said, he was anxious, at that early stage of the proceedings, to put a question to the noble Lord at the head of the Government with reference to a subject on which much misapprehension had existed in the public mind. The question he wished to put was, if the Bill passed into law, was it the intention of the Government to distribute, as heretofore, the Privy Council grants among Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians?

said, if the Bill came into effect, he apprehended that it would make provision for certain schools by rates. There were also certain schools, Episcopalian and Roman Catholic, for which no provison was made in the Bill. Their object was to diffuse education, and there was not the slightest intention to deprive any body of any assistance hitherto given by the Privy Council, which would participate in the benefits of the Bill. With respect to the Episcopalian and Roman Catholic schools, there would not only be no diminution of the grant hitherto made to these bodies, but Her Majesty's Government and the Privy Council were disposed to give the most favourable consideration to the claims of those communities to which such schools belonged. If there were any schools, whether in the towns or the country, not in so flourishing a condition as could be wished, they would rather increase than diminish the aid previously given to schools of this class.

said, he thought, in common consistency, the same assistance should be afforded to the Wesleyans and all other denominations who would be excluded from the benefis of this Bill by the clause which required that the Assembly's Shorter Catechism should be used in the schools, as was to be extended to the two sects named by the noble Lord. He also wished to know if this rule would extend not only to the two bodies mentioned by the noble Lord, but to all classes of Christians, or even without any profession of Christianity, under the secular system?

said, he thought he could satisfy the hon. Member that he would have no cause of complaint. It was proposed to deal with the Episcopalians and Catholics as exceptional cases; for, as he believed, in many instances they would not be able to take advantage of the present system. No denominational body would be excluded from any participation in the grant.

said, he would suggest that the consideration of the Preamble should be taken at once.

said, he had no objection to the Preamble being at once proceeded with.

said, he should now beg to beg to introduce the Amendment of which he had given notice. He objected to taxing persons for a system of education of which they might disapprove from conscientious scruples, and he should take the sense of the Committee on that vital point.

said, he should willingly second the Amendment, for he considered that it was contrary to the principles of justice to tax the whole community for the benefit of any one class.

said, he believed the hon. Gentleman misunderstood the clause, in supposing that it would exclude Wesleyans; but whether or not, the Government would not, he presumed, exclude the schools of any denomination which might not come within the benefits of the Bill from assistance from the grants of the Committee of Privy Council.

said, he should give his most decided opposition to the Amendment. Its effect would be to abolish religious teaching in the schools throughout the country; and, in his opinion, the time had come when they were bound to do everything in their power to promote the spread of religious education among the community.

said, he did not concur with those who thought that taxes should be levied for the purposes of religious education; and, therefore, though he believed the opinion of the hon. Member was shared by a large number of persons, he felt bound to oppose the Amendment.

said, he thought that the denominations for whose benefit this Bill was introduced ought not to be allowed to tax the whole community for their own benefit. It was, in fact, coming before the House in forma pauperis, and was unworthy of a body of persons who had formerly declared their objections to all State endowments for the benefit of any religious sect. As it happened, he was of this particular faith, but he did not wish to force all people to help to support the education of that faith. He apprehended this was only the small end of the wedge, in order to introduce the principle generally.

said, he hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn, but, at the same time, he must express his concurrence with the view taken by the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. A. Pellatt) in reference to the inconsistency of the Free Church party. His wishing that the Preamble be taken first was that he was anxious that the religious principles of the Bill should be adopted, and that having been done his purpose was attained.

said, that the hon. Member must have been deeply ignorant of the feeling of the people of Scotland if he supposed that they would take exception to the statement in the Preamble of the Bill in reference to scriptural education.

said, he wished to say a few words on behalf of the Roman Catholics of Scotland. The Roman Catholics of the country generally were as much in favour of education as any other denomination; but they objected to being taxed for the advantage of other denominations while they themselves derived no benefit from such taxation. There were 250,000 Irish Roman Catholics in Scotland, and of these 100,000 were resident in Glasgow. These had a claim to education from the State as well as the rest of the community; and if provision for that purpose was not made in the Bill, they had a right to that assistance from the grants of the Committee of Privy Council, which the noble Lord now admitted they had. That admission on the part of the noble Lord perfectly satisfied him, and he should, therefore, offer no opposition to the Bill.

, in reply, said, he was as much the friend of religious education as any one; but he would not come to the State or tax others for the purpose of extending his religion. The right hon. and learned Lord Advocate might now return to his country and tell the pitiful tale that by bribing the Roman Catholic Members, the Government had succeeded in passing the Bill and taxing Dissenters for the religious education of Presbyterians.

said, that the Preamble was all they could cling to for the religious principle, and he intended to move certain words to give that principle more effect.

said, that after the explanation given by the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston), which removed the ambiguity previously existing as to the intentions of Government in reference to the Roman Catholic schools in Scotland, he should give his support to the measure.

said, he would now move to introduce words declaring that the Christian religion should be taught in the schools as the only sound basis of education, and as consonant with the belief of the great majority of the people of this country.

said, he considered that the religious principle was sufficiently clear in the Preamble as it stood.

said, he begged to move that in the paragraph declaring that the superintendence of the schools should be "altered and amended" that the word "altered" should be omitted, and the word "extended" substituted for it. He thought that as the management was admitted to be successful, no imputation of deficiency ought to be cast upon the parochial system of education in Scotland.

said, he would suggest that the consideration of the interpretation clause should be taken next.

said, he thought it more advisable to proceed in the usual order. It was clear that if they discussed all these terms they would make no progress, and it would be impossible to decide the interpretation of terms until they knew the provisions of the Bill.

said, he should support the suggestion, and would point out the case of the Poor Law Bill as an example in which the same course had been taken.

said, he would not press his suggestion to a division.

said, he had an Amendment to propose for the creation of a Board which he felt assured would fully represent the different shades of religious opinion in Scotland on the subject of education.

said, he wished to move that after the word "Ayr," in the proposed Amendment, the words "two additional persons elected by the Commissioners of Supply for the counties of Lanark and Ross," should be inserted. His reason for seeking to include the county of Lanark was that it contained one-fifth of the population of the whole of Scotland.

said, he would propose to substitute in the Amendment of his hon. Friend who had just spoken, the word "Perth" for "Ross."

said, he would agree to the proposal.

said, he would now propose to add words to the clause, to the effect that the Chairman of the Board should be paid a salary not exceeding 600l. per annum, and that it should be lawful for Her Majesty to remove him or any of the three last-mentioned members of the Board, upon cause shown, and to supply the vacancies thus created.

said, that he was desirous that the parochial schoolmasters should in some way have a representative at the General Board.

said, he should move that the clause be omitted. He considered that the Chairman and Secretary of the Board would engross all the management, whilst the other members would be merely cushions to save them from all responsibility. He should therefore propose to leave out the clause, and he would bring up another to the following effect:—"That it shall be lawful for Her Majesty to recommend to the Committee of Education of the Privy Council, from time to time, to appoint a person to be Inspector General of Education in Scotland, to carry out the purposes of this Act, under the direction of the Committee of Education of the Privy Council, and that there shall be paid to such Inspector General a salary not exceeding," a sum to be afterwards fixed upon in Committee.

said, that this question was one he had before considered. There might, no doubt, be considerable convenience in having under one responsible head the system of education in Scotland. There were, however, two objections to the adoption of such a course—the first objection had reference to the circumstance that the appointment of an Inspector General in London would be to encourage a system of centralisation to which the people of Scotland were opposed; the other objection was based on the fact, that the people of Scotland would never be satisfied with a superintendence of their schools which might be placed in the hands of an Episcopalian in London. The course which he had therefore adopted in the Bill would, he thought, be found to be that which was the most satisfactory to the people of Scotland.

said, that at such an hour (ten minutes to four) it would be useless to oppose this Motion, as there would be scarcely time to divide. He should, however, fix the Bill for the next evening, when he hoped that he should not again be met by the tactics which the opponents of the measure had employed to delay its progress on the present occasion.

said, he trusted that the right hon. and learned Lord would reconsider his determination to bring on a Bill of this importance, after the twenty or thirty notices on the paper for to-morrow.

said, that he should let the Bill stand as an Order for that evening, and he should proceed with it, if the other notices were got through with in sufficient time to enable him to do so.

said, he must protest against the imputation of the right hon. and learned Lord, that the hon. Members who opposed the Bill were resorting to unfair tactics in their opposition to it. Since the people of Scotland had had an opportunity of considering the Bill, their opinions had greatly changed with respect to it; and he asserted that although he had not such a high opinion of the Bill as the right hon. and learned Lord had himself, he wished to see it fully discussed and made as perfect as possible. When hon. Members were carrying out what they deemed their duty, they ought not to be met with such a discourteous comment on their conduct.

said, he hoped that if this Bill were placed on the Orders for to-morrow, hon. Members would come and oppose its progress, at whatever time it might come on.

said, that he thought it must have been evident to all that, when the hon. Member (Mr. F. Scott) last addressed the Committee, he was speaking against time, and therefore he (Mr. Ellice) thought the observation as to the "tactics" of the opposing party was fully and amply justified.

said, that the hon. Member's remark was entirely misapplied. He (Mr. Scott) did not wish to delay the Bill, but felt bound to take every means in his power to insure its passing in as perfect a form as possible.

, in moving the second reading of this Bill, said that he only wished to address a few words to the House with regard to the form in which the measure was introduced. It was evident that when, in accordance with the Act of 1850, Bills arrived in this country from the different Australian colonies, proposing new forms of constitutions, there would be very great inconvenience in sending back those Bills to the colonial Legislatures, in order that they should again undertake the labour of going through their provisions, and that many questions which excited great interest in the Colonies should be again subjected to discussion. That was the view which was taken by Her Majesty's Government at the end of last Session, when the measures which the House had that evening to consider had been first brought forward. But if the course to which he referred had been objectionable at that time, it would be far more objectionable at present, after the lapse of so many months, to send back those Bills to the colonies with a view to their reconsideration. In the discussion which had already taken place, it had been suggested that another course might be taken, which was to enact de novo in this country all the provisions that might be thought necessary by the Imperial Parliament for the various constitutions. But, in the first place, that course would be totally at variance with the promises held out by Parliament in the Act of 1850, that those colonies should be allowed to deliberate through the medium of their own Legislative Councils on the proper provisions for their constitutions; and, in the second place, it would be very difficult for the Government or the Parliament of this country to say what precise clauses ought to be introduced into those measures. It would be impossible, for instance, for the Minister at home to say whether or not there ought to be an elective Council in Victoria, and a Council nominated by the Crown in New South Wales, or whether or not there ought to be a grant of 28,000l. in New South Wales, for the purpose of religious worship, and "grant of 50,000l. in Victoria, for the same purpose. The Government had, therefore, taken a third course, which was, he believed, the only practicable course—namely, that of adopting the Bills sent from Victoria and New South Wales, but at the same time removing from them those clauses to which it was impossible for Her Majesty to give her assent. Those clauses which would go to diminish the authority of the Crown, and which would deprive the Crown of certain powers which belonged to the Crown by Act of Parliament, had been struck out of those Bills, and with those omissions they were then submitted to the House. With respect to the objection urged by an hon. Member on a former evening, that even if the Queen gave her assent to those Bills, they would still be null and void, he should only say he conceived that the last clauses of the Bills were sufficient to ensure the accomplishment of the object for which they were intended, because those clauses stated that the measures should take effect in the Colonies from the time the Royal Assent was given to them; and he had only further to state, that if any other words were required, or thought to be more efficacious, he had no objection to add them.

said, he rose to move that the Bill should be read a second time that day six months. He believed that the measure was opposed to the wishes of a majority of the colonists, and he found that upwards of 13,000 of their number had signed a memorial against it. His own objections to it might have been removed by certain alterations in its clauses and in its schedules, but the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies had refused to make those alterations, and he, therefore, felt constrained to oppose its further progress. A clause in this Bill proposed that a sum of 50,000l. a year should be devoted to religious purposes in the colony. He thought they had seen enough in this country of the heart-burnings and contentions engendered by religious endowments to induce them to refrain from extending those endowments to the Colonies, and he felt persuaded that they would be acting very unwisely if they were to establish so fruitful a source of strife in those young communities. If the Bill had been passed by a colonial Legislature, popularly elected, and if it had been sent over to this country merely that it might obtain the assent of the Crown, he should have allowed the colonists to act for themselves, as they might think best in the matter. But he found that one-third of the Members of the Legislative Council of Victoria were nominees of the Crown, and he could not also help remembering that in consequence of the form in which the Bill was then brought forward, the House was asked to give its distinct sanction to the principle of a religious endowment. He believed that the adoption of that principle in the colony of Victoria would become a source of great embarrassment. The Jews, who numbered 5,000 souls in the colony, had already shown that they were prepared to ask for a share in the proposed grant. Now, if that demand should be conceded, great dissatisfaction, he believed, would be created among the people of this country and among a considerable portion of the colonists; and if it were refused, the Jews might fairly complain that they were excluded from the benefit of an endowment to which they contributed in the same way as the other members of the community. That was a state of things in the establishment of which he had no wish to participate.

, in seconding the Amendment, said, he must express his surprise that the subject of religious endowments should be again brought forward in that House, after all the experience they had had of the heartburnings and strife which it excited in the Colonies. No doubt, the acts of those who had been intrusted with the powers of self-government were deserving of every respect; but it should be remembered that the Legislative Council, by which the previous vote of 6,000l. per annum had been raised to 50,000l., was a body comprising a large number of nominees of the Crown, and it had acted in this matter in utter disregard, and even in defiance, of the wishes of the colonists. The Legislative Council had professed, in the first instance, to invite an expression of opinion on the subject from the inhabitants, and accordingly a numerous meeting of the people of Melbourne, over which the mayor presided, was held, at which a memorial against this very clause was adopted, and afterwards signed by upwards of 13,000 persons. In spite of this remonstrance, however, the Legislative Council persisted in agreeing to this annual endowment of 50,000l., and sought to saddle the colonists with it for all future time: Under these circumstances, that House ought not to give its sanction to such a proceeding. It would not do to say that this part of the measure could not be altered consistently with a recognition of the right of colonial self-government, seeing that the Government had already changed, and even altogether struck out, several other provisions of the Bill more immediately affecting constitutional functions than a clause merely relating to religious endowment. On these grounds, although he had no desire to throw the measure out altogether, he must yet second the Amendment of his hon. Friend as being the only course open to him to meet the circumstances of the case.

said, he was reminded, by the small number of Members in the House, of the wisdom of the rule by which they ought to be guided in dealing with all questions referring to the Colonies—namely, that they should abstain from legislating here upon any matter upon which the Colonies themselves were competent to legislate. The converse of that rule was also true, for not only should the Imperial Government refrain from legislating upon subjects within the jurisdiction of colonial Assemblies, but colonial Governments should also refrain from legislating upon subjects within the jurisdiction of the Imperial Government. He was sorry to say that the Bill before the House violated both those rules, on the one hand requiring them to legislate upon a vast number of subjects entirely within the cognisance of a colonial Legislature, and on the other hand allowing a colonial Legislature to lay down the law to them upon subjects of Imperial importance. A measure more vicious in principle, one that more entirely violated every rule which experience and wisdom had laid down for the regulation of the relations between the mother country and the Colonies could not have been devised. The principle upon which that House ought to act was this:— Let a line be clearly drawn between the powers of the colonial Legislatures and those of the Imperial Parliament, and let ample local powers be given to the colonial Legislatures; but that line having been drawn, let them not encroach upon it, let them not seek by any indirect means to tamper with the powers they had conferred; and, on the other hand, let them not tolerate any attempt on the part of the colonial Legislatures to invade those powers which were exclusively within the jurisdiction of that House. It was a good rule in the intercourse of communities, as well as in that of individuals, not to tolerate too much familiarity, not to allow liberties to be taken, on account not only of momentary personal inconvenience, but also of the danger of thereby sapping the foundations of any durable friendship. If they wished to maintain a permanent connection between the mother country and the Colonies, they must respect the privileges of the Colonies, and teach the Colonies to respect their privileges. Now the Bill before them did neither. It invited them to encroach upon the jurisdiction of a Colonial Legislature, and tolerated the encroachment of a colonial Legislature upon the jurisdiction of the Imperial Parliament. It appeared to him to be the most strange and—not to speak offensively—the most absurd Bill ever laid before the House of Commons. The Legislative Council of Port Philip was created by the Imperial Act of 1850, and was to consist of two-thirds elected and of one-third nominated members. Powers to make laws for the welfare and good government of Port Phillip were delegated to it, subject to two limitations—first, not to pass laws repugnant to the laws of England; and, secondly, not to meddle with the management of the Crown lands or the revenue derived therefrom. The phrase "repugnant to the laws of England" might be interpreted in different ways. He would take its most restricted meaning, which was, that the colonial Legislature was not to pass Acts repugnant to any Acts of the Imperial Parliament which had been passed with reference to the colony. This limitation was necessary for the maintenance of the connection between the mother country and the colony, far the existence of two Sovereign Legislatures, between which conflicts of jurisdiction might arise, must eventually have the effect of separating the colony from the mother country. Powers were also granted to the colonial Legislature to give a new constitution to the colony whenever it thought fit, and the preamble of the Bill now before the House recited that the colonial Legislature had accordingly passed a Bill entitled—

"An Act to establish a Constitution in and for the Colony of Victoria; and whereas the said Bill was presented for Her Majesty's assent to the then Lieutenant Governor of Victoria; and the said Lieutenant Governor did thereupon declare that he reserved the said Bill for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure thereon; and whereas it is by the said reserved Bill provided that the provisions thereof shall have no force or effect until so much and such parts of certain Acts of Parliament in the said Bill specified as severally relate to the said colony, and are repugnant to the said reserved Bill, shall have been repealed, and the entire management and control of the waste lands belonging to the Crown in the said colony, and of the proceeds thereof, including all royalties, mines, and minerals, shall be vested in the Legislature of the said colony."

Thus it appeared by the very preamble that the Bill contained in the schedule violated both the conditions which had been imposed on the Legislature, for it contained provisions repugnant to Acts of Parliament, and it assumed to deal with the waste lands of the colony. The preamble went on to say—

"And whereas it is not competent to Her Majesty to assent to the said reserved Bill without the authority of Parliament for that purpose; and whereas it is expedient that Her Majesty should be authorised to assent to the said reserved Bill."

And the first clause empowered Her Majesty to assent to the Bills contained in the schedules. He begged again to submit, as he had done upon the first reading of the Bill, that the measure could not possibly stand in its present shape. He also asserted that the preamble proceeded upon a supposition that could not bear investigation for a moment, and that if the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) carried the Bill, it would be an absolute nullity. The preamble was drawn up under an erroneous apprehension of the law, for it seemed to be supposed that if the colonial Legislature passed a law repugnant to Acts in force in the colony, and therefore void, it was in the power of the colonial Legislature, by deferring the operation of that law until the Acts to which it was repugnant had been repealed by the Imperial Parliament, to make it valid. He entirely denied that proposition. The Legislature must have power to pass an Act at the time when it was passed, and, if they did not possess that power, they could not defer the time at which the Act was to come into operation. This Bill referred to a fundamental law, to one which might be the mother of other laws, to the constitution of the greatest dependency of the British Crown, and yet it would be a nullity even if it were to receive Her Majesty's assent. If the question of its validity came to be tried in the Courts of Law, it would no doubt be found necessary to pass another Act to confirm it, and what he complained of was that such a cloud should be allowed to hang over a subject of so much importance. It was admitted that it was not competent to Her Majesty to assent to the Bill passed by the colonial Legislature. Why not? Because, as he had formerly stated, it was not competent to the colonial Legislature to pass it. Her Majesty and the colonial Legislature possessed the same jurisdiction, and if it was not lawful for Her Majesty to assent to the Bill, how, he would ask the House, could it be lawful for the Legislature to pass it? But the question did not rest there. The Bill included in this schedule had never been consented to by the colonial Legislature at all. Consent implied the concurrence of two wills, and if one person consented to one thing, and another person to another, that did not constitute a consent, but a difference. If he offered one horse to a person for 50l., and that person offered him 50l. for a different horse, there was no consent between them. The noble Lord struck seven important clauses out of the Bill of the colonial Legislature, and then asked the House to assent to it so amended. The House by passing this Bill might accept the responsibility of it, but it passed the omnipotence of Parliament to say that two persons had agreed to the same thing when they had agreed to two different things. The Bill certainly could not pass in its present shape, and the noble Lord would be obliged to alter its title, its preamble, and its operative clauses. He begged the noble Lord to lay the question before the law officers of the Crown before involving himself in the vast difficulties which would be raised by the passing of the measure. If, as was recited in the preamble, the Legislature of Port Phillip had power to pass the Bill, but Her Majesty had not power to assent to it (a case of which he denied the possibility) he would offer no opposition to it. He only wished that the colony should be allowed to manage its own affairs. But when the law officers of the Crown came to examine the Bill, if they condescended to look into so trivial a question as one upon which would ultimately depend the regulation of the destinies of the noblest dependency of the British Crown, it would be found that all their machinery of schedules was null and void, and they would have to pass the Bill at last as an Act of Parliament. If this were the result, if the Bill were made into an Act of Parliament, who, he asked, would be responsible for it? Would it be passed as the Bill of the colonists, and would that House have no share in it? If it were necessary for them to give a schedule to the Bill before them, would this be an act of the colonial Legislature or of the House of Commons? The Imperial Parliament was now asked to make itself responsible for every part of the Bill passed by the Legislature of Victoria, and it ought therefore to see that it was suitable to its objects. The noble Lord proposed by the Bill now before them to break through the line which separated colonial and Imperial legislation, and hon. Members would either be obliged to make themselves masters of the subject by taking evidence upon it, or else they would give their assent to the measure with the strong conviction, if not with the absolute certainty, that they were in the wrong. The Bill contained six enacting clauses and a schedule. Her Majesty was to assent to the Bill contained in the schedule; but was it all over then? The schedule would hot become a bit more the law when the Bill passed than it was before, for it would be necessary for Her Majesty, by an Order in Council, to assent to the schedule, to which she had assented already. The Bill of the colonial Legislature must and would become the act of the Imperial Parliament. If it were to have any validity at all, that validity it derived from that House; and he would ask the House, before they legislated for a colony 16,000 miles off, in which very few hon. Members had ever been, whether the provisions of the Bill were such as the House ought to pass? The schedule for public worship was a proper subject for the Legislature of Port Phillip to entertain, and, if they liked to display the same prodigality in this provision that had brought them to the brink of ruin, he should not object; but he did object to the Imperial Legislature being dragged into the recognition and adoption of a schedule on which it was for the local Legislature, and for them only, to decide. Why could not the Legislature of Port Phillip take example from the Legislature of Van Diemen's Land, who had shown their ability to frame and carry out a most excellent and practical constitution, without leaving the provision for public Worship to be brought before the Imperial Parliament? The 43rd clause of the Act in the schedule began as follows:—"Subject to the provisions of this Act, and notwithstanding any Act of Parliament now in force to the contrary, it shall be lawful for the Legislature to impose and levy such duties of customs, &c." He objected to this language, which made Acts of the Imperial Parliament subject to the sovereign will of the local Legislature, and which encroached upon the privileges of the Imperial Parliament and the prerogative of the Queen. If Parliament did not teach the Colonies the respect due to the central power of the kingdom, there could be no mutual respect between the Colonies and the mother country, and the union between them would not long continue. The colony had the power of framing a constitution for itself, and why should the colonial Legislature want to meddle with imperial matters? In many of their wishes they were right, but was it the proper way to get what they wanted when, instead of exercising the powers they possessed, they took it upon themselves to exercise powers that they did not possess, and sent home Acts and drew the very clauses that the Imperial Parliament was to assent to? Any colonial Legislature that did that encroached upon the freedom of action of that House, which ought not to permit such dictation from subordinate Legislatures. If there were one good principle in the Act of 1850, upon the policy of which the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) was now infringing, it was that in giving the colony the power of self-government it relieved the Imperial Parliament of all future responsibility. If their constitutions did not please the colonists, to whom the right of self-government had been given by that Act, they had only to blame their representatives, and the grievance was purely local, for the colony could not say that Parliament had inflicted its yoke upon their necks; and the event need not loosen the connection between the Colonies and the mother country. But by this Bill the noble Lord mixed Parliament up with these constitutional colonial questions, and took back the powers that Parliament had delegated to the Colonies; and now Parliament might be justly blamed for undertaking a responsibility without the requisite knowledge that would enable it to carry out the objects thus undertaken. The schedule contained the electoral provinees of the Legislative Council and the electoral districts of the Legislative Assembly. These were very proper subjects for legislation within the colony, but now it would be from the Imperial Parliament that these arrangements would receive their validity. The Legislature of the colony had the power of passing these enactments for themselves, and why should the Imperial Parliament be asked to make itself responsible for these matters of local arrangement? Then, again, the qualification for members of the two Legislatures seemed to him to be utterly outrageous; but how was Parliament to know the value of property in the colony or the state of society there? These were matters within the cognizance of the local Legislature, and why was Parliament to give an opinion on subjects with which it was so incompetent to deal? He now came to a practical point of such importance that, if he had not known how that House, at the bidding of Colonial Secretaries, had by turns thrown into confusion almost every interest in the Colonies, without redress, he should have hoped that the point in question might produce some impression upon the Government. The civil list, contained in the schedule annexed to this Bill, consisted of items amounting in the whole to 112,000l., the colony, be it remembered, containing a population of 300,000 inhabitants. When he had the honour of being a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, which then included Port Phillip, the whole revenue of Port Phillip was, in 1849, 132,000l.; and now Parliament was asked to assent to a civil list of 112,000l. for that colony. This civil list was agreed to at the end of 1853, when the colony was at the acme of prosperity, and when the discoveries of gold in the colony had made everything valuable in Victoria except gold. The Legislature of the colony became excited, and this sapient body, which sent over clauses cut and dried for the assent of the Imperial Parliament, had, in 1853, a revenue of 2,479,000l., and an expenditure of 3,564,858l., so that in that year there was a deficit, in a colony of 300,000 persons, of no less a sum than 1,085,858l. It was in the frantic and ridiculous excitement consequent upon the gold discoveries that the colonial Legislature agreed to the enormous and outrageous civil list contained in this schedule. When the newly appointed Governor (Sir Charles Hotham) arrived at Melbourne in the autumn of 1854, he asked for the estimates, and he found the revenue (Ways and Means) set down at 3,016,283l., while the expenditure was estimated at 4,801,292l., the deficit being set down at 1,785,000l. The Legislative Council began to think they had gone far enough, and wisely passed a resolution that they must endeavour to make their income and expenditure meet. They imposed additional taxes to the extent of about 300,000l., which reduced the deficit, speaking in round numbers, to 1,500,000l., and then the Government set to work to retrench. The Government cut down the estimates, which were afterwards still further reduced by the Council. He would read a few of the reductions made by the Government in the estimates which they laid before the Council. From the Executive and Legislative Department they took off one-third, 26,430l.; from the Customs, one-fifth, 21,000l.; from the Post Office, 48,978l.; from ports and harbours, one-half, 63,000l.; from police, one quarter, 183,689l. The House could imagine the state the Government must have been in to propose originally estimates from which in the item of police alone they could take off 183,689l. From petty sessions, 14,000l.; from gaols, 12,000l.; from penal establishments, 9,000l.; from public works, one-third, which formed a little item of 566,228l.; from stores and transports, 57,000l.; from medical establishments, 7,000l.; from scientific establishments, 26,000l.; from charitable institutions, 27,000l.; and from miscellaneous 40,000l. The whole reduction which the Government made upon its own estimates, before they were proposed to the Council, was 1,108,000l. They cut down every salary they could touch. The Speaker was reduced from 1,500l. to 1,000l.; the auditor-general and the colonial treasurer were reduced, each, from 1500l. to 1,200l. a year. Every one not in the schedule suffered reduction, and that no slight incisions were made the House could judge from the figures which he had just read. But the salaries in the schedule, including the Governor's salary of 10,000l. a year, and 5,000l. a year for etceteras—salaries, in fact, the most extravagant, absurd, and unjustifiable—were put out of reach and would remain intact; and yet the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) asked Parliament, in deference to the principle of allowing the Colonies to do what they liked, to pass the schedule in its integrity. He said that was impossible. He could believe most things with regard to the Colonies, but he would not believe that the noble Lord would press them to pass this civil list of 112,000l., when he knew that, if the Legislative Council of Port Phillip were at the bar, they would intreat the House of Commons to take off at least one-third, probably one-half the amount. It was no part of the duty of Parliament, it was a matter for the colonial Legislature, to which was given power by the Act of 1850, to alter this list by a vote of a simple majority, and not a majority of the whole Council; and was it to be tolerated, for a single moment, that the House of Commons should step in and fix such an intolerable burden as that upon the colonists? The House could do nothing of the kind. Though it was put as a mere schedule to the Act, they must look into it; they dare not as a Sovereign Legislature, impose such a monstrous yoke upon the Colonies, however tardily they might have seen the necessity of retrenchment. Then, it was urged that no time should be lost; but this Act was received in England in May last year; it had been lying for more than a twelvemonth in the Colonial Office, and had had the fate to see four Colonial Secretaries come and go—(the Duke of Newcastle) the right hon. Baronet the Member for Morpeth, (Sir George Grey) the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Wiltshire, (Mr. Sidney Herbert), and now the noble Lord the Member for London. There was one other observation which he wished to make upon this monstrousand outrageous civil list. It was only justice to the Legislative Council of Port Phillip to state, that one of the means by which it was obtained was, he was sorry to say, the influence of an official sent out from this country to take care of the affairs of the colonists, because they were unable to take care of their own. Dr. Thomson, a member of the Legislative Council, happened to come to England, and he naturally thought that, having been one of the Committee which prepared the constitution, and having come 16,000 miles, he might as well see the Colonial Minister; but he found he would have to go 1,200 miles more, because the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) was then negotiating at Vienna. But he did go to Vienna, and there he saw the noble Lord, and, judging from the state of the Bill, he imagined Dr. Thomson obtained very little satisfaction from the interview with which he was honoured by the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department. Dr. Thomson upon his return called upon him, and he asked by what possible species of insanity the people of Port Phillip were induced to pass this civil list? Dr. Thomson, in reply, made a statement, which, at his request, he subsequently put in writing, and this was an extract from the letter:—

"I am bound to state that the schedules appended are universally condemned as extravagant n the extreme, and as suggested in a state of intoxication induced by excited feelings of the time and accepted by the representative members as a compromise; in fact, as the best bargain they could make with the Government party, and under the assurance of Mr. Foster, the Colonial Secretary, who spoke the sentiments of the Duke of Newcastle—[that he (Mr. Lowe) begged to doubt, as it did not agree with the Duke's despatches]—that the Home Government would not accept the Bill without the schedules, that without them it would be sure to be sent back."

He thought that made a fit conclusion. Here was a matter of the most outrageous extravagance. The Legislative Council had seen fit to retract as far as they could, but a part was not in their power to retract, and that extravagance was perpetrated by an emissary of the Home Government. It came round to the Home Government that they had caused the extravagance, and now the House of Commons was asked in the name of the people of Victoria to perpetuate that extravagance by giving the authority and weight of Parliament to it. He apprehended that it would do nothing of the kind. He apprehended that, if the noble Lord would persevere, they must consider the items of the schedule and cut them down. But if they did, what Gentleman could say how much was a proper salary for the Chief Justice, for the Colonial Secretary, or for the Governor, and, if they did say what salaries were proper, it was not their money; it was other people's money, and if they meddled with it they would commit the anomaly of dealing with money not their own. There was no choice. They must either do that which they had no right to do, which they would not think of doing under other circumstances—going into details to deal with which they were totally unfit—or else they must send the civil list back to Victoria stamped with the high approbation of Parliament. It would be in vain to say Parliament did not approve, when part was left out, and the part sent back with their sanction was thought so good that it was never to be altered but by a majority of the whole of the Members of the Legislative Council. He said that could not be. They were really responsible for this Bill. If they chose to pass it, they undertook the responsibility, and they ought not to undertake the responsibility unless they had the knowledge to discharge it efficiently, and that knowledge they did not possess. Without wearying the House, he came to this conclusion, that it was their duty not to go any further with this measure; that it was their duty to say to the noble Lord, "The measure you propose carries out nothing; you must remodel it before you can cast the responsibility on this House of adopting it; it makes us interfere with colonial matters, and allows the colony to interfere with imperial matters, both of which are highly objectionable; it pledges us to details of which we have no means of judging, and tends to embroil us in the disputes of colonial politics, with which we have, and ought to have, nothing to do." Therefore, he submitted, they ought to refuse to read the Bill a second time. The course for the noble Lord to adopt was to send back the Bill to Port Phillip to deal with as much at least of it as they had power to deal with, and, as to the rest, to take it into consideration, as the Government had taken into consideration the question of waste lands, and grant as much as they thought ought to be conceded to the wishes of the colonists. In order to avoid delay, which he knew was very prejudicial, he would beg to submit that the noble Lord should prepare and send out an Act of Parliament giving the Governor power for and on behalf of Her Majesty to assent to such a Bill as the Council might pass. They would thus avoid any delay. They would avoid meddling with matters of colonial importance which they did not understand. They would avoid committing themselves to a responsibility which they ought not to be asked to incur, and they would insure to the colonists the doing what they desired. Such a measure would conciliate all objections, and he earnestly entreated the noble Lord on no account to involve Parliament in the alternative either of passing a monstrous and outrageous civil list, which they knew the colonists with one voice would repudiate if they were consulted, or of going into details as to the range of salaries upon which they had neither the means nor the leisure to form an accurate judgment.

said, that after the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had last addressed them upon the first reading of the Bill, he was not prepared for the tone of high prerogative which he had adopted upon the present occasion, nor for the appeal made by the hon. Gentleman to the House to reject a measure specially intended to give validity to the Acts of the colonial Legislature, upon the ground of the unfitness of that colonial Legislature to deal with its own affairs. If that was not the doctrine asserted by the hon. Gentleman, at least such was the purport of his speech. He (Mr. Ball) was not competent to discuss with the hon. Gentleman the points of technical legal character to which he had alluded, and he was sure the House would agree that a measure of this importance ought not to be debated upon such grounds. At the same time, if the hon. Gentleman could point out anything wanting to make the measure complete for the purpose for which it was intended, the Government would be indebted to him. It was not convenient at every stage of legislation to introduce a new precedent, and the course adopted in this case had been to follow a precedent existing as to a very important Act of Parliament, and to apply to New South Wales the principle applied to Canada in the case of the measure of the colonial Parliament granting a civil list to Her Majesty. That Bill contained provisions inconsistent with those of the Act conferring the Constitution. It was by the Governor referred for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure; Parliament was appealed to, and by the Act 10 & 11 Vic., cap. 71, it, in words as nearly as possible those of the Bill now before the House, authorized Her Majesty to give Her assent to a measure which had ever since been considered as settled law. The hon. Gentleman admitted that it was a purely technical point whether the House was called upon to assent to the Bill contained in the schedule to the measure, and it was clear the effect of what the House was called upon to do was simply to give legal force and validity to the measure of the colonial Legislature. The hon. Gentleman said, the Bill was not the same Bill as that passed by the colonial Legislature, and, if the House assented to it, it would not be an Act of the colony itself. If it could be shown that any change had been introduced affecting the interests of the colony, or interfering with the obligations, duties, or privileges of any one in the colony, there might be some force in the remark. But that was not the case. There had been no alteration in the Bill. There had been an omission precisely upon the principle Upon which the hon. Gentleman called upon the House to reject the measure—an omission of that part of the measure by which the colonial Legislature did somewhat encroach upon the power and jurisdiction of the Imperial Government. The hon. Gentleman had also said that in assenting to this Bill they would be called upon to legislate for the colony in the uncertainty of what was right or wrong for its interests; and upon that ground he called upon them to set themselves in direct opposition to every public declaration of the will and desire of the Legislature of the colony, and, in support of that appeal, the hon. Gentleman had read a private letter from one of the Members of the Legislature, at present in this country. [Mr. LOWE said, that letter was purposely written to him.] The wishes of the colonial Legislature were on record in the measure adopted by them by an overwhelming majority. It might be that a solitary Member of that Legislature, being in England, had thought fit to communicate his dissent to the hon. Gentleman; but the House would be slow to accept that private and irregular statement as an authority for them to send back the measure to the colony, and thus throw overboard this measure as useless and invalid because that particular Gentleman chose to assert that it was so. He (Mr. Ball) could not follow all the arguments of the hon. Member for Kidderminster. If he conceded that the colonial Legislature, the representatives of the people of the colony, were most competent to decide upon measures affecting their interests, then a great portion of the hon. Gentleman's arguments fell to the ground. With respect to the financial statements read by the hon. Gentleman, he (Mr. Ball) thought parallels might be found near home. There had been moments of excess, no doubt, but the practical good Sense which characterised the people of this country soon led them to discover their error, and now the colonial Legislature was engaged in remedying the effects of their own extravagance. The Government had not the slightest reason to suppose that the colonial Legislature had any wish to alter the schedule of the Bill, but, even supposing they had, the power to do so was in their own hands. The Legislature of Victoria could effect any alteration in the civil list, provided such alteration were carried by an actual majority of the whole body in each House of Legislature, a provision which they had themselves inserted and to which they would most probably adhere. That appeared to be a reasonable check, and he (Mr. Ball) did not feel called upon to defend the Legislature of a distant colony from the attacks which the hon. Gentleman had made upon it, and who had indulged in invectives against those bodies which his acquaintance with them ought to have induced him to abstain from. If those invectives were deserved, and the colonial Legislature was so unfit to manage its own affairs, it would be better to revert to the old system of conducting them in this country—a system which the hon. Gentleman had equally condemned, and to which he thought the House would not be inclined to return. He could not help thinking that the ingenious argument of his hon. Friend was rather intended as a means of reserving for himself a greater liberty in attacking another measure, to which he had still stronger objections. Before he sat down it might be right to notice the statements of two hon. Gentlemen, with reference to a portion of the civil list in the schedule of the Bill—namely, the 50,000l. a year devoted to the purposes of public worship. He should decline to discuss the expediency of that grant, or reopen so large a question, but it was perfectly clear that the people of Victoria, through their own representatives, had thought proper to vote that sum for such a purpose, and it was by no means necessary to repeat in London the lengthened arguments used in Melbourne; for if it Were right to enable people in the Colonies to expend their own money as they thought fit, there was an end of the argument. He trusted that any efforts Which had been made, or might be made, to induce the House of Commons to place itself in direct antagonism to the population of so important a colony as that of Victoria, in dealing with a constitution framed by themselves and for themselves, Would be discountenanced; and, indeed, he could not believe that any considerable number of hon. Members in that House would join in adopting a course so dangerous to the continuance of the good feeling between the colony and this country, and so contrary to those principles of colonial administration which now happily regulate our relations with the great British communities that have grown up in the southern hemisphere.

said, that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had expressed his surprise at the objections which had been raised by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe), as involving a principle of interference with self-government but he (Mr. Adderley) understood the hon. Member for Kidderminster to object to the measure because it was a Bill of the colonial Legislature which they had no right to pass. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies had omitted to distinguish between the two portions of the Bill presented to the House—that which was within the power of the colonial Legislature, of which power he had no wish to deprive them, and that with which they had no power to deal. He agreed that the colonial Legislature had power to deal with certain subjects, but he protested against the additional power which they had assumed, they not being fit persons to deal with the subject; and when the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. J. Ball) quoted the case of Canada, he quoted a case which was not parallel to the present, because in that case there was a distinct contract between Canada and the mother country; and though it was necessary for the Bill to pass through Parliament in order to place the Act with the Imperial Statutes, the main proposition came from Canada, and the subject was one which they had a recognised right to legislate upon there. The history of the present measure was simply this:—The Colonies of Australia up to this year 1842 were Under the government of a Governor and Council. That Government was allowed by the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) himself to be less free than British colonies had a right to have; therefore, in that year a Bill was passed giving to one of those colonies—New South Wales—a somewhat more representative form of Government. Remonstrances were made immediately, which increased year after year until 1850, when a Bill was passed extending the same form of Government—namely, two-thirds representative and one-third nominative, with a single Chamber—to the three other colonies of Australia, so that the four colonies were placed under the same mongrel form of Legislature. But in that Act there was a material clause, upon which hinged the whole of the present discussion. That clause gave to the Legislative Councils of those colonies powers to alter their own constitution, those powers, however, being specific and limited. The very instant, however, that the Act arrived in New South Wales that colony protested against it. They had hadly received it before the Legislative Council of New South Wales remonstrated against it in the strongest terms as a mockery and a deceit, and they said—

"You have given us the same form of Government against which we have already protested, and have extended it to all the other colonies, giving us merely the power of altering the qualification and determining whether we should have one Chamber or two. We demanded a great deal more than that, and this Act leaves our grievances unredressed in the most material particulars."

They divided those grievances into five heads, demanding that the colonial patronage should be given by Her Majesty to her representative on the spot, that they should have complete power to appropriate the revenues derived from their Customs, that they should have the management of the civil list, and the appropriation of their land revenues, and the last and most material demand was that the veto in matters of local legislation should be exercised on the spot without reference to the mother country. How was that remonstrance met by the then Colonial Minister? Lord Grey expressed his astonishment that the Legislative Council should have remonstrated, and denied that they represented the feeling of the country, explaining the provisions of the Act of 1850, and appealing from the Council to their constituents. The reception of that reply irritated the Legislative Council to such a degree that they prepared a remonstrance, which the Governor thought it necessary to apologise for sending. That was in 1852, and Lord Grey's answer was received in June, 1853, by which time the Council had acted on their own views, and drafted a Bill setting at nought the limits of the clause in the Act of 1850, altogether including in this draft the five heads of grievance, and providing for all that they considered they were entitled to. Before that Bill arrived in England the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington) became Colonial Secretary, and he sent an important despatch, divided into two heads, one of which dealt with the five additional subjects, upon which the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly justified in expressing an opinion, and, indeed, it was his duty to do so. But when the right hon. Gentleman discussed the subjects which had been handed over to the Legislative Council he exceeded the powers which he possessed even as a Minister of the Crown, and he contracted those which had been granted to the Legislative Council of New South Wales. It was material that the House should bear in mind the opinion which the right hon. Gentleman had given at that time upon the five heads of grievance. With regard to the first, the request that the colonial patronage should be handed over by the Crown to the Governor on the spot, the right hon. Gentleman expressed an adverse opinion. He now wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he had changed his mind upon that subject, because the present Bill conceded that point, and rightly, as he (Mr. Adderley) thought. Upon the second head—that of handing over to the colony the entire control of the Customs' revenue and department, the right hon. Gentleman stated that he thought the point had been already met. Upon the third demand—that of giving to the colony the uncontrolled power of appropriating revenue to the civil list—the right hon. Gentleman expressed an opinion that it certainly was large; the demand was now, however, considerably larger. The fourth point, which related to the waste lands, the right hon. Gentleman conceded; and upon the fifth and main point—namely, the claim of the colony to plenary powers of legislation upon local subjects, the right hon. Gentleman expressed an opinion in which he (Mr. Adderley) concurred—that, if it were practicable, it would be most desirable. In 1853, upon that despatch arriving in the Colonies, the Colonies modified accordingly their draft Bills, two of which arrived in this country in February, and the third in May, 1854. The answer which they received to those Bills was, that it was too late in the Session for them to be discussed then. It was now not February or May, but the 14th of June, 1855, and for the first time, after a most unfortunate delay, the House was called upon to consider these important measures at a still later period in a succeeding Session. It was true of late the changes in the head of the Colonial Office had been more than usually frequent; but he thought that the Colonies, and especially those at the antipodes, had a right to look upon all Colonial Ministers as one corporation. Ministerial changes at home were no good excuse for postponement of their affairs. Van Diemen's Land—the only colony which had not then sent home any Bill—had had the good luck of the tortoise in the race; for, having received a warning that the other Bills exceeded the powers of 1850, they draughted a Bill in accordance with those powers, and that measure having come home, had received the sanction of Her Majesty. In discussing the measures before the House, he would not contest the question whether the constituent bodies were the best that could have been constituted, because it was too late now to discuss that question; neither would he dispute their right to exercise functions which were conferred upon them in 1850. It was too late to debate the propriety of what the Colonies proposed within the limits of the powers given them. But given the constituent body, and the constitution as far as authorised, the question was how to deal with an assumed excess of claims; and he asked what the Government proposed to do with those five points with which the Colonies were not authorised to deal. Van Diemen's Land had abstained from dealing with them. Australia was in process of abstaining also. Two colonies stood out for their whole claims. Are they objectionable in themselves? With regard to the waste lands, the Government proposed to accede to the wish of the Colonies by way of a separate Bill originating here, and so far he thought that they were perfectly right. With respect to three other points—handing over the local patronage to the Governor, the civil list, and the Customs' revenue—they proposed to grant all that was asked within the limits of the colonial Bill. The fifth point, relative to plenary powers of local legislation, they proposed to reject. The Government, therefore, had introduced an amended measure, which must be, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster had very properly observed, to all intents and purposes an Imperial measure. The colonial Bill, which was brought forward in the shape of a schedule, was in reality no Bill at all, and no words which the Crown lawyers could introduce could make that schedule a colonial Bill. If it were an Imperial Bill, however, it ought to have been drawn as Imperial Bills were always drawn, and not in its present form, for which there was no precedent in existence. Instead of the course proposed, he would suggest as follows:—To the extent to which he Bills are covered by the constituent towers given to the Colonies in the Act of 1850, he would pass them. So far, then, the four colonies would be put on an equality, and treated alike, and no time would be lost. But as to the assumptions ultra vives, he was not content so far to extend the action of a notoriously vicious constituent body; but he would deal with them at home, not imperially, but by an Imperial Act, handing over the subjects in question to the reformed colonial Legislatures, only reserving specifically what must belong only to Her Majesty at home. The management of waste lands he would hand over to the colonial Government, only regretting it had not been done long ago; and, as to colonial appointments, there could be no doubt that in all justice those appointments should be made by Her Majesty's Representative in the colony itself. A wish had been expressed by the Colonies that they themselves should control the Customs' revenue, and most certainly he was prepared to pass over the management of that revenue, free from useless Imperial interference, to their hands. The Bill of the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) proposed to retain the civil list in the hands of the Home Government, but to do so was, in his opinion, to retract the powers already given to the colonial Assemblies by the Act of 1850, and was moreover, in principle, unconstitutional. The Bill says, "There shall be payable to Her Majesty 112,750l. of Victoria revenue and 64,300l. of New South Wales taxes annually." But only representatives of Her Majesty's subjects can vote her a civil list out of their own taxes. It was unconstitutional to deal with taxation by legislation not passed by the taxpayers. [Mr. J. BALL: Hear, hear!] The hon. Under Secretary cried "hear, hear!" but how did he meet the objection? He asked the House to pass a Bill appropriating colonial funds. As to any supposed power of alteration in the colony it was illusory. Constitutional principles required that the appropriation of their own taxes should be left to the colonists. It was impossible to contest so clear a principle, against which we had struggled in vain in Canada, and had nearly lost the colony in consequence. And cui bono? What have we to do with voting 50,000l. for public worship in Australia, or with salaries of clerks, auditors, or Judges? Who suffers if Victoria has underpaid Judges? There was only one thing in the civil list in which this country, as distinguished from the rest of the empire, had the slightest interest, and that was, the salary of the Governor of a colony; but if this country was interested in the salary of the Governor, it was the duty of this country to pay that salary. The Governor of a colony was the representative of the Queen in that colony; he was the guardian of Imperial interests, and should, consequently, be paid by the mother-country; the rest of the civil list should be left to the vote of the colonial Legislature. The present state of things with regard to the power given to the covernor of suspending measures of colonial Legislature was the last and greatest grievance. When a Bill passed the Assembly, the Governor had the power of granting Her Majesty's assent, of withholding it, or of reserving assent. Any Bill to which he gave assent might be revoked by the Queen in two years, and all Bills which were suspended became of no effect unless they received the Queen's assent within two years. It was a monstrous thing that British subjects should thus be subject to two Sovereigns, and in his opinion there was no greater proof of the vigour of the British colonies than that they had flourished, notwithstanding such a state of things. Frightful as it would be in an old country, such uncertainty was doubly fatal in a new one. The Draft Colonial Bills express a sense of this grievance as intolerable, and propose accepting a remedy first suggested by Sir W. Molesworth, namely, a division between local and imperial subjects, the former being left to plenary legislation in the colony, the latter reserved for Her Majesty's pleasure. It might be difficult, as the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) had said, to draw that distinction, but the colonies had suggested that in all doubtful cases the Privy Council should judge as to what were imperial and what local subjects. He would himself propose, in order to meet the difficulty, that the Governor should be the judge on that point; and that those Bills alone which the Governor should in his discretion consider to trench on Imperial subjects should be reserved for Her Majesty's sanction. If the noble Lord would not agree to that alteration, the only way left of dealing with these Bills, and carrying out the object of the hon. Member for Kidderminster, would be by moving Resolutions on the House going into Committee upon the Bills, and then the sense of the House could be taken on the question.

said, he had heard nothing, either from the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe) or from his hon. Friend who had last addressed the House, and who, though he spoke against the Bill, intended, it appeared, to give his vote for the second reading, to induce him to retract the opinions he had formerly expressed, or to vote against the second reading of the Bill. He looked on these two Bills as the complement of an arrangement entered into in 1852 by the Government of Lord Derby, for the purpose of meeting the express wishes of the colonists on subjects in which they took a deep interest; and he could not help thinking that should they be rejected, except on very strong and sufficient grounds, something like great dissatisfaction would be felt by the colonists. He believed that gentlemen connected with the colonies of Australia, now in London, were decidedly favourable to the passing of these Bills. The noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies had had a deputation of those gentlemen to wait upon him; and he (Sir J. Pakington) had also had the honour of receiving a deputation. But, at the same time, he must state to the House, that a gentleman connected with the colony of Victoria had waited on him some time ago and pointed out the objections which he entertained to this Bill. From all that he could gather from that gentleman, his objections were only three. The first objection was to the terms and form in which the Bill was drawn; the second turned on the high qualifications required for the two Chambers; and the third related to the high civil list reserved in the Bill for the colony of Victoria. With respect to the question of the qualifications for the Members of the Council and the Assembly and to the civil list, these were exclusively colonial questions, which should not, in his opinion, be altered or deviated from, but assented to as proposed by the colony. The only serious objection, then, which he (Sir J. Pakington) could entertain to these Bills was the form in which they had been drawn, and he thought considerable weight attached to the observations on this point made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster and by his hon. Friend the Member for North Staffordshire, who had just spoken. He was aware of the fact that the colonial Legislature had exceeded their powers, and therefore it was necessary to take some step to meet that difficulty; but he could not understand the shape proposed by the Government, which was, that of enabling Her Majesty to give her assent to certain schedules. He thought it would have been an easier course if the Government had brought in an Imperial Statute, enacting at once those constitutions which the Colonies desired. But the objections urged against the civil list he could not share. He could, however, say that the civil list for Victoria was not very light, and, possibly, even extravagant. Hon. Members referred to 50,000l. for public worship; but that, surely, was the last part of the civil list that should be objected to. He (Sir J. Pakington) was glad to see that that part of the civil list had been passed by a large majority in the colony. Looking at the extraordinary rapidity with which the population of the colony had increased, owing to the discovery of gold, he thought a grant to promote religious worship did honour to the colonial Legislature. The hon. Member for Kidderminster stated that the civil list amounted to 112,000l., whereas in the year 1849–50 the whole revenue of the colony was only 113,000l. Now, this, he considered, was not so much a proof of an extravagant civil list as it was an illustration of the extraordinary progress made by the colony in that time. In 1834, the present Lord Aberdeen, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, was applied to by some bold adventurers, and asked if they might found a colony at Port Phillip, and his answer was that it was not the policy of England to extend her colonies, and he refused his assent. In the following year Lord Glenelg was applied to by these adventurers, and he likewise refused—[Mr. J. BALL: No; he assented.] Well, at last the request was granted, and happily these bold adventurers were allowed to establish the colony, and now, after twenty years, the House was discussing the question whether or not they should have a civil list of 112,000l. per annum. That was, as he had just said, a proof of the extraordinary development of the colony. Should the House take on itself to decide the civil list, it would adopt a very irritating and unwise course. He understood the hon. Member for Kidderminster to say that in re-enacting these Acts passed by the colonial Legislature, Parliament should not allow this civil list; but the course taken by the Government was wiser—not to interfere with the Act, except as to that part of it which interfered with the prerogative of the Crown. The main objects of these Bills were two, to give to the Colonies the management of their own waste lands, and to confer on them an improved constitution, consisting of two Chambers instead of one. The hon. Member for Kidderminster had himself recorded his vote in favour of two Chambers, and he had moved for a Committee of inquiry into the management of waste lands in the colony. There was a declaration and a remonstrance adopted by the Legislature of New South Wales in 1851, the prayer of which Lord Grey refused, and the new Legislature repeated that declaration and remonstrance, and sent it home. The Government of Lord Derby considered it their duty to give their attention to these representations, and they also felt it their duty to assent to the prayer of the Legislature of New South Wales. They conceded the double Chamber in the form in which it was asked. The hon. Member for Kidderminster had on a former occasion said that he (Sir J. Pakington) had then given his consent to the proposition respecting the waste lands as a bribe to induce the colonists to accept a nominated Chamber, but he could assure the hon. Member he had had no such motive. He did not deny that his opinion was in favour of a nominated in preference to an elective Upper Chamber, and he thought that if men of property, ability, and station were content and willing to accept seats for life in the Upper Chamber, they would form a Council as nearly as possible approaching to our House of Lords. He also thought that with an elective Upper Chamber greater risk of collision between the two Chambers would be run, and that it would be more difficult to carry on the business of legislation with a nominated than with an elected Upper Chamber. Therefore, he himself preferred a nominated Upper Chamber, but he had had no motive in inducing the colonists to accept it, such as that referred to by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. It was the sort of Chamber the Colonies asked for, and the Government of Lord Derby had consented to the prayer of the colonial Legislature, on the ground that the colonists had a fair claim for the concession of their demands. If he (Sir J. Pakington) had to make any complaint against the Government, it was that they had been so long in making their arrangements on this subject. He could not understand why these Bills had not been introduced last Session. He was indisposed to any delay in a matter so deeply affecting the feelings and interests of the colonists; and he thought that the Bills should have been introduced to the House, at all events, in the earliest part of this Session. He felt doubts whether the noble Lord the Secretary for the Colonies would be able to set at rest the objections he (Sir J. Pakington) entertained with respect to the shape in which the Bills were drawn. There was one point indispensable for the House to consider well—namely, that the utmost care should be taken to leave no doubt as to the validity and legality of these Bills when passed. He should certainly vote for the second reading.

said, that when the hon. Member for Kidderminster announced his intention to move the postponement of the second reading of the New South Wales Government Bill, he (Mr. Duffy) stated that he would cordially vote in favour of that proposition; but the Bill now before the House was one which had the hearty support of the colonists; it was a wise and liberal measure, and one to which the House could give its assent with a clear conscience. There were, doubtless, some points in the Bill to which objections might be taken, but he thought those points could be most properly dealt with in Committee. There was one provision relating to the qualification of Members of the two Houses, which was open to very serious objection. The qualification for Members of the Upper House was 5,000l. worth of freehold property, and for the lower House 2,000l. worth of freehold property, or freehold property of the annual value of 200l., situated in Victoria. The result of this provision would be to throw the whole Government of the colony into the hands of a small class, against whom there was a violent popular prejudice. In Victoria a qualification could arise from no property but freehold property. In this country a Parliamentary qualification was derived from lauds, tenements, and here-ditaments of any kind, and from personal estate and effects of any description, subject to certain conditions as to the time of possession; from the dividends upon, or annual proceeds of, such property; or from these several kinds of property united. The House was, however, asked in the case of a new colony, to exclude all but one of the qualifications which existed in this country, and it would, consequently, be easier to qualify a representative for Liverpool or London than for a village or a sheep-walk in Australia. It had been a matter of complaint in the colony for years that nobody could get land, the landed proprietors were a very limited class; and if the Bill was passed as it stood, the future Government of the colony would be committed to that handful of persons. He also objected to the clause of the Bill, which provided that every Member of the colonial Legislature should, upon his election, sign a solemn declaration that he had not obtained the property, upon which he qualified, by collusion for the purpose of acquiring a qualification. Such a declaration once existed with regard to Members of that House, but the progress of liberal opinions had led to its abandonment, and yet they were asked to apply it to a new colony. It was scarcely probable that a practising barrister or a doctor in Victoria, who might be very fit persons to have a seat in the Legislature, would possess 2,000l. worth of freehold property. No property qualification existed in the popular branches of the legislature in Canada, or at the Cape, that would not exist hereafter in New South Wales, South Australia, Van Diemen's Land, or New Zealand. If they sent back this Bill to Victoria with such a provision, it would be the beginning of a very unpleasant end. The population of the colony were strong and resolute, and were by no means disinclined to take the law into their own hands; the best Government for such a colony was a democratic House, possessing the entire sympathies of the people, held in check by an Upper Chamber, composed of men of more mature years, and who possessed a larger amount of property. The Governor of Victoria had told the colonists that whatever wrongs they had to complain of would be remedied by the new constitution, the basis of which was, that all rights sprang from the people; and what would be the consequence if, after that declaration, this Bill was sent back to the colony in a form which would render it as impossible for the people to obtain seats in the Legislature as it was for the people of this country to obtain seats in the House of Lords? But this was not all. Sir Charles Hotham had told a deputation from the "diggers" that they might elect any person they pleased as their representative, and he would use his prerogative to nominate him to a seat in the present Legislature. Under the present system they were offered one representative: but under the new constitution, while the proposed qualification was maintained, they would not have even one. These "diggers" created the wealth, and paid the taxes, and, to a great extent, constituted the strength of the colony—to shut them out from political action in its government was madness. He might be told that the qualification was in accordance with the wish of the people of the colony, but he ventured to question the accuracy of that assertion; when the Bill was before the Select Committee of the Legislature, that provision was carried by a single vote—namely the vote of a nominee who had since lost his seat. When the Bill came into Committee he should take the liberty of moving an Amendment, upon the grounds which he had already stated. If the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) would not consent to abolish a property qualification a medium course might be taken. The qualification for a voter of the Upper House included the learned professions and retired officers of the military or naval service; these classes might be declared qualified to be members of the Assembly. And surely chattel property as well as freehold property ought to be made a qualification. He thought that the provisions which had been omitted in the Bill directing that the Governor should have no power to send to this country, for the consideration of the home Government, any Bill passed by the local Legislature, except in certain specified cases, were essential to the well working of the measure, if it was considered desirable to maintain a permanent connection between the colony and the mother country. Parliament were about to grant to the colony a large and generous measure, and he hoped they would not render it unsatisfactory by refusing this small additional concession.

said, he must decline to follow the example of the mover and seconder of the Amendment, and to enter into questions respecting endowment and the voluntary principle in matters of religion. He conceived that they were not called upon to decide those questions; but, the colony of Victoria having decided that they would appropriate 50,000l. for religions worship, it would be quite impossible for that House, consistent with the principle asserted of giving power to the Colonies in local matters, to say that they should not be at liberty, for the welfare of their own society, and for the good of religion and morality, if they believed it to be so, to dispose of that sum if they thought proper, and appropriate it to that purpose. He should not think it necessary to alter any of the clauses contained in the schedule of the Bill; for one of the clauses of the Bill itself gave power to the Colonial Legislature to go beyond the restrictions which they had imposed upon themselves, and to repeal at any time, by a majority, the conditions by which they had bound themselves in the first instance. If, at any time hereafter, they should think it inexpedient to appropriate so large a sum, or any sum to the purposes of religious worship, this clause gave them power to alter it. The Bill in this respect followed out what had been done in Canada, and avoided the error that had been before committed. The difficulties that arose in Canada were owing to the restrictions which Parliament had placed upon the colonial Legislature in that respect. The Acts of 1791, and subsequent Acts, had restricted the Legislature of Canada from legislating on the subject of the clergy reserves. Full liberty had since been given them; and they had chosen to use that liberty by dissolving the connection between Church and State, and appropriating to secular purposes, the sum there to fore derived from the clergy reserves. The Government had not in any way contradicted or opposed the wish of the Legislature of Canada on that subject. Following the same principle, they allowed the people of Victoria to make the provision they now made, and to alter that provision afterwards if they should see fit. An objection had been most ingeniously urged by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe) as to the form of this Bill; but the force of that objection, it appeared to him (Lord J. Russell), rested entirely on the word "assent." If Parliament chose to recite that the Legislative Council of Victoria had passed a certain Bill which could not receive Her Majesty's assent, that among the provisions of that Bill were to be found the following—(specifying the clauses)—that it was exceedingly desirable that those provisions should have the force of law—and that it was declared by Parliament that they should have the force of law—there could be no objection to such an enactment, and it would be as good and valid an Act as an Act of the Legislature of Victoria. That being the case, the objection of the hon. Member was rather ingenious than solid; it amounted only to this, that the Royal Assent was not given to the identical Bill that had been passed by the Legislative Council of Victoria. But all the substance of the Bill would be assented to, and the parts omitted were not parts relating to the constitution of Victoria, but to the general powers which the Legislature had reserved to itself, upon the ground that certain Acts should not have the force of law until they had been submitted for Her Majesty's pleasure, or should be within a certain time disallowed. Those were the clauses omitted; and in common sense it was quite fair to say that the Bill was the Bill of the Legislative Council, though it had been amended in the manner he had stated. A very few words would make it quite clear that the Bill would have the force of an Act of Parliament, and when it was received in the colony, would have the force of law, and would be so acknowledged by all the Courts of Justice. The hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) proposed, that instead of the present Bill, instructions should be sent out to the Governor to assent to a Bill which should be within the power of the Legislature of Victoria. There was, however, one slight objection to sending out such instructions; it would be against the law. The Act of Parliament would not allow the Secretary of State to send out instructions of that kind to the Governor; and if he were to obey those instructions, his Act would have no validity; he would be forced to send the Bill home, which would have to lie thirty days before both Houses of Parliament, and could only become a valid Act after it had received Her Majesty's assent. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe), knowing that objection, had proposed a measure that would be valid—namely, that Parliament should pass a Bill giving full power to the Governor of Victoria, notwithstanding the existing law upon the subject, to give Her Majesty's assent to a Bill which should be within the competency of the Legislature of Victoria to pass. No doubt that would cure any defect; but it was a measure such as he (Lord J. Russell) would not venture to propose. It would be a measure to dispense with the provisions of an Act of Parliament—not by the Officers of the Crown, or Ministers responsible to that House, but by the Governor of the colony, according to his own interpretation. Might not the difficulty arise that the Governor had exceeded the power derived from that Act, and that therefore the Constitution of Victoria was null and void, and must be set aside? The hon. Gentleman said the Bill before the House was an absurd Bill; but such an absurdity was never propounded as that of giving the Governor of a colony power to dispense with the law of the land according to his own interpretation of what was legal. On the question as to the power of reserving Bills for Her Majesty's pleasure, and of disallowing certain Bills, he agreed in the main with the statement referred to in the despatch of the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Pakington) that under the present mode of exercising the Royal prerogative, the grievance complained of was rather theoretical than practical. If any attempt were made to define the questions which should be so reserved, they would probably include either too few or too many; and, in the latter case, the Colonial Legislature would be a great deal more restricted than it practically was at present. The proper course was to give general instructions to the Governor, and to use great forbearance with regard to any matter which was clearly and plainly one of local interest, so as to leave the local authority as free as possible. That the question was not very much felt in the colony he inferred from a conversation which he had had at Vienna with a member of the Legislative Council. He (Lord John Russell) had told him that the Bill would not contain any clause with respect to Imperial and local legislation, and he, in reply, said that he believed the colony would be quite ready to postpone that subject for future consideration—what they wished was to have the constitution, and the power of disposing of their waste lands, but that the other matter excited no great interest at present. He believed that the colonists would have as little ground of complaint on the way in which the prerogative of the Crown was used as we had in this country. A century or two ago that prerogative gave rise to very great remonstrance and complaint; but it was now acted on with such moderation and forbearance, that no complaint arose. Reference had been made by the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Duffy) to the qualifications of the elected members. If the legislative Council were to be elected, he thought it a wise thing to make the qualification high for the present. They had taken three securities for the moderate and wise conduct of their Legislative Council; they required that each member should he thirty years of age, that he should have a considerable sum in landed property, or an equivalent value, and that he should be named for a considerable period—for ten years. There was nothing more remarkable in the United States of America than the care with which they had provided that the excess of democracy should not impede the good order of society or the well-working of the constitution, He was delighted to see that our colonies, while adopting the frame work of the British constitution, and thus acknowledging its excellence, were at the same time careful to provide safeguards and barriers for the well-working of that constitution. He should not, therefore, propose to make any alteration in the measure that had been sent over. He quite agreed that it was a very large and liberal measure; and, at the same time, he rejoiced that it was so. He did not enter into the question of the particular sum voted for the civil lists. That sum might be too large; it might have been calculated on the extravagant prices of every article of sustenance which prevailed at the time in the colony. He did not defend their economy or censure their extravagance. It sufficed for him that this was the civil list which the colonists had, after due deliberation, proposed for themselves, and if that sum should at any time appear to be extravagant, the colony would have the power of reducing it. At the same time, he would not assent to any measure which would contravene the principles of justice or take away from men the incomes which they received and were encouraged to rely upon. The introduction of responsible government into almost all the Colonies had created a great change in the position of those who many years ago went out under the belief that they had obtained offices for life. It had been the care of the Secretary of State, of the Governors of the Colonies, and likewise of the colonial Assemblies generally, to make the change in such a manner that these persons should not have reason to complain of injustice. These questions had been discussed in a most satisfactory manner by the colonial Legislatures; and in the Council of New South Wales, in particular, the ability displayed was most remarkable. Whether he agreed or not in every particular of their constitutions, he was satisfied they used great deliberation in the framing of their provisions, and showed that affection and attachment which he should have expected to the constitution of the mother country; and he hoped and trusted that they might be the means of happiness and prosperity to the Colonies themselves.

said, he would beg to refer to the numerous meetings which had been held at Melbourne, Geelong, and ether places, at which resolutions were passed condemnatory of the proposed endowment clause. These demonstrations appeared to him entitled to some respect, and he thought the House ought to consider well the propriety of striking out this clause. He should like to know from the noble Lord whether, if this Bill went out intact, the Colonial Legislature would have the power to rescind the endowment clause?

said, that the colonial Legislature would hare the power of rescinding the clause, but that they would be bound to have the sanction of the Crown to any such alteration.

said, that, understanding from Mr. Speaker that the House would have the power of dealing with the details of the Bill, and especially the schedule, in Committee, he should withdraw his Amendment.

said, that almost all the objections which he had taken to the Bill that the House had just disposed of, applied with equal force to the measure now before them; but as the House had not thought them sufficient to arrest the second reading of the former Bill, he would not now trouble them by repeating or even alluding to those objections. Therefore, merely noticing that the New South Wales Bill was exactly in the same form, and came before them under pretty much the same circumstances, as far as time was concerned, as the measure which had just passed its second reading, he would at once state his reasons why he considered that they ought not to proceed further with the present Bill. Those reasons were not of a merely formal nature—for, if valid, they touched the very substance of the measure; and the position he would endeavour to establish was, that the Legislative Council of New South Wales had passed a Bill which did not represent the colonists personally, that it had not really acted for the interests of the colony, but for certain other interests; and that the constitution which had been sent home for that House to enact was not the primary object of the measure, but that almost every provision it contained for that purpose was made subordinate to the ulterior object of obtaining for certain colonists the absolute possession and ownership of enormous tracts of the public lands. This was the proposition which it was his business now to prove, and he must therefore solicit the attention of the House to his statement. The former Legislative Council of New South Wales assembled in the colony in 1843, and the first effect of its establishment was, that the Council got into a violent collision with the Governor. There were two funds in the colony, one of which was the ordinary revenue, that was to be appropriated by the Council, and the other the waste land fund, to be under the control of the Government; and great conflicts took place between the Council and the Government upon matters of economy. The result was, a keen struggle on the part of the Council to throw as much as possible of the expenditure of the colony upon the waste land fund, over which it had no power, and on the part of the Government, on the other hand, to throw it as much as possible upon the ordinary revenue, which was left at the disposal of the Council. At this time the waste lands of New South Wales, which extended along that very broad belt to the west of the Blue Mountains, were in possession of persons who depastured their flocks and herds upon them, paying a moderate licence-fee to the Crown for the privilege. In the beginning of 1844, matters being in the position politically that he had described, the then Governor of the colony ventured upon what would now be called a coup d'état, and suddenly, without consulting the Legislative Council, issued an order, by which he claimed, under the prerogative of the Crown, the right to increase the sum paid as an acknowledgment for the use of this pasture-land to some amount—not perhaps to an unreasonable amount, but to one which fairly raised the question as to whether such a proceeding was consistent with free government. He, for one, thought that it was not, and that the power over the purse vested in the Legislature was perfectly useless if the Government had at its entire command another resource derivable from the people, which it could raise without limit, and without reference to the assent or dissent of their representatives, and so as to afford no security for retrenchment. Upon this, violent political conflicts ensued, the details of which he would not mention, but the result was, that those who shared his political views on the subject completely succeeded, and convinced the colonial Government that it was vain to attempt to increase these payments by the mere act of the prerogative. At this point his interest, and that of others who took part in the controversy, ceased, but the interest of those in whose behalf they had entered into it,—viz., the squatters—did not also here cease, but rather, indeed, began. These persons found that they possessed a powerful organisation in their favour, by the aid of which they had been able to defeat the attacks made upon them by the local Government, and then the idea occurred to them—and particularly to those who were directing a large enterprise in the colony, which was originally intended to be a bank, but which, by rather a hold stroke, was converted into a great grazing establishment, that it would be extremely convenient and agreEARLe to acquire for their company leases of the Crown lands; and, accordingly, the graziers made representations to the home Government as to the necessity for their having such leases granted to them. These parties were much in the position of the ancient tyrants—like Pisistratus, for example, who, by professing that they were in danger from the enemies of the people, obtained body-guards to protect them, and then turned round and used those guards to enslave the very communities which had given them to them. Thus, these gentlemen, availing themselves of the political feeling which had been excited in their favour, and which was intended to prevent the Government from ill-treating them, turned their influence against their fellow-colonists, and succeeded, he was sorry to say, in securing to themselves a great portion of the waste lands. This was consummated in 1847 by the Act which passed through that House—as all such Acts did, unless some returned colonists rose and protested against them—without a word being said in opposition. It merely confiscated, or rather only commenced the confiscation of, tracts of land as large as England, Scotland, and Ireland united, for the benefit of some 2000 people, giving them leases of them, with pre-emptive rights to purchase at the then minimum price the land which they held on such leases. This was a very ambiguous sort of ownership. If well pushed and supported it might grow to a freehold, and if not so pressed it might, at the expiration of the lease, come to an end altogether. They found themselves in a position in which to attain their object it was absolutely necessary for them to have a considerable amount of political influence, because they saw that whether their leases and pre-emptive rights would ripen into absolute ownership or degenerate into a mere tenancy on sufferance would entirely depend on the political power which they could bring to bear upon the local Government, and, through them, on the home Government. To show that he was not now giving an ex post facto account of the circumstances, he would quote from a pamphlet which he published in the colony soon after these leases for fourteen years or for eight years, according to the particular district they affected, were first granted. The pamphlet contained this passage—

"Long before the period of fourteen, or even eight years expires, the squatters will be all-powerful in the Legislature, and most of the influential residents within the boundaries will have, as friends, as relations, or creditors, the strongest motives to assist them in asserting their claims. The benefit of restoring these lands to the public will be regarded with all the coldness of political apathy. The injury of depriving the squatter of his run will be felt by himself, by his connections, and by his class, with all the keenness of private and personal interest. In this unequal contest the Home Government is far more likely to side with the squatters than with the colonist. It will regard them as the germ of a loyalist party—as a party which, like the Cromwellian settlers in Ireland, will hold its lands by the tenure of union, and see in a separation from the mother country not so much the severing of political ties as the resumption of its unjust territorial acquisitions. How soon they will deem it politic to throw off the mask, and declare their runs to be what they even now consider them—their own—it is impossible to predict."

His prediction was certainly verified by the event, and from the time when this measure was adopted he dated the decline of public spirit and patriotism in the colony. He sat himself for three years in the Colonial Legislature, and found that those constitutional privileges for which the colonists had been contending, and those rights which the Home Government had withheld from them, sank entirely into secondary considerations, and the question whether the land should be set free to the purchase and industrial habitation of a class of small yeomanry coming from the mother country became the leading question; no other topic was able to gain the hearing which it secured before. So the thing went on till 1850. Then the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell) brought in a Bill to grant to the Australian Colonies the power of giving themselves constitutions without the necessity of again recurring to the authority of that House; and those constitutions, according to the noble Lord's view at that time, were to be validated by the mere consent of Her Majesty. At that time he had just arrived in England, and he would mention a fact to show how little he was then actuated by any feeling against this class. Although he was of opinion that the question, if neglected, would result in a repetition of the agrarian law of Rome, yet he thought these gentlemen, many of them respectable through birth, education, and character, formed an integral part of the community, and it was his theory of representation that all the elements of a community ought to be represented in a constitution. He therefore thought they ought to be represented, and he accordingly made a suggestion upon the subject to the Colonial Office when he came home, which was the only suggestion of his that had ever been attended to. To him it was that those gentlemen owed the representation they now possessed in the Legislative Council. The Act of 1850 separated the district of Port Phillip from New South Wales, and it empowered the then Legislative Council of New South Wales to pass an Electoral Act for the new Council. From that point he dated the origin of the evil which had now come to full maturity, and was to be dealt with to-night. Instead of proceeding, as they should have done, upon a more liberal basis, and endeavouring to equalise the representation of the colony, the then Council set themselves deliberately, as it appeared to him, to vitiate the representation of the colony, to exaggerate its imperfections, and to make it worse than it had previously been. He would give an instance of what had taken place. Having recommended that the squatters should have Members in the Legislative Council, he might be supposed to be some authority as to what sort of representation they ought to have. It appeared to him that the grazing interests would have been adequately represented by three Members, one each from the north, south, and west districts, but these sheepwalks were represented by eight out of the thirty-six Members of whom the Council was to be composed. The county of Cumberland, in which the city of Sydney was situated, was the original settlement, and it contained four-fifths of the population, and 12,000 out of the 22,000 electors of the colony, but that county was only represented by eight Members. The rest of the Act was conceived in the same spirit, and it gave such a preponderance to the pastoral districts that it was quite clear from that moment that they would be paramount in the Legislature. He would not ask the House to take these statements from him upon trust, for they might think he was prejudiced. The noble Lord the Member for London said the other night that he had come to fight in this House the same battle which he (Mr. Lowe) had fought in the colony. That was quite true; he had fought, and he intended to fight the same battle; and would not the noble Lord have reproached him with greater justice if he fought a different battle here from that which he had fought in the colony? He would refer to Westgarth's book on Port Phillip, which contained the following passages in reference to the deliberations of the Legislature which passed the Electoral Act—

"The electoral scheme now proposed by the Government for the two colonies was of the same unequal character as that which it was to supersede. To the city of Sydney, for example, with nearly one-fourth of the population of the colony, and perhaps a still larger share of property and intelligence, was to be allowed three representatives out of the thirty-two elective members, while representation was given to remote districts four or five times greater as compared with the ratio of population. This question formed the chief point in a long preliminary discussion, in which the Government views were advocated by about two-thirds of the Council, a more equal electoral distribution being contended for by the remainder. Some sharp party scintillations were evolved in the debate. The Liberals were charged with a disloyal Republicanism, and the squatters jocularly complimented on the convenient character of their new voters, who in the absence of human beings were supposed to be the sheep and cattle of their pastoral domains. The inequalities of the British constitution formed the fundamental argument of the majority, and the short representation of London was pleaded for that of Sydney. To give greater conclusiveness to this argument the Reform Act of 1832 was urged to have been a finality in regard to electoral change. Strange to say, this view of the case, so opposed to all British political experience, was doggedly maintained, refuted, and reasserted by long quotations and speeches; and it is still more remarkable that, at the very time when the representatives of the Crown were carrying their point in New South Wales by such an argument, the First Minister himself, as it afterwards appeared, was engaged at head-quarters in devising a further and comprehensive reform, which, it may be said, only an accident had then frustrated, and which, every one feels, will not be much longer deferred."

He was afraid that the House would tonight ratify a system ten times more unjust and unequal than had ever prevailed in England. The contrast between what the noble Lord was then endeavouring to do for England and what he now wished to do for New South Wales showed the difference between the politics of a man when he was dealing with the home country and with the colonies. All Colonial Ministers, of whatever politics, as soon as they came within the influence of the Colonial Office were perfectly alike. The Legislature which created the new council before its dissolution, agreed to a petition and remonstrance, which was sent to the home Government, in which they made various representations as to the five points, and then said in a very vigorous tone:—

"That in order, however, that Your Majesty's confidential advisers may have no excuse for the continuance of these abuses, we unhesitatingly declare that we are prepared, upon the surrender to the Colonial Legislature of the entire management of all our revenues, territorial as well as general, in which we include mines of every description, and upon the establishment of a constitution among us similar in its outline to that of Canada, to assume and provide for the whole cost of our internal Government, &c."

Those words, "the establishment of a constitution among us similar in its outline to that of Canada," were the text which had been laid hold of to fix the constitution upon the colonists, but he was certain that whatever interpretation these words would bear, the right one had not been put upon them. Several gentlemen who voted for them were in favour of an elective Upper Chamber, and it was not likely that so important a question as the constitution of the Council would have been settled in such a manner, and without any previous resolution having been arrived at respecting it. But the seed feel into good ground when it got into the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington). The right hon. Baronet snatched up the expression, and on the 15th of December, 1852, three days before the resignation of Lord Derby's Government, he wrote a despatch in which he turned it to advantage. When the right hon. Baronet had received from the Legislative Council an offer to make terms with him, a stipulation for an interchange between the Colonial Legislature and the Colonial Office, he would have acted much more judiciously if he had told them the must exercise their own discretion, subject to the limitations which had been placed upon their powers, and that the question of a nominated or an elected Council was one upon which Her Majesty's Government would not express any wish or interfere in any way, but would leave the colonists to deal with it as they pleased. If the right hon. Gentleman had so acted the present difficulty would never have arisen. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to have entered into a kind of compact with the colony that if they would agree to a nominated Upper Chamber the Government at home would give them the land-tax. And he held that the Government had no interest in inducing the colonists to consent to a nominated Chamber. If it were right to give the colonists the land-tax, the Government ought to give it them, but it ought not to have been used as an inducement for the colony to take either the one course or the other relative to the constitution of the Upper Chamber. The right hon. Gentleman had grievously erred in taking this course, and great credit was due to the Duke of Newcastle, who, on the 18th of January, 1853, just after his accession to office, wrote a despatch undoing what the right hon. Baronet had done. The noble Duke said:—

"You inform me that a Committee of the Council is engaged in the preparation of a scheme for the amendment of its constitution. As such a measure is impending, it is only necessary for me now to inform you that, as soon as it has passed the Legislature of the province, and received the approval of Her Majesty, the disposition of the waste lands, and the appropriation of the fund arising out of their sale and management, will be placed without reserve, under the supervision and control of the Legislative authority in the colony. This policy would, of course, be inoperative without legislation in-this country; and it will be necessary to invite Parliament to empower Her Majesty to make the proposed transfer of the functions at present vested in the Crown. I am ignorant of the shape which the project under the consideration of the Committee of the Council may eventually assume. The Legislative Council, indeed, in the petition before adverted to, favoured a constitution similar in its outline to that of Canada. It would be premature for me, without materials for forming a judgment, te pass an opinion Upon the policy of totally reconstructing the frame of government recently established; but I may state that I have always thought it probable that the experience and wisdom of the Council would dictate better provisions than those which were in the first instance adopted by Parliament for securing good government in New South Wales, and promoting harmony in the connexion subsisting between Great Britain and this important province of the empire."

Thus the noble Duke set the colony free from the compact that the right hon. Baronet his predecessor had formed. He would now come to the elections. The Legislative Council of New South Wales ceased to exist, and a new one had to be elected. It might have been supposed that such a body would be elected with great care and circumspection, but it was stated, on good authority that the subject of an elected or nominated Upper Chamber was never mentioned by any candidate except one, and he was unsuccessful. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) would no doubt say that the Legislative Council was to be taken as representing the wishes and opinions of the colony, Which might be true for the ordinary purposes of legislation; but this was an extraordinary duty imposed upon the constituents, and no appeal having been made to them, and no consideration given to the subject, the value of this assembly as a constituent body was gone altogether. The fact was, that at the period of this election the public mind of the colony was very much disturbed by the gold discoveries. Since that election, too, perhaps one-third of the present inhabitants of the colony had arrived and settled in it, who had no opportunity of recording their votes at the election, but who were bound by proceedings that had taken place before their arrival. The new Council, however, was elected, and in May, 1853, a Committee was appointed to consider the constitution of the colony. They presented their Report, and their object appeared to be not to consider what would be best for the Wants of the colony, but what would be best to subserve the purpose of keeping the public lands in the few hands who now possessed them, and who made enormous fortunes thereby. The Committee of which the Colonial Secretary and the Attorney General were two official nominees, met to consider their Report on the 27th of May, 1853.The question put Was:—

"Are we bound by the terms of the remonstrance and petition of 1851, to construct a Legislature composed of a nominated Upper House, and of an elective Legislative Assembly, similar to the Legislature of Canada?"

So that the Committee spoke as if they were bound by the compact with the right hon. Baronet (Sir. J. Pakington) and had no discretion. Then the Committee reported as follows with regard to the constitution of the Legislative Council:—

"As regards the constitution of the Legislative Council, your Committee consider that, not only by the terms of their declaration and remonstrance of the 5th of December, 1851, but by the letter of agreement to those terms of Sir John Pakington, on the 15th of December, 1852, the House is pledged to a constitution 'similar in its outline to that of Canada.' The subsequent despatch of his successor, the Duke of Newcastle, appears, indeed, to admit of some latitude of discretion on this most important subject. But your Committee are of opinion, that the offer contained in their declaration and remonstrance necessarily included a nominated Legislative Council in the first instance, and from this offer, independently of the question whether they are strictly bound by it or not, they see no reason to depart."

So the Committee believed they had been set at liberty, but they did not choose to be free. They were like the man liberated at the storming of the Bastile, who had been imprisoned for forty-nine years, and who hired a man to lock him up for the remainder of his life. It was no part of his case that an elected Upper House was better than a nominated one, but it was for the colony to choose between them. The scene of the drama was New South Wales, which was not long ago better known under the title of Botany Bay. The Committee said:—

"They conceive that an Upper House, framed on this principle—the creation of hereditary titles—while it would be free from the objections which have been urged against the House of Lords, on the ground of the hereditary right of legislation which they exercise, would lay the foundation of an aristocracy, which, from their fortune, birth, leisure, and the superior education these advantages would superinduce, would soon supply elements for the formation of an Upper House, modelled, as far as circumstances will admit, upon the analogies of the British Constitution."

This was the language held in a colony to which transportation ceased only fifteen years ago. They went on to say—

"Such a House would be a close imitation of she elective portion of the House of Lords, which is supplied from the Irish and Scotch peerage; nor is it the least of the advantages which would arise from the creation of a titled order, that it would necessarily form one of the strongest inducements not only to respectable families to remain in this colony, but to the upper classes of the United Kingdom and other countries, who are desirous to emigrate, to choose it for their future abode."

He would ask the House whether such a Report could be supposed to represent the feelings of the emigrants—the mechanics and labourers, and even of the tradesmen and proprietors of the colony? He should have thought that the saying—

"Et genus et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,

"Vix ea nostra voco—"

would have been insisted upon with the utmost rigour in such a colony, many of the persons in which bad nothing to gain by going too far back with their pedigree. The Committee went on to say—

"Acting on these principles, your Committee have inserted in the civil list to be granted to Her Majesty an adequate fund for pensioning off, at their present rates of salary, all the higher functionaries of the Government who may be displaced by the new order of things likely to arise when responsible Government takes effect among us."

The noble Lord the Member for London would find that in the 59th clause of the Bill this recommendation was carried out. The salaries had been increased very properly during the high prices of the gold discoveries, but these officers were pensioned off, not upon the salaries which they had been receiving up to 1851, but upon the increased salaries which they had been receiving for only one year. And be it remembered that the Committee contained two gentlemen—the Attorney General and the Colonial Secretary—who might profit by this arrangement. The Committee then decided that the salary of the Governor General should be 7,000l. per annum, and that the increased salary take effect from the passing of the Bill. Then came a "Motion made and question put, that the salary of the Colonial Secretary be 2,000l. per annum." Nothing was said about the Colonial Secretary not voting. Then there was a Motion "that 9,500l. be reserved for retiring pensions." That also was carried. It was very true that 9,500l. was not enough to pay them all, but the Act gave it to them. They must receive it somewhere, and it was a subterfuge to say they would have to submit to any abatement. The next occurrence which he had to chronicle was nearly contemporaneous with these events. It was a matter of immense importance to the colony, though probably not very interesting to the Imperial Parliament. The only relief to the system of leasing was, that the Crown had the power of reserving tracts of land for townships, over which the right of pre-emption in the squatters did not obtain. Just about this time the Executive Government of the colony, without the knowledge of the people, contrived to give these gentlemen tracts of land reserved for the pupose of making towns, the effect of which would be that these men would get possession of land, as though for pastoral purposes, with the right of buying it up at 1l. an acre, the greater part of which was intended for townships, and would be retailed hereafter by the yard for streets and squares. He mentioned that because it singularly occurred just at the moment when the predominance of that class in the Council seemed perfectly well established. He would say nothing about the debate upon the Bill, which seemed to meet the approbation of the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), except that it would have been better if the Council had thought less of Burke, Cicero, Plato, and Montesquieu, and more of the interests of the country for which they were legislating. The Bill did not pass at once. The Council adjourned for five or six months, to obtain the opinion of the colony. The colony did express their opinion. There was an enormous number of petitions on one side, and a very small number on the other. The majority of the petitioners concurred in urging objections on four grounds—first, that the electoral districts were not equal; second, that the Bill was not to be altered unless two-thirds of the House agreed; third, as to pensions; and, fourth, as to the nominative Upper House. There was great unanimity at most of the public meetings, and there were no public meetings the other way. No effect was produced. The petitions were utterly disregarded, and the Legislature passed the Bill. The noble Lord said, when the Legislature deserved the people's confidence there was no occasion for petitions. What occasion, then, had people to go to public meetings? But meetings were held all over the colony, and ended in the same result. Surely, if a public meeting were deliberately advertised and held, the resolutions adopted went forth as the opinion of the district, and he would undertake to say that in almost every town and district meetings were held, and the opinion, without exception, went one way, the minority being very small. But the Council, which was said to represent the feelings of the colonists, did not in the least modify these views. They carried them out exactly as though no public meetings had been held. The Bill was sent home; but since that another effort had been made. A gentleman moved in the Legislative Council this Resolution, the first of a series—

"That the Bill was passed in opposition to the wishes of a large majority of the colonists, who desire, as the basis of local government, a representative system, and a just distribution of the electoral power."

In a full House three Gentlemen spoke in favour of that Resolution, and no one spoke against it. Although those Gentlemen spoke with great temper and great force of argument, no reply was offered, and the Council went to a division, which was ten in favour of the Resolution and twenty-four against it. But so much had opinion changed that a majority of the elected Members were in favour of the Resolution. Then they petitioned the Imperial Parliament. He had himself presented several petitions, setting forth in the clearest and most unanswerable manner the grievance of this constitution. Several elections had taken place since. They had all been determined in favour of an elective Council, with a single exception. A Gentleman, a large squatter, who represented a district, was going away, and not feeling quite confident that the district, if left to itself, would elect a successor with equally strong predilections in favour of the Bill, adopted the ingenious device of placing his resignation in the good and safe hands of a Friend, with orders not to send it in until an approved person presented himself. That was the way the election of a supporter of the Bill was secured in one instance, but a more unconstitutional act, to say the least of it, could not be imagined. It was useless to say the people should have done more. They had held meetings, they had petitioned their Legislature, and they had petitioned Parliament. Finding the Bill put off another year, they petitioned Parliament again. They returned gentlemen who were in favour of an elective Council. They did more. In the extremity of their despair, although perfectly well aware how ill the elective system represented the people of New South Wales, they went to the new Governor, Sir William Denison, and asked him to dissolve the Council, that the colonists might have an opportunity of expressing their opinions upon the question of a nominative or elective Council. The answer of Sir William Denison showed that the feeling of the colony was in favour of an elective, and not of a nominative Council. Sir William Denison refused their request, and he did not mean to reflect upon him for that, or to say that he was not right in doing so. In the answer of Sir William Denison was this passage—

"I say 'unnecessarily;' for, whatever the opinion of the Members of a new Council might be upon the subject of the form of government to be established henceforward in this colony, it could not, at this late period, be made to operate in modifying the course of action of Her Majesty's Government in relation to a measure which has been submitted for consideration in accordance with the forms prescribed by law. I may further remark, that were the opinion of a new Council decidedly adverse to the measure which has been so submitted, and which may possibly have received the sanction of Parliament, that contention with the Imperial Parliament, which you so earnestly desire to avoid, would become almost inevitable."

The Governor refused, first, because it was too late; and, secondly, lest Parliament should have sanctioned the Act, and the Council be placed in a position of antagonism with Parliament. If the Council had really represented the colonists, and the Act had not been the Act of a small clique acting against the feeling of the colony, would not the answer of the Government have been that which the noble Lord gave? "The Council represents the feeling of the colony. What is the use of appealing from Cæsar to Cæsar?" The Governor did not say that, and bad as was the elective system, infamously framed to purposely prevent the popular voice being heard, he really believed, if by any possibility they could ascertain the popular opinion on this measure, it would be rejected, and an elective substituted for a nominative Council. He observed that a large deputation had waited on the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Colonies, composed of gentlemen of whom he wished to speak with the utmost respect. All their names were known to him. They were large holders of waste lands, which was the very question in debate. He remembered that a member of the Council said to one of those gentlemen, whose name he would not mention, "You hold 3,000,000 of acres of the public land." The gentleman replied, that if he would refer to his licence he would find he had not so much. Upon which the other retorted, "I said 'you hold,' I never said you paid for them." He would remind the noble Lord that every person who held a large portion of the public land was deeply interested in having a nominative Council, because it was essential to his interest to have some body not amenable to popular influence, which would not change when the revolution came, as it inevitably would come, upon this question of waste lands. All writers upon the colony had pointed out that people went from thence to America because the lands were confiscated for the benefit of a few large graziers. The feeling was so strong upon the subject that he spoke advisedly when he said that, unless the question were settled by the wisdom of Parliament or by the Home Government, it would end in bloodshed and civil War. He saw no other outlet for the strong feeling which was excited by the finest and best lands being retained in a few hands and the worst lands only being open to the public. That was a system which could not last, and was at best but a shortsighted policy. He did not blame those who had appointed the Legislative Council, and who sought to perpetuate their system, believing that in a few years they would make fortunes, and then leave the result to be fought for by others. It must be remembered the possession of the waste land was different now to what it was at first. Then stock was boiled down for tallow, but now there were good markets for cattle, and, consequently, the value of bullocks and sheep had risen enormously, while the land upon which that stock was reared was correspondingly increased in value. He said that, seeing this measure was carried against the will of the colony as expressed in petitions and at public meetings—seeing that petitions were entirely disregarded, that no answers were condescended to the arguments of its opponents—seeing the mighty stake for which the parties were playing—he thought he had made out a case, not, perhaps, for interfering with the Bill itself, but for sending it back to the colony, or for dissolving the Legislative Council, and calling the attention of the people to the issue raised, and leaving them to decide upon it. If they chose to have a nominative House, let them have it; if they chose to pay their officers at such immense rates, let them do so. In one instance he might mention, an officer, who was a powerful assistant in framing the constitution, had his salary raised from 1,500l. to 2,000l. a-year, and beyond that, in a fit of transcendent enthusiasm, he was voted eight years' back salary. But he said, as circumstances stood, they ought not to take upon themselves to deny to the people of the colony the power of dealing with the question. The simple fact that the Council was elected without the slightest mention of the subject to be dealt with was conclusive. There was no hurry—no emergency. The emergency would arise if wrong was done—if a system of irritation was created which would not subside until the whole system was swept away, and material injury done to the connection between the colony and the mother country. Let the House consider the conduct of the Council from first to last; the value of the prize; the fact that the election of 1851 was packed, nothing said to the constituent body on this question, and repacked upon the same principle; its refusal to set the land free from the terms imposed by the right hon. Member for Droitwich (Sir J. Pakington), when liberty was given by the Duke of Newcastle; the scheme of hereditary peerage in New South Wales, which could not have emanated from the people; the scheme of a nominated Upper House, which had been repudiated by all the other colonies; the question of the civil list; that a public officer was sent home to argue the case of the law, which required that two-thirds of the two branches of the Legislative Council should consent before any alteration should be made, and it was clear no alteration would be consented to so long as it could be avoided. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell), he understood, was willing to modify the clause, but it was discreditable to those who proposed that a clause passed against public opinion should be perpetuated by giving to a minority in fact the power of maintaining it for ever. It seemed to be clear that those who came to act for the colony were quite willing, in order to get a nominated Upper House and full dominion over the waste lands, to give up the clauses which the noble Lord had struck out of the Bill. Those clauses were palpable grievances in New South Wales. Upon one occasion a person advanced a large sum of money upon the faith of an Act, which was voted by the Colonial Office, and the person who advanced the money was obliged to obtain an emergency Act, or he would have lost his money. No one could tell the law under which he was living Serious inconveniences were felt from the public domains being thus dealt with, inconveniences which no community would long submit to; and he concluded, therefore, that the question ought to be once more fairly raised, exactly in the same way as he had suggested in the former instance. He felt the greatest interest in the measure, having striven for many years to emancipate the colony from the dominion of the Colonial Office. When he first knew New South Wales the Colonial Office was so heavy an incubus that every friend of the colony felt it to be a duty to endeavour to alleviate the burden. They triumphed to a certain extent in that, but it was the destiny of colonies which freed themselves from despotism at home to fall under the equally onerous tyranny of oligarchies among themselves. He felt perfectly convinced that if this measure passed through the House of Commons—and he spoke as one knowing the subject of which he treated—they would form a clique in the colony which would render the Home Government odious, and assist in establishing a needless agitation, and creating discord which would never terminate until it was overthrown, and with it the constitution they were now asked to pass, together with, probably, the connection between the colony and this country. They must remember that the colony had been raised upon a convict basis; they had superadded a land monopoly, which gave some of the most respectable colonists interests adverse to the rest of the colony, and they were now going to superinduce a close constitution contrary to the wishes and feelings of the people, which would render them contemptible and ridiculous in the eyes of the other colonies. Against that course was enlisted every sentiment of the great mass of the people, who looked to the waste lands, not as the patrimony of a few, but as the field for the labours of their children and their descendants. They had raised in the colony a spirit which would be difficult to allay respecting this land question, and now they were going to crown all by listening to the voice of a Legislature which he had shown never was elected to represent the colonists, before whom the question had never been brought upon the elections—a Legislature which had shown the greatest contempt for popular feeling; and to that body they were now going to intrust the future destinies of that great community, and to place the interests of the many in the hands of the few. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

said, he willingly seconded the Amendment, being fully impressed with the impolicy of passing the Bill in its present shape. He regretted that so few Members of the House could be found to pay attention to the affairs of those vast possessions which were making such wonderful progress. The House should remember they were legislating for countries which one day would become the England of the Pacific, and any improper legislation might produce mischief which it would be the work of ages to rectify. Some of the clauses in the Bill appeared to him to be very objectionable—the civil list, and especially the 28,000l. set apart for public worship—or, in other words, the endowments of all kinds of religionists. He based his objections to the second reading chiefly on the constitution of the Legislative Council, which he believed to be entirely at variance with the views and wishes of nine-tenths of the inhabitants of the colonies. Although he had no particular acquaintance with the hon. Member for Kidderminster, (Mr. Lowe) and was not identified with him in politics with respect to the Australian colonies, yet, being intimately connected with Australian business, having relations with many gentlemen who had resided in Australia, and being every week brought into contact with eminent colonists, he was bound to say that he never yet met with an Australian colonist in favour of this nominee Upper Chamber. The merchants of Sydney—by no means a democratic body—were opposed to it to a man, and, after a careful inquiry, he had come to the conclusion that the sentiments of the great majority of the people of New South Wales were expressed in a petition signed by 2,630 inhabitants of Sydney, which the hon. Member for Kidderminster had laid before the House, and which stated that the proposed Constitution Bill was entirely erroneous in principle, and prayed that its consideration should be postponed for a month, in order to give the colonists time to consider and remonstrate against it. The opinion of the independent Members of the Legislative Council was in accordance with the sentiments embodied in that petition. In conclusion he would observe, that when Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, Van Diemen's Land, and other colonies, possessed elected Upper Chambers, he saw no reason for excepting New South Wales.

said, whatever complaints might be made of the tyranny of the Colonial Office, he trusted that the time would never come when the colonies would have just cause to complain of the tyranny of the House of Commons. It was a great evil when any portion of their fellow-subjects had reason to complain that their views had been thwarted by the home Government, but that evil was slight to what would arise should that House be precipitated into a conflict with one of our most important possessions on a subject upon which that colony had expressed its decided opinion. He would beg to remind the House that, in treating of this matter, he was not the advocate of any party or any class, and he might, therefore, fairly point out the precise issue which they had to decide. For a long period a struggle had been going on in the colony; the controversy had at length been decided in a manner which would render unnecessary all further interference of Parliament if the House would assent to the Bill now before it, which would give legal validity to the constitutional Act passed by the Colonial Legislature. The colonists had pressed their claims in every shape, demanding a power of deciding for themselves what form of government was best suited to them, and earnestly protesting against any body of men dictating to them what form of Legislature or representation should be adopted. Yet the House was now called upon to set aside the deliberate decisions of the colonists upon grounds which amounted simply to this—that we knew better here what sort of constitution they require than their own representatives sitting at Sydney. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe), when a member of the Colonial Legislature, had himself advocated, with no less ability than he had shown that night, the importance of having two Chambers, one of representatives, and the other of nominees. He did not reproach the hon. Gentleman for having changed his mind—[Mr. LOWE: I have not changed my mind]—but, having done so, he ought to be a little tolerant of the views of others. To continue, however. The agitation had reached a climax about the time when the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir J. Pakington) assumed the seals of the Colonial Department. He wrote a despatch which in effect conceded the chief demands of the colonists, and which certainly pledged the Imperial Government to concede the control of the local revenues if a constitutional Act, similar in all essential respects to that now before the House, were carried. After the terms of his predecessor's despatch had been substantially assented to by the Duke of Newcastle, the movement in the colony commenced which had resulted in the measure now before the House; and the House must bear in mind that it was no hastily prepared measure. It was first brought forward in 1852, and it was adjourned to 1853, in the first Session of which it was discussed at great length in the Australian Council. The same majorities which carried the second reading of the Bill carried, in Committee, the more important provisions which were now objected to; and he contended, therefore, that if ever a measure had been passed which was the deliberate result of the decision of the Legislature, this was that measure. The hon. Member for Kidderminster argued, however, that the Legislative Council of New South Wales was not competent to decide upon this subject, and that it did not represent the feelings of the majority of the people. However great the authority of the hon. Gentleman might be on such a question, he would ask the House to look at the facts of the case, and, fortunately, there were ample means of arriving at a correct judgment with, regard to it. The hon. Gentleman had quitted the colony before these debates came on, and, therefore, he, like others, merely represented what he had been informed upon the subject. It had been stated that there had been a number of petitions against the Bill which had passed the local Legislature, and that, in fact, there had been in the aggregate as many as 12,000 signatures to them. He had examined the original petitions, and he found that the two which had the largest number of names were in a great part signed by the same persons, and in many instances the head of the family had himself subscribed the names of all his children. He had no personal interest in the matter, and he admitted that there was a vigorous and active party in the colony who took a strong view hostile to this constitution; but he found no evidence to prove that they represented anything like the majority of the people of the colony. He thought that a readier and far safer means of testing the real feelings of the permanent inhabitants of New South Wales in a constitutional way, would be to take the votes of the Members of the Council, and to refer to the numbers of the constituencies which they represented. Acting upon this principle, he found, leaving out Sydney, where he admitted the feeling was the other way, that the proportion of those for the nominee Council were as two to one of those against it. Omitting Cumberland, which appeared to be pretty equally divided, he found that 7885 persons were represented by those who voted for it, and 3700 by those who voted against it. The House must remember, in looking at this question, that those pastoral districts which were spoken of as mere sheep-walks were mere sheep-walks no longer. Every day the tide of population was pouring in with irresistible force, and what were sheep-walks a few years ago were now populous districts, in which towns and villages were rapidly springing up. It must be remembered, also, that while in Sydney the population had increased seventy per cent in the last ten years, in the pastoral districts it had increased two hundred per cent within the same period. In his opinion, therefore, the Legislative Council of New South Wales had acted with wisdom in giving a representation to those large districts, and he perfectly sympathised with the owners of those tracts of land when, in the year 1849, they complained that they were not represented in the Assembly. The next complaint was directed against what was called the extravagant Civil List of the colony, and the corrupt bargains which it implied. Now it ought to be remembered that the despatch of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Pakington) which originated the movement in the Colonial Legislature, pointed out the necessity of making permanent provision for the public service of the colony. He could not, of course, anticipate what the future decision of the Colonial Legislature on this subject would be, but he thought that if the present Bill passed into law the colonists would not be able to say that they had been prevented, by restrictions imposed on them by the home Government, from carrying into effect measures which appeared to them to be for the advantage of the colony. There were strong reasons why the important branches of the civil service should not be subjected to an annual vote; but, whether that were right or wrong, the shape in which the Bill now stood was one which admitted—which even invited—future legislation, if circumstances rendered it necessary. The last topic he had to notice was what was called the monstrous proposition of having a nominee council as one branch of the legislature. Now, a good deal might be said on both sides, but there was an essential difference between the nominee system, such as had long existed in the colonies, and a nominee system, when that which was called responsible government was fairly established. Under that responsible government the constitution of the Upper House would be, in his opinion, a question of secondary importance. Once agree that the administration is to be in the hands of the men who have the confidence of the representatives of the people, and the Upper House, however composed, will be sure to adapt itself to that state of things. It appeared from this discussion, that there existed a want of confidence in the minds of some persons as to the power of the colonists to govern themselves, but he could only say that he had that confidence in his fellow-countrymen and in their wisdom as to be quite willing to intrust them with the power of modifying their system of government when it became imperfect. He relied with confidence on the good effect that would be produced in the colonies by the passing of the present Bill, which would teach the colonists that, for future advancement, they would have to rely entirely upon themselves. He was confident that a Government persuaded of that fact, and actuated by the spirit which had been displayed by many Members of the Colonial Legislative Assemblies, would prove competent to carry out measures calculated to increase the wealth, population, and civilisation of the colony.

said, that if he had the same feeling on the subject as the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, he should not venture to address the House in reference to the Bill under consideration. The hon. Gentleman, as a Minister of the Crown, said it was a matter of comparative indifference to him how the Upper Chamber was constituted, but he was afraid that Parliament might offend the colonies by sending back these Bills. Now, the hon. Gentleman ought to have recollected that another Bill had been sent back—the South Australian Bill—because it was repugnant to the feelings of the colonists, and had been obtained by gross corruption and something amounting to systematic fraud. He would undertake to make out clearly to the House that the proposed nominee Upper Chamber was not only directly opposed to the wishes of the people of New South Wales, but was also in antagonism to the feelings of the inhabitants of the other colonies. So long ago as 1848, Sir William Denison wrote to the Colonial Office expressing himself strongly opposed to a nominee Upper House. Sir William Denison was of opinion that Government should have as little as possible to do with the nomination or selection of the Members of the Assembly; but if the present Bill were adopted, Government would have the entire selection of, and complete influence over, the Members of the Upper Chamber in New South Wales? An elective Upper Chamber had been adopted by Van Diemen's Land, was sanctioned by the Home Office, and was now established as part of the law of the land. What was the feeling in another colony? In the colony of Victoria the Council appointed by ballot a Select Committee, to whom the consideration of the question of the constitution was intrusted; and that Committee unanimously concurred in thinking that the social condition of the colony rendered a close assimilation to British institutions impossible. The Committee unanimously advised that the Legislative Council should be wholly elective, representing the wealth, the education, and especially the settled interests of the country, and stated that the nominee system in the colonies was an utter failure, constituting no check to extreme views, but insuring a preponderance to whatever party had supreme power at the time. A similar feeling was shown to have existed wherever there was an opportunity for expressing popular opinion, however much office-holders might attempt to stifle it. What had been the case in New South Wales? On the 22nd of June, 1853, upon the consideration of the draught Bill of the constitution for that colony by the Select Committee, there, a Motion was made that the Governor General, with the advice of the Executive Council, should have the sole and unlimited power to appoint the Members of the Legislative Council. That Motion was carried by four to three; but in the majority there were the Colonial Secretary and the Attorney General, and the two other approver of the Motion might have been, for aught he knew, nominee Members of the Council. Again, it was moved by the Colonial Secretary, that the tenure of office of the Members of the Legislative Council should be for life; and an Amendment was moved to the effect, that the tenure of office should be for a term of years. Three Members of the Committee voted for the Amendment, while the Colonial Secretary and the Attorney General recorded their votes against it. He asked why we should force on this colony a constitution that would not work, and that was not to be imposed upon others? He (Mr. Maguire) maintained that the people of the colony were in favour of an elective Chamber, which had been abundantly proved by the admirably-drawn and numerously-signed petitions which had been presented to Parliament as well as to their own Legislative Assembly; and for that and other reasons he would vote for the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman.

said, he had been informed that it was the intention of the Government to introduce a general measure for regulating the law affecting masters and workmen, and, if that were the case, he would wish to withdraw the Bill.

said, that the Bill of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) proposed to extend the existing law with reference to the relation between masters and workmen in certain trades to persons engaged in the iron manufacture, and he understood that considerable objection was entertained to the measure, especially in Birmingham. A Bill, comprising between 300 and 400 clauses, for consolidating the whole law relating to masters and workmen had been drawn, and might be seen by hon. Members in the library; but although that Bill had been under the consideration of the Lord Chancellor, and would, he believed, be laid upon the table of the other House, he could not hold out any hope of its being passed during the present Session. The object of that Bill was simply to consolidate the law, without applying it to any trades beyond those which it now affected. When that measure was brought forward the hon. Gentleman could, if he chose, propose that its provisions should apply to the particular trades to which this Bill referred.

said, that under these circumstances, as the late period of the Session rendered it impossible to carry this Bill through Parliament during the present year, he would move that the Order for the second reading be discharged.