GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 425, 22 October 1875, Page 3

GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

THE PROROGATION. [By Electric Telegraph.] [Per Press Agency.] Thursday, October 21. The Assembly was prorogued at 3 o’clock. The following is the Governor’s speech.;— Hon. Legislative Councillors and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives— The state of the public business enables me to relieve you from further attendance in Parliament, and I take occasion to thank you for the zeal and attention which have marked the discharge of your onerous duties during the session. Having expressed your satisfaction at the completion of the contract for the laying of the telegraph cable between New South Wales and New Zealand, you will be glad to be assured that before the next session of this Assembly the colony will be placed in telegraphic connection with the Australian Colonies and with Great Britain. The conditions of the contract for the mail service via San Francisco, which you have ratified, gives promise that on this occasion the permanency and efficiency of that service will be secured. Gentlemen of the House of Representatives—

I thank you for the liberality with which you have granted supplies for the current year. They will be administered with economy and care for the attainment of the objects for which they have been voted. The Immigration and Public Works Appropriation Act, to which I have assented on behalf of Her Majesty, by giving distinctly a statement of the immigration and public works loan accounts, and by showing separately all appropriations chargeable to loans, will render easily intelligible a subject upon which there has been some misapprehension; and with the Public Revenues Act and the the Stamp Duties Act, to which I have also assented, will effect a valuable administrative improvement. Hon Legislative Councillors and Gentlemen op the House op Representatives—

The question relative to the abolition of the provincial form of Government in these islands, which I intimated at the opening of this session you would be invited to decide, has been answered by the passing of the Abolition of Provinces Act, by large majorities in both Houses of the Assembly. I have assented to that Act on behalf of her Majesty, It will be the duty of the Government, during the recess, to give attention to the consolidation

of existing Provincial Acts or Ordinances, and to prepare such general laws of a municipal character as will facilitate and render uniform the administrative work of the local governing bodies now existing, or hereafter to be established in the several provincial districts, so that the constitutional change, which is appointed to take place at the close of the first session of the next Parliament, may be accomplished with ease. The readjustment of the representation, effected by the Representative Act, will meet the altered circumstances of the several electoral districts in which an increase in the number of members has been made. I earnestly trust that, under the blessing of Divine Providence, the measures you have authorised in this session may tend to promote the progress of this colony and the welfare of the people.

The House met at 2.30 p.m, and prorogued at three.

Mr Luckie made a personal explanation that what he told Mr Bridges was purely conversational, and not a special communication, as appeared from the evidence. Government told Mr O’Neill that it had not yet been decided where the cable would touch New Zealand. The Native Minister said, in reply to Mr W. Kelly, that Government intended to have next session as early as possible, and earlier than the present; but they could not name the exact date yet. In reply to Mr McGillivray, Sir D. McLean said Government would, during the recess, prepare a Bill giving local self-Government, and would be ready with it next session. His Excellency prorogued Parliament till the second of December next. It was supposed that Sir D. Bell would take formal farewell of Parliament as Speaker and member, but he allowed Parliament to close without saying anything.