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Globe, Volume VII, Issue 730, 21 October 1876, Page 2

After the manner in which the Legislative Council have handled the Counties Bill, we should not be at all surprised to find a dead-lock take place between the Lower House and the “ Lords.” Differences of opinion between the two Chambers on cardinal points of policy, such as those involved in the questions at issue, can scarcely fail to produce any other result. The Upper House, after mature deliberation—inasmuch as during their enforced leisure its members had ample opportunity of watching the doings of the House of Eepresentatives—have excised from the Bill some of its most prominent features. The back-bone, in fact, has been drawn out of the Bill, when the borrowing powers of County Councils were expunged from it. We cannot help regretting it. County Councils might hove been safely trusted to manage their own affairs; •md, so long as they were compelled by the law to find due security for wha; l iana they might require for public purposes, we see no reason why thes" borrowing powers should not be unlimited. As to the Legislative Council having made the chairmen of counties ineligible for seats in the General As sembly, we fully approve of the alteration. When the Abolition scheme wa* first debated, Sir Julia* Vog*J was strongly of opinion that they should not

be allowed to sit in Parliament. And for good reasons too; he had had a bitter experience of the log-rolling introduced, in the House by Superintendents of Provinces, who simply sat there as mere delegates of the respective Provinces they represented, and who looked with the greatest possible jealousy upon anything coming out of colonial revenue, which might be applied to Provincial purposes other than their own. The Lower House, however, struck out the original clause as laid down by Sir Julius, but the Lords have again replaced it, and we sincerely trust that it may remain as it now is. The amendment in the mode of electing County Chairmen, we can hardly look upon with favor. County Councillors, instead of the ratepayers, will now select' them. It is, of course, what could only be expected from the Conservative elements composing the nominated House, which is now applying the pruning knife with so much vigour to the branches, —the lower ones too—of that constitutional tree, the growth of which originated with the present Ministry. Looking at the situation with unprejudiced eyes, however, we very much fear that signs of a Parliamentary dead-lock are but too (dearly defined in the proceedings of the next few days.