislature than to the particular form in which that legislature might be cast. He thought that a mistake had been fallen into by preceding speakers in supposing that these provincial legislatures would remain separate. The example of the early States of Greece and of Italy in the Middle Ages was not applicable to the case of New Zealand in the present day. The application of steam power, and the increased facilities of communication would completely alter the position of these islands, and render a central and united legislature practicable. Neither did he think the example of the United States at the present day was at all analogous. The extent of territory of the United States rendered a comparison of that country with

1145
New Zealand fallacious. Although he fully concurred in the propriety of giving the management of the waste lands to the local legislatures of New Zealand, he could not help thinking that such a course would excite the jealousy of the older and more densely populated colony of New South Wales, to which a corresponding privilege was at present denied. As he had no doubt that the separation of the local legislatures would be but of a temporary character, he approved of the plan of making the superintendents elective by the colonists themselves rather than subject to the appointment of the Governor or Crown at home. The course adopted was gratifying to the colonists, and would be productive of no material injury to the colony itself. Another important concession made to the colonists by this measure regarded the veto reserved to the Imperial Government, and the power of disallowing Bills by the Governor. These were wise concessions, and made at the proper time. The present was an exceedingly critical time for our colonies. This country now possessed vast colonies growing up, he might say, to manhood; and if we profited by the lessons of the last century, and treated these colonies in a generous and liberal spirit, and avoided any vexatious interference with their purely local affairs, he felt convinced that they would cheerfully submit to every necessary control in matters of imperial interest, in return for the protection afforded them by the Imperial Government. The Colonies would by such means become knit to the mother country by the bond of one common language, of one common commercial interest, by identity of political institutions, and would he animated with one common respect for the parent country.
The DUKE of NEWCASTLEsaid, that he would not attempt to follow his noble Friend (Lord Lyttelton) into the wide field of discussion on the principles of colonisation and colonial government upon which the noble Lord had entered with so much ability; for he could not but perceive that within the last few days they had arrived at that period of the Session—a Session too that was to terminate a Parliament—when it was vain to expect to secure a full discussion upon the second reading of a Bill, or even to rivet their Lordships' attention to any brief details upon a subject such as that now before the House. It appeared, indeed, that the same spirit which pervaded a House of Commons which had been termed "moribund,"
1146
prevailed equally in that House, which was of a more perpetual and enduring character. There were, however, a few topics to which, notwithstanding the circumstances he had referred to, and the dry details to which his remarks would have reference, he hoped for a short time to he able to secure their Lordships' attention. Without expressing any opinion whether Her Majesty's Government, in proposing the present measure, had adopted it upon a full consideration of its consequences, or, as some persons seemed to think, had been led by a misapprehension of the two Bills which they found in the Colonial Office upon this subject, and from which they admitted the present measure had been form-ed, to afford greater concessions to the colony than they had anticipated, or intended, he was prepared, for one, to express his general approval of the Bill then before their Lordships. He considered it undoubtedly to involve a much larger measure of colonial freedom than had been conceded by any previous scheme which had been brought before the Legislature since these discussions had occupied their attention. In noticing the more important details of the Bill, there was one which though occurring in the latter clauses of the measure, he could not avoid putting prominently forward—he meant the power of revision of the whole of these present enactments, afforded to the local Legislatures, subject to certain proper restrictions. He considered this to be a most wise provision, because it was impossible for any man in this country, however well versed in matters of the kind, to legislate for all those conflicting points, and complicated details, which even the local Legislature itself would find great difficulty in dealing with. He believed three plans had been suggested for establishing a constitution for New Zealand. The first was, the establishment of a central Government; the second, a subdivision of the colony into two Provinces; and the third, the proposal now before the House, for giving separate local Legislatures to each of the six settlements, to be controlled and overruled by a General Legislature. With respect to the proposal of one central and six local Legislatures, he thought upon the whole it was the best that could have been adopted for the colon}'. He could not think that those who had advocated but one central Legislature for the whole island, had sufficiently reflected upon the difficulty involved in such a course. How could they propose

1147
to have a central Government, when in reality there was no natural centre of the country? Moreover, apart from all the geographical difficulties of communication presented by the island, there would always remain the difficulty of selecting a place for the seat of the Government; and whatever might be the selection made, it could not fail to excite jealousy on the part of other districts which might consider themselves to have superior claims. The proposal to divide the island into two Provinces, though preferable to the establishment of one central Government, would be liable to the same objection, though in a mitigated form, and could not be carried out without producing the greatest embarrassment and difficulty, whilst it lost the advantage of the first plan—unity of action. He was thus led to the conclusion he had already expressed, that on the whole, notwithstanding the objections which might be raised as to the numerous codes of laws that would be enacted, and the conflicting interests which might arise among the separate districts, the proposal for establishing six local Legislatures with one controlling central Legislature, was the best that had been made. It did not appear to him that the amount of the population in any one of the respective provinces was necessarily an essential element of a local system of self government; and although a considerable amount of ridicule had been thrown upon the small-ness of the population which was to elect these local Legislatures, he did not think that it possessed much real weight. He confessed, however, that he had some doubts as to one part of the measure—he alluded to the concurrent power of legislation given to the six local Legislatures and to the central Legislature, which, he confessed, he should have been glad to have seen omitted from the Bill. He thought that one of two evils would arise from this arrangement—either that the central Government would swallow up the six minor Legislatures, or that the six minor Legislatures would eventually render useless and cause the abolition of the Central Legislature. This provision would prevent the system from being either central or local, and certainly it prevented it from being either federal, or, in the strict sense of that word, municipal; and he could not see either the justification or necessity for introducing it. With regard to this and some other portions of the Bill, it appeared to him that notwith-
1148
standing the general provisions of the Bill were good, there was a general want of unity of principle in them which would entail considerable difficulty in carrying them out, and he feared this want of unity had arisen from the hasty adoption, without adaptation, of the clauses in the two different measures which the new Government had found in the Colonial Office. He thought, however, that Her Majesty's Government had acted wisely in excluding nominees from the local Legislatures; and he believed that by so doing they would avoid much of that collision which had been found to exist in other colonies between the nominated and elected Members of the Legislatures. A specimen of this collision was shown to their Lordships a few days since, when a noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) presented a petition from the Legislature of New South Wales; and it was stated as a fact that upon a division as to the adoption of the petition—which was not in its language, perhaps, very conciliatory or very moderate—the nominee members all voted one way, and the elected the other. He rejoiced that the Government had avoided in the present measure this element of discord. With respect to the Superintendents, he thought also that Her Majesty's Government had acted wisely in conceding to the colonists the election and appointment of these officers, rather than reserving to the Crown or the Governor their nomination. The provision also that the parties so elected should not receive any salary, or payment of any sort, would, he believed, lead to the election of a better class of men to that position; hut he confessed that he thought in making that concession to the representations made in the course of debate in the other House, the Government had hardly considered its general effect and bearing on the remainder of that portion of the Bill which related to the Superintendents. When they came to make the Superintendents the elective heads of the local Legislatures, instead of the nominees of the Crown, as at first proposed, the powers confided to these officers ought to have been framed on a different principle—they ought in some degree to have been diminished and remodelled. He entertained doubts whether the separate appointment of a Speaker of these local Legislatures would now be found necessary- He hoped that, with regard to the public expenditure of the colony, the comparatively petty interests

1149
of each provincial Legislature would not be allowed to interfere with those great measures of improvement which were essential to the general prosperity of the whole colony, such as the establishment of regular communication between the different districts. He hoped that this important object was sufficiently secured, and that the undivided control of the land fund, and the principle of a pro ratâ return of the surplus funds to the local Legislatures, would obviate all jealousies or future quarrels on this point. Then there was another point in regard to the veto, and the power of suspending the measures of the Central Legislature until the opinion of the Home Government could be obtained. The veto, in all that concerns the provincial Legislatures, was confined to the Governor alone—he meant by that that there was no veto in the Colonial Office as it regarded the provincial Legislatures—and he thought that provision was a very important alteration in the principle at present established to which he had always objected, and which had always been a grievous cause of complaint in every colony. The old prescribed time for the exercise of the veto was two years, but that was now reduced, so far as the Governor is concerned, to the period of three months; and he could not understand why three months should be assigned as the time within which the veto might be exercised as regarded the Governor, while they retained the most preposterous period of two years after the receipt of the Act, as regarded the Colonial Office at home, under which regulation a measure might be in suspense for a period of three years between the time at which it was passed by the local Legislature and the time when it was confirmed by the Home Government With reference to the points to which he had made allusion, he had stated that in a great measure he approved of the principles of the Bill, although he would suggest some alterations which he hoped the noble Earl at the head of the Government would take into consideration when the House went into Committee. he now came to a portion of the Bill to which he was sorry to say he could not offer his meed of approbation—he referred to the principle on which the Upper Chamber of the Legislature was constituted, and in which, there had been a complete departure from both the draft Bills on which this measure was founded. He believed that the Bill of his noble Friend (Earl Grey) adopt-
1150
ed the principle of an elective Upper Chamber. The present Government had introduced an alteration in this respect; and he could not help thinking that the noble Earl at the head of the Government should, for many of the reasons which induced him to omit the nominee representatives from the local assemblies, Lave also omitted them from the Upper Chamber. The result of that nominee system had often brought legislation to a dead lock in the Colonies; and, to use a term which obtained great currency some twenty-one or twenty-two years ago, the Upper Chamber had been frequently, as the only remedy, "swamped" by the Governor. Could any one, he would ask, maintain for a moment that that was not a danger which ought to be avoided? The result of that system invariably led to remonstrances from the Colonies to the Government at home, and eventually brought the Colonial Secretary into this most objectionable position—that he had to act as the arbitrator between the Governor and hostile parties in one or both Chambers. He submitted that they would never get a body of nominees to pay that attention to the public business which was required from a House of Assembly. The Governor was forced to appoint as such nominees a body of men probably in some distant part of the colony, who had business of their own to attend to, and who would not come to the central place of legislation to attend to their legislative duties with the promptitude and punctuality which might fairly be expected in an elective body. The theory of a nominee Upper House of Assembly arose from the old notion of Imperial Government, and from an idea that it was necessary to bind the Colonies and the mother country together by some means other than those of mutual interest; that, while it might be desirable to give the colonists a representative body to attend to their interests, they must, at the same time, appoint a nominated body to attend to the interests of the mother country. Now, it appeared to him that in following this old-fashioned notion, the Government wore in this instance and in others since their accession to power, pursuing the shadow instead of the substance of a conservative principle. They were pursuing the shadow of a conservative principle in appointing a nominee chamber of an Imperial character, while they were dropping the substance of the really conservative measure of making the body elective, and thereby

1151
introducing into it men who had an interest in the colony and in the preservation of all that concerned its welfare, which a nominee body seldom had, and which he believed they never could possess. But then they were told they must endeavour to assimilate the Upper Chamber to the House of Lords in this country. Talk of a House of Lords being made in the Colonies out of the nominee elements of the Crown!—why it was really laughable to maintain for one instant that there would be any similarity between such a body and the House of Lords in the mother country. Their Lordships must, deal with those matters as they found them. They found no element in the Colonies to correspond with the House of Lords; and although perhaps, in appearance, the appointment by the Crown of representatives of the Crown might look rather more like a House of Lords than a body elected by the people, yet, if their Lordships came practically to examine that appearance, they would see how shadowy and unreal the whole theory was. Was it not received as an axiom that many of the European nations had failed in their attempts to imitate our House of Lords in their political constitutions, by forgetting that that institution was the growth of centuries, and not the work of yesterday? Did any one suppose, if that Assembly which he was now addressing were at once swept away, and a nominee Chamber appointed in its stead, that that nominee Chamber would possess the moral influence which their Lordships possessed, and which he trusted they would long retain? The thing was practically impossible; and if their Lordships came to look at this nominee Chamber, as merely a means of giving this country, through the Governor appointed by the Crown, a check on the acts of the Legislature, then he said such a body was altogether superflous; because, as they gave to the Governor the power of veto as against the local Legislature, it was absolutely useless to give him another power of veto through the instrumentality of nominees, entailing, too, as it does, the additional power of "swamping" his own House of Assembly. Let them in any way provide for the superior influence of the members of an elective Upper Chamber. Let them insist upon a higher qualification either of elected or electors; let them give them a longer tenure of their seats, or make the areas of representation more extensive; let them
1152
make the local Legislatures themselves the electors of the Central Upper Chamber; let them adopt the model of the United States; let them do any or all of these things; but let them not engraft upon this measure of freedom and contentment to the Colony, a scheme which must end in disappointment, and be the cause of future quarrel. He now turned to a feature in the Bill, a consideration of which induced him to press on the Government the postponement of this portion of the measure for the present Session—he meant the provision with reference to the appropriation of a certain amount, he believed one-fourth, of all the land sales to the New Zealand Company. He begged to say, at once, that he had no feeling of hostility against the New Zealand Company. He looked at this simply as a matter of very serious importance as regarded the honour of the Legislature of this country, as regarded the colony itself—he looked at it, in short, as a matter involving a great public principle. He was not about to bring any bill of indictment against the New Zealand Company, nor to give any opinion for or against the charges which had been brought against them. All that he wished to do was to press upon their Lordships, that while charges of so serious a nature as those to which he had referred were before the country, and were unrefuted, it was most important that their Lordships should not come to any hasty decision on the subject. He begged to say, that what he particularly objected to was, that the Bill would improve the position of the New Zealand Company—an advantage to which he considered they had no just claim; all that the Company was entitled to was, that they should not be placed by this measure in a worse position than they were at present—however the Government, in their generosity, had acted towards them—and most generously the Government had acted—he did not wish to take from the Company one iota of what they had got; but what he said was, that nothing should be done by this Bill, and until the charges against the Company were cleared up, to add to the generosity of the Government. By the Act of 1847 the Government lent 236,000 l. to the New Zealand Company without interest; and there was a charge of 268,000 l. in addition made upon the land of the Colony for the benefit of the Company, making a contribution from the funds of the colony, or of the mother country, as the case might be, of upwards

1153
of half a million. And how was the 268,000 l. charged? By the Act of 1847 it was provided that the sum of 268,000 l., with interest at the rate of 3½ per cent, was "to be charged upon and paid to them out of the proceeds of all sales of land in New Zealand, after deducting the outlay for surveys, and the proportion of such proceeds which is appropriated to the purposes of emigration;" at the same time, in the event of the Company breaking up, in which case the loan of 236,000 l. was to become a gift, their lands were to revert to the Crown, "upon condition of the Crown satisfying any liabilities to which the Company may then be liable under their existing engagements, with reference to the settlement at Nelson." It was, however, extremely doubtful whether after these deductions had been made, there was any surplus whatever due to the Company; and, moreover, the law officers of the Crown, whose opinion had been asked, stated in effect that there was no restriction whatever to the whole surplus after payment of surveys being allotted to the purposes of emigration. He might be told that the New Zealand Company had a moral, if they had not a legal, claim to compensation; but, in the first place, he could not admit the moral claim; and, in the second, he did not think that they could deal with moral claims in that House when the mode of discharging them was to be not at their own expense, but at that of the Colony. Their Lordships must deal with the law as they found it; and he thought the Company had no right to expect that House to step in and place them in a better position than that in which the law placed them, merely because they considered that law had not been so favourable to them as they expected. He came now to the charges brought against the New Zealand Company as to the mode in which they had dealt with the Government of the day. Few of their Lordships were unaware of those charges. That which he thought was perhaps the most palpable was the fact that, before consenting to the arrangement made in 1847, and confirmed by the Act which passed in that year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared to be most solicitous not to admit any undue burden on the public purse, and to see, moreover, what were the whole liabilities to which he was committing the country. At that time (1847) there was a question of liability pending between the Company
1154
and their own province of Nelson. That was a claim made by the settlers of that province—whether it was a just claim or not he did not say—in reference to which the New Zealand Company had thought it advisable to take the opinion of counsel. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer would seem not for one moment to have been made aware that such a question of liability was pending; for in one of his answers he expressly said he understood there was no claim on the part of the colonists on the New Zealand Company except that claim which the inhabitants of every colony had a right to prefer—namely, a claim for good government. The Company took the opinion as to that question of liability of their own standing counsel, who was a large shareholder in the concern; and the opinion of that gentleman turned out to be most unfavourable to the Company, and most favourable, on the other hand, to the claims of the Nelson settlers. Another opinion was there-upon taken from another gentleman unconnected with the Company; but neither to the Chancellor of the Exchequer nor to the settlers was any communication made as to the prior unfavourable opinion. That opinion was entirely suppressed; but the opinion which was immediately afterwards! obtained was not only circulated among the settlers, but sent to the noble Earl then at the head of the Colonial Office, and sent in such a way as to give the noble Earl to understand that it was the opinion for which they had been waiting; and they informed the settlers that it had been taken on their behalf as well as their own, and that by that opinion they would be governed. If the first opinion had not been suppressed, he doubted whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have consented to the introduction of the words into the Act of 1847 which were now found in it, and by which this country became liable for any indemnification against the New Zealand Company to which the Nelson settlers should be found to be entitled. The New Zealand Company had not only consented to, but demanded, inquiry. He thought they were bound to institute that inquiry; and in the meantime he should be very sorry to express any opinion as to the result of it. In the event of the Nelson settlers succeeding in substantiating their claims, there would be an obligation under the liability which the New Zealand Company contracted to indemnify those settlers; and this indemnification is to be the appropriation of land. The

1155
difficulty was very serious, and out of which there was no practical mode of escaping except by postponing the whole question of land until the next Session of Parliament. He should be quite content to let the land question remain over for future consideratain, leaving this provision out of the Bill altogether, highly as he approved of the principle of handing over to the Colony the management of the sales of land; because he felt the full force of the practical absurdity, not to say dishonesty of the Crown now making over the whole of the lands to the Colony, whilst it was under an obligation to indemnify other parties by portions of this very land. After the best consideration he had been able to give the subject, he could come to no other conclusion than he had announced; and he would press upon their Lordships whether it would not be wise and just, and lead eventually to a more satisfactory settlement of the question, if the clauses by which a permanent and heavy debt is saddled upon this young Colony without its consent, and contrary to the remonstrances of its friends in this country, were omitted from the Bill. If, however, the alteration he had previously suggested were not made, he should still vote for the measure, with a sincere hope that it would eventually be improved—as it might be under the provisions of the Act by the Colonial Legislature—and that it would become a useful measure, and lead to the happiness and prosperity of that most important and truly interesting colony.
EARL GREYsaid, that before adverting to the important political questions arising out of the Bill now under their Lordships' consideration, he thought it right to notice what had fallen from the noble Duke on the clauses having reference to the claims of the New Zealand Company. He certainly regretted that it was necessary to lay upon this rising colony a charge such as that which was proposed by this Bill; but at the same time it was right that Parliament should do justice to the parties by whose exertions and personal sacrifices the colony had been created—without whom, in fact, there would have been no colony of New Zealand at all. Persons now found great fault with the New Zealand Company, and though he had never been a great admirer of that body, he must say that he thought the run now made against that Company was not less unjust and unmerited than the exaggerated credit which had been given them
1156
in the first instance. He had no doubt that the Company had been actuated throughout by the best motives; and, as evidence of their good intentions, he would remind their Lordships that the directors had sacrificed large sums of their own money in the establishment of the colony, for the repayment of which they had only the remote and distant prospect that was afforded by the arrangement proposed by this Bill. The fault to be found With the New Zealand Company was not that they had committed any of the offences which the noble Duke imputed to them—
The DUKE of NEWCASTLE: No, no!
EARL GREY: The noble Duke disclaimed the intention of imputing any offence to them, but the statement of the noble Duke implied it. Their real fault was, that they had shown themselves deficient in worldly wisdom and prudence in too readily adopting for their guide a very clever projector, whose talents could not be denied, but whose cleverness Was not accompanied by other qualities quite as necessary to make him a safe and trustworthy guide. They did not display that judgment that might have been expected from them in conducting the great enterprise into which they had somewhat rashly entered. Perhaps that was the necessary consequence of the constitution of such a body; for, unless some person took the lead, and became manager, he believed a Company of which the affairs were conducted by a Board of Directors without check or control was not likely to deal satisfactorily with matters of this kind. That the New Zealand Company had not succeeded was not very much to be wondered at, because the necessary expenses of founding new colonies in distant parts of the world were so great that measures of this kind would never answer as a pecuniary speculation. Schemes of this kind had always been exceedingly attractive; but from the enterprises of the early adventurers who founded some of the present United States, down to the present time, the result had invariably been the same, and however successful some of their attempts had been in creating flourishing colonies, they had uniformly proved ruinous as pecuniary speculations to the projectors. He was told that the Company with which his noble Friend (Lord Lyttelton) near him was connected (the Canterbury Settlement), had within the last few days undergone the common lot of those schemes, and was obliged to acknowledge itself insolvent. Those who had

1157
attended to such matters must be well aware that it was not one of the smallest difficulties of the Colonial Department to deal with the many proposals for the formation of new colonies. Sanguine projectors were continually putting forward schemes by which they confidently asserted that without risk or expense to the public, valuable colonies might be established. Unfortunately the performance of such promises could not be insured. Though projectors could found colonies, it was beyond their power to prevent their becoming a burden upon the country. In these days if a body of Englishmen sent out to a distant land were exposed to the danger of starvation or destruction by savages, no Government or Parliament could allow such calamities to happen, or leave the settlers to their fate because they had been sent out under an assurance that the Colony would be self-supporting. Neither could the Government allow that a band of persons should place themselves on any piece of ground they selected, and, without mercy, shoot out of their way any of the native inhabitants that might oppose them. Hence it was absolutely necessary that the Government should exercise some control over the formation of new settlements, though there were many obvious reasons why this control should not be carried further than was absolutely required. He could best explain what he thought the proper course to be taken in such cases, by stating what had been done while he had the honour of holding the office of Secretary of State. When the establishment of the Canterbury Settlement was projected, he was told that a large sum of money would be provided by the projectors, and that they were ready to undertake the scheme at their own risk; and it was urged that the mere sanction of the Government, which was all that was asked, ought not to be withheld. He agreed that it ought not to be so. He did not fail very strongly to express his opinion to the projectors: he stated, that although the plan might possibly lead ultimately to the formation of a flourishing community, the result would greatly disappoint their expectations in a pecuniary point of view; that it was quite impossible that such a measure should go on with the large price they proposed to ask for land, making promises to the purchasers which they could not perform, and that they would involve themselves in losses, liabilities, and difficulties without end. But he also stated at
1158
the same time to the projectors, that, provided nothing was done which could in any way delude the public as to the real state of the case—if proper precautions were taken, and regulations were adopted to ensure the safety of the colonists, and guard against abuse—if he were satisfied that adequate securities were provided upon these points, and against any expense being brought upon the public; he should not consider it his duty on the part of the Government to make any objection to the scheme being undertaken at their own risk by that Company. This had appeared to him the proper course to be adopted, because though he felt convinced the scheme would disappoint the expectations of the founders, and that great individual losses might be sustained, still he had no doubt that a settlement would be formed which in the end would become a great and flourishing community, destined to spread the British name and the British language through a large extent of valuable territory; and he considered it no part of the duty of the Government, if these public advantages were to be obtained, to enforce on the projectors greater prudence in regard to their own individual interests. The result, it now seemed, had been precisely what he anticipated: a settlement which would, no doubt, become a very flourishing one had been founded, but great loss had, he understood, been sustained by the projectors; but no claim on the Government, by the Canterbury Association, was likely to arise from the failure of that project, for the relations between the Association and the Government were clearly defined in the first instance: they had not been allowed to enter upon the undertaking at all until they had satisfied the Government that the public interests at stake had been provided for; and care had been taken that when they were allowed to proceed, no difficulty should be thrown in their way, so that they had not any grounds for saying that their failure—if failure it be—was in any way attributable to the conduct of Government or of Parliament, and therefore were entitled to ask for no pecuniary relief. If the same course had been taken with respect to the New Zealand Company, and it were in the same position, the same remark would be applicable to them; but the circumstances were different, because in the first instance that Company had been permitted to enter upon its undertaking without the sanction of the Government, and without proper securities having been provided, and be-

1159
cause afterwards having been permitted to send out the first settlers in a very irregular manner, their operations had been thwarted by the Government. Partly by measures adopted by the local authorities, partly by measures adopted by the Government at home, the Company was prevented from having such a chance of success as they otherwise would have had—a fact that was clearly shown by the investigation of the Committee to whom the question had been referred. These circumstances were held to give a claim to the New Zealand Company, and though the project might have failed if they had never occurred, they undoubtedly left the projectors without the chance of success to which they were entitled, and it clearly appeared to him that it was the duty of Government and of Parliament to place them in the situation they would have been in if they had no such grounds of complaint. The noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Derby), when Secretary of State for the Colonies, felt these claims so much, that before he left office he had made arrangements for in some degree assisting the New Zealand Company by means of a loan of money. When he (Earl Grey) came into office, he found the Company complaining that what had been done for them was very far from making up for the injury they had sustained by previous measures, and by the great delay they experienced in getting possession of the land. He felt that there was force in that complaint; that they were entitled to some further compensation, and that something more should be done to enable them to try fairly the scheme to carry out which they were originally formed. Accordingly, the Government having settled what was the largest amount of money that Parliament should be recommended to advance, the matter was placed in the hands of his lamented friend the late Mr. Charles Buller, to consider what was the best arrangement, under existing circumstances, to enable the Company, with such assistance, fairly and fully to try whether their scheme was one capable of being successfully worked. A plan was accordingly prepared with great care by Mr. Buller, to whom, in concert with the New Zealand Company, it was entirely left to make what in his judgment was the best arrangement, subject only to two conditions, on which he (Earl Grey) specially guarded himself, namely, that the pecuniary assistance should not exceed a certain sum, and that
1160
the arrangement was to be a conclusive measure, and a discharge in full of all possible claims on the part of the New Zealand Company, whether it should succeed or fail. After much consideration, Mr. Charles Buller prepared the drafts of letters between the Colonial Office and the Directors of the Company, in which were embodied the terms of the arrangement he proposed. These terms were assented to by the Government and the Company: the letters on both sides were written from Mr. Buller's drafts. The Bill of 1847 was prepared to carry into effect the arrangement, and ultimately it received the assent of Parliament. Such had been the circumstances under which the grant of additional aid, and of very large powers to the New Zealand Company, had been recommended by the late Government, and sanctioned by Parliament. With regard to the manner in which the arrangement thus sanctioned had been carried into effect, it had appeared to him that there was one clear rule to be followed, namely, that the Company should receive every possible support from the Government in working out the plan; and, it being part of the arrangement that a Commissioner should be appointed by the Government to watch over the proceedings of the Company, his (Earl Grey's) instructions to that Commissioner were not to interfere further than was necessary for the strict protection of the public interests, and for the purpose of seeing that the British Treasury and the colony were not involved in larger or heavier liabilities than intended when the Act passed. The Commissioner was directed by no means to exercise the power he possessed of putting a veto on any act of the Company, in every case in which their measures might appear to him injudicious; the principle of the Act of Parliament was to invest the Company with the power and the responsibility of conducting a great experiment in colonisation; and the only way in which this experiment could be fairly tried was to leave them free and unfettered to act upon their own judgment except in cases in which interference was clearly necessary for the protection of the public interest. At the end of the period named by the Company as that in which the experiment might be fairly tried, they found that, notwithstanding the large pecuniary assistance they had received, they could not go on; and they claimed, under the terms agreed on, to be relieved from the debt due to the Government, and they

1161
claimed also a certain sum to be obtained from the sale of lands in New Zealand. He was astonished to hear the noble Duke draw a distinction between the legal and moral right of the New Zealand Company to the ultimate payment of the money due to them and charged on the land fund, and deny their moral claim to more than they could obtain under a strict technical construction of the Act of Parliament. It seemed to him that whatever might be the strict construction of the Act of Parliament, the Government and Parliament, in dealing with the Company, were bound to act in the same manner as one honourable man would deal with another in a transaction in private affairs, and ought to carry fairly into effect the obvious intention of the agreement. Looking at the subject in this light, he thought it was impossible to say that the New Zealand Company had no claim whatever. Their Lordships should recollect that the whole capital of the New Zealand Company had been applied in creating this colony, and giving value to those lands the sale of which was to produce the fund which they calculated upon for the ultimate repayment of those advances; and he repeated that that was a claim which they could not honourably decline to recognise. It was true that the Act of Parliament pointed out no specific portion of the lands that was to be applied for the support of emigration, and therefore under the letter of the law the Crown might no doubt apply so large a proportion of the fund to emigration that the claim of the Company would be practically defeated; but this would be inconsistent with good faith; the proportion of the proceeds of the land sales applied to emigration had been left undetermined, and it was considered that it was the interest both of the Company and of the colony, if the debt was ultimately to be paid, so to divide the whole receipts between the promotion of emigration and the payment of the Company as to leave as large a sum as possible for the former without neglecting the latter object, because by that means the demand for land would be increased, and the debt of the Company would be thereby extinguished. The Act of Parliament contemplated, obviously, the ultimate payment of the debt; and it was the interest of the Company and of Parliament that it should be discharged as speedily as possible, by the best possible administration of the lands. The noble Duke said the Company asked for inquiry, and that, pending that inquiry,
1162
Parliament ought not to deal with the subject. If by passing the Bill now before the House without the clauses relating to the Company, their position would be unaltered, he should concur in the opinion that Parliament had better not at present deal with this part of the question; but as it was clear that to pass this Bill, omitting the clauses, would alter the position of the Company greatly to their injury, he thought the clauses ought to be retained, though he entirely agreed that inquiry into this matter was right and proper, and he trusted that in another Session the House of Commons would institute a searching investigation respecting it. It was his desire that the inquiry should be conducted on the strictest principles—that every letter, public and private, in connexion with the case, should be laid before the Committee, so that the subject should be fairly investigated and reported on by a competent and impartial tribunal. Although he was far from being prepared to defend all the proceedings of the Company, for he would admit that they had frequently acted with imprudence, still he was happy to be able to state that, having investigated the entire case, he had come to the conclusion at which he anticipated the Committee also would arrive—that there had been throughout all these complicated transactions nothing to reflect on the honour, the probity, or the good faith of the gentlemen who had conducted the affairs of the Company. If there were to be an inquiry, it would be inexpedient to enter prematurely into a review of the entire question, in order to convince their Lordships that there was no ground for the charges that had been brought against the Company. Indeed it would be impossible to do so without having the papers before them which were not yet on their Lordships' table. But without going into the whole case, there were two charges brought against the Company of so serious a nature, and which had been stated with so much confidence, that he must make some observations upon them, especially as an endeavour was made to implicate him in them. These charges related first to an alleged misappropriation of the public funds; and, secondly, to the sending out of certain legal opinions. Now, he must say with regard to the first that no misapplication of public money could possibly have taken place without the sanction of one or other of the gentlemen who had in succession held the office of the Crown Commissioner; and he had such perfect confidence in both

1163
those gentlemen that he was no less convinced that no money could have been misapplied from the sums appropriated with their sanction, than he should have been had he been personally cognisant of the manner in which every shilling had been expended. The First Commissioner had become involved in disputes with the Company, which ended in his removal; and it was absurd to suppose that he could have allowed them to misappropriate the public money. He was succeeded by a gentleman in whose honour he (Earl Grey) felt no less confidence than in that of Mr. Cowell; while he had greater reliance on his judgment, his discretion, and his temper. The instructions he had given to these gentlemen were, that they should not interfere in the application of public money except in cases of abuse; and that he believed to have been the right and proper mode of carrying into effect the arrangement sanctioned by Parliament, for the reason he had already explained. The second charge was, that the New Zealand Company having in a question between themselves and a body of their settlers, obtained two opinions from eminent counsel, one adverse and the other in favour of their own view of the subject, had transmitted the latter, as if it were the only one, to the Colony, and had thus unfairly obtained the assent of the settlers to an arrangement unfavourable to them. Now it would be manifestly absurd were he to enter into the entire history of the complicated transactions to which those opinions related; but he would merely say that in 1849 papers were laid before Parliament, were given to the world, and were sent to the Colonies, in which there was a despatch mentioning the fact that an opinion adverse to the Company had been given by an eminent counsel. It was therefore evident that the circumstance of an opinion of that sort having been given had been known to all the world for three years, and yet during that time no attempt had been made to unsettle the arrangement made, and now insinuated to have been unduly influenced by the withholding of that opinion. The question raised was, whether the settlement between the New Zealand Company and the Nelson settlers was a fair one, and he believed it was a most advantageous conclusion of affairs for the settlers; and as the existence of the opinion had been publicly known for three years, he said, Let the investigation take place by all means; let it
1164
be conducted on the most rigorous principles, but in the meantime let the bargain be adhered to, and in justice to the Company let the arrangements suggested by Her Majesty's Government be sanctioned by their Lordships. He would ask what had rendered the land of New Zealand more valuable than the land in New Guinea or other countries uninhabited by civilised men. It was because the Government, Parliament, and the New Zealand Company, had expended large sums in establishing settlers in the former—it was this, and this only, which had given value to the land there; and therefore it was not unreasonable to say that the Company, having received no return for its expenditure during many years (and it was probable it would receive nothing for many more), should have a claim on the land of which the value had been thus enhanced by their means. He thought, however, that a clause should be inserted in the Bill, that any future claims under the Act of 1847 should be defrayed out of the colonial funds by the Government of New Zealand, and that none should be in future paid by the Imperial Government. These claims should no longer be on the British Treasury and nation. He was sorry that he had to trespass thus far on their Lordships on this preliminary portion of the subject; but, feeling that not merely the pecuniary but higher interests of individuals were at stake, and having been cognisant of all the complicated transactions connected with the case, he had felt it was proper to make the statement he had made to their Lordships. And having entered so fully into this part of the subject, he would now address himself to the larger and the more important question. His noble Friend who spoke second in the debate (Lord Lyttelton) had entered into questions so extensive that to discuss them properly would require a volume rather than a speech. He would not attempt to follow his noble Friend through his speech, but he must say he thought his noble Friend had not read history very correctly. His noble Friend had said that the old British Colonies in America, now the United States, had an unreserved power over their land, legislation, war, and trade. [Lord LYTTELTON: By their charter.] A nice distinction! but had the noble Lord considered what he meant when he said they had unrestricted trade? Why, he would remind his noble Friend that there were enactments similar in their nature to the navigation laws before the time of Oliver

1165
Cromwell; and that was a subject of constant dispute with the colonists. Instead of their having unrestricted trade, the whole notion of European politicians was that plantations were to be established for the sole purpose of carrying on with them a restricted and exclusive trade. That was the notion of France, it was the notion of England, and it was shared by all the nations of Europe. And so with respect to the land. Had his noble Friend not seen the accounts of those disputes which arose in the early days of the New England colonists, and in the course of which one of the complaints made was, that colonial land was held to be so strictly Crown land, that the colonists were not able to cut a single tree in their boundless forests, because the trees were to be kept for the British Navy? The noble Lord had said that the colonists in early days had the power of making war. He doubted whether it was intended in those times that they should have any such power; but undoubtedly they exercised the power of making war on the natives, and, if he was not mistaken, sometimes against each other. Matters in those days were carried on in a very haphazard way, and events which, if they now took place, would fill the columns of public newspapers for a month—no, he would not say for a month, but for five years—were then passed over unnoticed. With respect to colonial legislation, it was quite true that there was no Secretary for the Colonies in those days, but there was a certain Board of Trade and Plantations; and at a very early period indeed it was found necessary to invest that Board with power to disallow the acts of colonial legislatures. From the time of Charles II. downwards, that power had been exercised. With regard to the Bill before them, it was of course impossible that he should do otherwise than approve of it, since it was in general accordance with the heads of the measure which had been prepared under his own superintendence before he retired from office, and which was founded chiefly on the recommendations of the Governor; but there were three or four provisions of the Bill on which he felt it right to offer some observations. He objected to the alteration in the constitution of the provincial council as described by the noble Earl opposite (Earl Desart); but he thought there was no ground for the fault which had been found with the distribution of the legislative power between these bodies and the
1166
general Legislature on the ground of the complexity of the arrangement. Complex it undoubtedly was, but this seemed to him inevitable. It was impracticable, and must for many years continue to be so, for any general Legislature to meet all the wants of so many separate settlements at a great distance from each other; hence it seemed absolutely necessary to constitute provincial Legislatures on which a great portion of the public business must devolve; but still he was of opinion that though it would be impossible that the general Legislature should assemble often enough to meet the wants of the community, it was absolutely necessary that provisions should be made for its assembling when emergency required it should do so. There were some subjects on which extreme inconvenience must arise if uniformity of legislation among the several provinces were not insured, which could only be accomplished by creating a general Legislature. For instance, with respect to the customs duties, if a general tariff did not exist, but different rates of duty were levied in different provinces, and it became necessary in consequence to have internal lines of custom-house officers, how much the prosperity of all would be injured! This inconvenience was felt, and there was a disposition to engage in an absurd war of tariffs in the Australian Colonies. The danger which had been alleged of a conflict of authority would not arise because the Government had followed the course he had proposed to take by giving to the general Legislature an overriding authority. It was incorrect to speak of the authority of the two kinds of legislatures as concurrent; it was not concurrent. The general Legislature could, when it chose, exercise a supreme authority over the provincial Legislatures. He greatly regretted that the power of the Crown to disallow acts of the Provincial Legislatures had been abandoned. He had no doubt that it was a power of which the exercise would very rarely have been required; but still he thought these bodies were by no means so completely of a municipal character that the power ought to have been abandoned; and, besides, he must point out to the noble Lord, that though it was true the Crown possessed no power of disallowing by-laws of the City of London, the power of the City to make such laws was very restricted; and in the reformed municipalities constituted in other towns under the Act of 1835, the Crown was in-

1167
vested with the power of disallowing their I by-laws. But the great objection to this part of the Bill was, that it abandoned a very important principle. With respect to the veto of the Crown, his notion always had been, that, for the sake of the Colonies themselves, the Crown ought to preserve that power which from the days of Charles it had been found necessary to assert—he meant the power of the Crown, if it disapproved an Act of the Colonial Government, to disallow that colonial law. The ablest Governor might commit mistakes. Acts might be passed which very seriously affected the interests and honour of the Empire; and if the attempt were made to define beforehand, with the strict accuracy necessary in an Act of Parliament, what were the questions on which the Crown should possess those powers, and what were the questions on which it should not, there was danger of giving rise to a conflict of jurisdiction; whereas if the Crown possessed the power in all cases, and exercised it with discretion, it would easily avoid causing it to be felt as any practical hardship or grievance; but by limiting the power of the Crown they would create a serious risk of a conflict of authorities. A conflict of authorities, it was known, might occur in the United States; but there a well-contrived machinery existed for the purpose of bringing those points to a speedy conclusion by means of the Supreme Court. There was no analogous court in this country; and, from the distance of the Colonies, it would be impossible to work such a tribunal. So long as the Crown retained the general power of disallowing colonial laws, a remedy was provided for the case of a law being passed by one colony unjustly affecting another (by no means an impossible event), since the injured colony had the power of petitioning Her Majesty in Council, and if proper grounds for doing so were shown, the law could be disallowed. But while there were these reasons for retaining it, what, he asked, was the practical inconvenience arising from the power of disallowing colonial acts on the part of the Crown? It was so well known that the Imperial Government would not interfere without good cause, that there could be no want of confidence in the discretion with which that power would, be exercised. It ought also to be observed that in the rare cases where disallowance took place, the disallowance vitiated no acts clone under the measures disallowed previously to its notification. An objection
1168
had been stated to a period of two years for disallowance; but cases had often occurred in which defects had been found in Colonial Acts, and amendments had been suggested from home, which the Colonial Legislatures were glad to have the opportunity of adopting before the Acts were finally confirmed. Now, in the case of so distant a colony as New Zealand, there would be no opportunity for any communications of this kind with respect to a doubtful Act, if the time within which the decision of the Crown must necessarily be pronounced were much shorter than that to which the noble Duke (the Duke of Newcastle) had objected as unnecessarily long, namely, two years; and the noble Duke ought also to recollect, that, although in such peculiar cases the Crown might take two years to signify its decision on a Colonial Act, yet, in the very great majority of cases—at least in ninety-nine out of a hundred—that decision was intimated to the Colonial Legislatures in a much shorter time; and if their Acts did not meet with the sanction of the Home Government, nothing done under those Acts, as he had already observed, was vitiated by subsequent disallowance. He considered that to make the office of Superintendent elective, was a great mistake. Those officers would exercise an authority analogous to that exercised by sheriffs in this country, who, in the days of the Norman Kings, were endowed with great powers. So far as he was aware, it had hitherto been the invariable rule under the British Constitution that executive authority must emanate from the Crown, and that all high offices giving such authority should be held by persons appointed directly or indirectly by the Crown; and he held it to be of vital importance that the Governor of the colony, as the representative of the Crown, should exercise a substantial control over the chief local authorities in the several Provinces; but if the superintendents were to be elective, he did not see what practical means the Governor would possess of exercising any real authority in the provinces. At present, it must be remembered, that in all colonies the Governor had the authority to suspend, till Her Majesty's pleasure was known, any of the officers acting under him who failed in due obedience to his orders; and in a distant colony, without this authority, a Governor would be practically powerless; but when the superintendents became elective, they must, of course, cease to be removable, or

1169
capable of being suspended; and the Governor's control over them must therefore, he feared, be weakened, if not destroyed. He came next to the question of the constitution of the general Legislative Council, and he concurred a good deal hi the opinion expressed on that side of the House with regard to it. He was prepared to say, from the experience of more than twenty years during which he had closely attended to the affairs of the Colonies, both in and out of office, that by far the most defective part of the colonial constitution in the North American Colonies was the Legislative Council. By the old form of colonial constitutions which had prevailed up to 1791, the Legislative Council was put not upon the footing of a second and independent chamber of the Legislature: it was the same body which advised the Governor, consisting of a very small number of persons for the most part holding high offices in the Colonial Government. To this day, in Jamaica, the Council was styled Her Majesty's Privy Council for Jamaica, and claimed no power of originating measures of legislation: not merely Money Bills, but Bills of any kind, it was beyond its power to originate. It merely had the power of amending or rejecting Bills sent from the Assembly; and was clearly in the first instance merely intended to assist the Governor, and relieve him from a too onerous responsibility in deciding without assistance on Bills sent up by the Assembly. The tenure of their office by Legislative Councillors was always formerly during the pleasure of the Crown; but by the Act of 1791, the Legislative Councillors in Canada were appointed for life. The noble Duke had most justly remarked on the perfect absurdity of talking of an elective Legislative Council as an imitation of that House. It had not the most distant or the most faint resemblance to the House of Lords. The House of Lords was an institution altogether peculiar to this country, that Parliament could no more create than it could create a full-grown oak. It had grown up as part of our institutions from the earliest times, and was like no other body in any country in the world, and no imitation of which had ever been in the slightest degree successful. But it was intended by the Canada Act of 1791 to create a body like their Lordships' House, because there were the clauses making provision for creating hereditary honours in Canada. That Bill was brought
1170
in, not with the intention of creating a small council of nominees sitting for life—a body of oligarchs independent of Crown or people, though possessing no substantial weight or authority of their own in the country—but with the intention of forming an exact copy of their Lordships' House, namely, a body of persons holding seats by hereditary succession—a real and bonâ fide aristocracy. But the nature of things was too strong for Mr. Pitt; and the Act of 1791, and the clauses which Mr. Pitt introduced, remained from that day to this a dead letter. No hereditary honours had been granted in Canada, and the Legislative Council was a body of mere nominees. That system, as far as his opinion went, was not satisfactory, because he thought if the Legislative Councils were to play a more important part than was contemplated by the old Colonial constitutions, in order to be really useful they ought to possess a degree of weight and authority, and a command of public opinion, which they had had never yet succeeded in acquiring. The Legislative Councils had formerly been known chiefly from the opposition they I had offered to the popular branch of the Legislature and to public opinion; and it had been necessary more than once in different colonies to alter the feeling and temper of those bodies by a large addition of members. It appeared to him, besides, that this kind of Legislative Council was, as he had said before, a sort of oligarchy, and consisted of persons not possessing sufficient weight to justify Parliament in giving them the power of interfering to stop legislation. How would this Bill have worked if it had been passed in I the shape in which it was originally pro-posed? It was first proposed that the General Legislative Council should be no-initiated for life, and limited to fifteen; the effect of which would have been that if there had been any mistake in the first nomination, so small a number as eight individuals agreeing among themselves might stop any legislation, however useful or however necessary, and upon which both the representatives of the Crown and the representatives of the people were agreed. That I vexatious and mischievous consequence was now to a certain degree mitigated by the power of the Crown to increase the number by nominating additional members to the Legislative Council. He thought, besides, that there was danger of great inconvenience in withdrawing men who were useful in the

1171
Assembly, in order to give weight, which they could not succeed in giving, to the Legislative Council; and he must say that he altogether differed from the noble Lord who spoke early in the debate (Lord Lyttelton), that if there were to be nominees, they had better sit singly than mixed with the elected body; he thought, on the contrary, that a certain number of nominees might very usefully sit in a Legislative Council constituted like that of New South Wales; but that, sitting as a separate body, they would not have the weight they ought to have. He therefore conceived that the Government had made a great mistake in excluding nominees from the Provincial Legislatures, which would thus consist of a single and entirely elective body; and in retaining the principle of nomination in the General Legislature, which was to be divided into two chambers, and in which, therefore, this counterpoise to the democratic element was less necessary. He greatly regretted that the plan of making the second Chamber in the General Legislature consist of members elected by the Provincial Legislatures had been abandoned. There was only one more point to which it was necessary to advert—the appropriation of the land fund made by this Bill, as to which it had been suggested that the same change ought to be made in other colonies. He had more than once expressed his opinion that Parliament, as a general rule, should keep to itself the duty of laying down great general rules to be observed in disposing of the waste lands of the Crown in the more important colonies. The noble Lord talked of its being a novelty to allow the colony to deal with the waste lands; but it was really no novelty at all. Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick had been allowed to regulate this matter by means of the Colonial Legislatures; and in the West India Colonies the same rule prevailed. He thought that in New Zealand there were strong reasons why the power of regulating the disposal of waste lands should be exercised by the Colonial Legislature; because, from the complicated system created by the New Zealand Company in the several settlements, and from the law officers of the Crown having declared that what were called the terms of purchase issued by the New Zealand Company were contracts binding on the Crown, and depriving it of the power of altering the arrangements for the future sale of
1172
land thus agreed upon, it was almost indispensably necessary that some legislative authority should exist on the spot capable of remedying the inconvenience which might otherwise exist, from the impossibility of varying arrangements of this description. But it seemed to him desirable that this power should rest with the individual Provinces rather than with the General Legislature. This great hard-ship might otherwise arise to a particular province; Cauterbury might wish to reduce the price of lands in that settlement from 3l. an acre to the price in the other and the other settlements might object, thinking by keeping up the price of land in Canterbury to 3l, an acre, to secure a monopoly of the sales of land, and calculating that the wealthy settlers would prefer going to where land was to be purchased at 1l. an acre, rather than where it could only be purchased at 3l. an acre. He thought it was of still greater importance that the produce of the waste lands should be appropriated, by local authority, in each province in which it accrued, instead of by the General Legislature. The principle on which he urged this had been recognised as sound by the Governor of New Zealand, who had lately passed a provincial ordinance, by which a portion of the produce of the sale of land was to be applied to local purposes; and he had thereby adopted a suggestion made by himself (Earl Grey), or rather by the Committee of Privy Council on the Constitution of the Australian Colonies, that a moiety of the proceeds of the sale of the Crown lands should be applied by the local municipalities to local purposes. The Governor of New Zealand stated that such a system was calculated to work well, as it would give the inhabitants of the district a strong interest to uphold the rights of the Crown. It was embodied in an ordinance which was sent home. Unfortunately that ordinance clashed with the statutory rights of the New Zealand Company, secured by the Act of 1847; and although he (Earl Grey) entirely approved of that Act, and felt the principle to be quite right and most advantageous, he was most reluctantly compelled to advise Her Majesty to disallow it, By this Bill the proceeds of the sale of lands was placed at the disposal, not of the municipalities or Provincial Legislatures, but of the General Legislature: and that was a system which, in

1173
his opinion, was likely to load to much jobbing and much abuse. Money derived from the sale of land was necessarily paid by the settlers farthest from the capital, who purchased lands in the more remote districts, whore alone, in general, much remained at the disposal of the Crown. The price of such lands ought, in justice to be laid out principally with a view to the interest of the purchasers. But in the General Legislature they would always be comparatively without influence; and there was great danger that their fair claims would be disregarded in the appropriation of the fund if left to that body. This was not mere speculation; there had lately been a striking instance of the tendency to abuse of this sort in South Australia, where a proposed application by the Lieutenant Governor of a part of the territorial revenue to the improvement of a harbour, and the establishment of a communication between this harbour and the river Murray by a railway, had received the determined resistance of the Legislative Council. The proposed improvement was one of the most important kind: the river Murray, as their Lordships were aware, had no natural communication with the sea; but by having a communication of this kind, the colony would give the advantage of many hundred miles of internal navigation, in which steam was intended to be used; and the produce of an immense extent of territory would thus be given the means of reaching a market. There could be no doubt that the outlay for this object from the land revenue would be repaid many times over by the increased value given to the lands thus opened out to enterprise; yet the expenditure was opposed (without success, as the fund from which it was to be met was not at the disposal of the Legislature) entirely from a feeling of petty jealousy, on the part of the inhabitants of Adelaide, of the establishment of a rival port. He mentioned that circumstance as affording the clearest proofs in support of his argument that the appropriation of the land fund ought to be given, not to the General Legislature, but to the municipalities; and if the municipalities were not created, or until they were created, then to the Provincial Legislatures, or to the Crown. He was quite aware that his had been a most tedious speech; but he would only conclude by saying that he most entirely concurred in those observations which fell
1174
from his noble Friend (Lord Wodehouse) behind him at the close of his very able speech. He, like his noble Friend, regarded this as a most important crisis in our colonial empire, and agreed that much depended on the course we were now pursuing. He concurred with him, that our Colonies were now many of them growing up to manhood, and it became necessary to pursue a different policy towards them from that which was right and advisable in the earlier stages of their social progress. In this he cordially concurred with his noble Friend; hut he differed from him as to the manner in which these views ought to be acted on. It was not, in his opinion, necessary in order to give to the colonies which had arrived at such a stage in their progress as to require it, the largest power of managing their own affairs, to depart from the old established system of the country, or to surrender any of the constitutional powers hitherto held by the Crown. All that the colonies could properly ask, and all that was required in order to give them the fullest enjoyment of the same constitutional freedom as ourselves, could be secured to them by a judicious and careful exercise of those powers which the Crown possessed. From the best reflection he had been able to give to this subject, he was convinced that those powers and their limits had gradually been determined and defined by usage in the course of a long series of years, and that a system had thus grown up well suited to the position of our Colonies, to their circumstances, and to the nature of the people: it was a system which, judiciously and discreetly worked, enabled the Colonies to enjoy all that was really substantial and useful to them, in what was called self-government, though it retained on the part of the Crown an authority seldom and cautiously exerted, but undisputed and capable of being called into play when imperial interests demanded it. He was happy to think that experience had proved that this theory of colonial government was not altogether mistaken or fallacious. He would, for example, direct their Lordships' attention to the present state of the North American Colonies. Let them look at the large population they now passessed, at the system of government they now enjoyed, at the content which prevailed, and at the satisfactory working of that system of government which had been arrived at. It would always be to him a subject of re-

1175
joicing, and he might say of some degree of pride, that on quitting office those great possessions of the British Empire were left in the position which they now occupied. In 1846 a very different state of things prevailed, and difficulties of no ordinary character had to be surmounted. Up to 1846 in no one of those colonies had that system of government which was now established been brought into successful and harmonious operation. In every one of them, up to that period, there were great points in dispute; there were great difficulties perpetually arising, even with the ablest Governors. He might mention that even in Canada, the most important of these Colonies, the two races of inhabitants were divided; there was no general concurrence or agreement as to the principles of government to be established; and even that most able, that most excellent, and, he might say, that great man, the late Lord Metcalfe—as the noble Earl well knew, by a confidential correspondence which he could not have forgotten—even that great man experienced the greatest doubt and the greatest apprehension as to the future working of the system of government which had been established. In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island, that system of government could hardly be said at that time to have been brought into operation at all. It had now been brought into most complete and satisfactory operation, and that, too, in spite of commercial changes which in the first instance necessarily excited great alarm, and by previous mistakes of this country produced extensive private distress and ruin; and he need not tell their Lordships individual distress always produced political discontent and political excitement. Notwithstanding all those circumstances, and notwithstanding that encouragement was given on this side of the water to those of the colonists who were from time to time discontented with the measures of the local Government they had now in Canada, the spectacle of a united people, French and English, acting harmoniously together, the great principles of constitutional government fully recognised, the Government of the mother country looked up to with affection and with esteem; and so much so that the cry of annexation which a short time ago existed, had absolutely disappeared, and no longer was there a trace of it to be found. They saw Canada making a more rapid progress in wealth, population, and all the elements
1176
of greatness than any of its neighbouring States, whilst the system of its government safely challenged comparison, as being, in his opinion, infinitely more favourable to real freedom, real happiness, and real social advancement, than that of any of the adjacent States. He could not help recommending their Lordships to read a very interesting work which had recently been published by a friend of his, Mr. Tremenheere, and which contained some valuable information as to the present state of Canada. To show the improvement which had taken place in the credit of the Colony, he might mention that in 1846, at the commencement of Lord John Russell's Administration, one of the officers of the Executive Council of Canada found it impossible to dispose of the Six per Cent Canadian Bonds in this country, except at a heavy discount; whereas he was informed that by the last accounts the same bonds were now at a premium of more than fifteen per cent. This one fact was an indication of the improvement of the credit of the colony. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick a similar state of things existed, and in those colonies this change had been effected, without, as he believed, any undue pressure upon individuals—all fair claims of persons who had accepted offices in the expectation that they would be permanent, having been provided for. Now, he might remind those noble Lords, and those Members of the other House, who were advocates of what was called colonial reform, that so far as the legal powers of the Crown were concerned, the Crown possessed in Canada and in North America all that authority which they conceived to be so objectionable and oppressive. It followed, that he had not been wrong in saying, that in order to place the government of the Colonies on a satisfactory footing, there was no occasion to alter a system which had been 200 years in force—to remove the established landmarks which defined the limits of the various powers of the State—or to surrender any part of the constitutional authority which the Crown for that length of time had possessed; but that all that was requisite was to exercise with judgment and discretion the authority which he believed it was necessary for the safety and permanence of our Empire that the Crown should maintain. He would not offer any opposition to the Bill. Indeed, he believed that upon the whole it would have a very beneficial effect, and that its

1177
postponement for another year would be very disadvantageous to New Zealand.
LORD LYTTELTON, in explanation, hoped that the distinction would be carefully preserved between the Canterbury Colony and the Canterbury Association. That the latter at home had from some miscalculations been placed in circumstances of difficulty, they were not concerned to deny; but it was not true that it was likely to be bankrupt or permanently insolvent. With regard to the Canterbury Colony, it was not fair to say that it would in time be a flourishing settlement, for it was already a flourishing settlement, and it had arrived at a pitch of prosperity that no other colony had done in the same time. He trusted, too, that the Association would not be confounded with similar companies, for its members had no pecuniary interest in it whatever; and it was not true that they had been involved in any manner, or that their expectations had been disappointed. The affairs of the Association were a very long and complicated matter to understand; but if the investigation which had been spoken of should take place next Session, the Association would be extremely glad to submit to the inquiry.
The DUKE of NEWCASTLEexplained. The noble Earl had misrepresented what he had stated in several points. It was only worth while to correct him upon two. He had made no attack upon the New Zealand Company; and as to setting aside the moral claims of that Company, he was only answering what had been said out of that House. The Bill did not place the New Zealand Company in a more advantageous position than they stood at the present moment. They stood in the same position as they stood in 1847. Neither did he maintain that the New Zealand Company ought to be deprived of the power which it possessed on account of charges brought against them. He said exactly the reverse.
LOUD WROTTESLEYsaid, that the conduct of a friend of his, Mr. Powell, had been impugned by implication. That gentleman stood high in the estimation of all who knew him as a man of great ability and of high character.
On Question, Resolved in the Affirmative; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Friday next.
House adjourned till To-morrow.