SIR G. GREY’S CONSTITUTION ACT AMENDMENT.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1805, 3 December 1879, Page 3

SIR G. GREY’S CONSTITUTION ACT AMENDMENT.

[Bt Telegraph.] WELLINGTON, December 3. The following is Sir G. Grey’s Bill to amend the Constitution Act:—

1 There shall be a Board consisting of the , persons from time to time holding the follow--1 mg offices :—The Speaker of the House of ‘ Representatives, the Colonial Secretary, the 6 Surveyor-General, and the Registrar-General, * and any three such persons shall form a 3 quorum, and may exercise all the powers 1 and functions vested in the Board. The Board may make such rules for the | conduct of its business as it thinks fit, so long as the same are consistent with this Act. Within three months after the end of the J present session of Parliament, and within ’ three months after the taking of every census, taken under any law for the time being in 1 force, the Board shall divide New Zealand into the same number of electoral districts as the number of members to be elected for tbe colony, exclusive of Maori members. This division into electoral districts shall be so made that the number of members assigned to each electoral district shall bear to the whole number of the members of the House of Representatives, as nearly as may b ', the same proportion as the number of electors within such district shall bear to the whele number of electors in New Zealand. The districts shall bo of two classes, country districts and town districts. The country districts shall, as far as practicable, be arranged that only one member shall be elected for each district. When the Board shall have performed the functions hereby imposed upon it, it shall make a report to the Governor, setting forth the names and boundaries of the proposed electoral districts and of the number of members assigned to each. The Government shall cause such report to be forthwith printed in the Government " Gazette.” Immediately after the commencement of the session of Parliament which shall follow next after the publication of any such report, it shall be presented by the Governor to the House of Representatives, and a Select Committee of members shall bo thereupon appointed to consider such report, and either to adopter alter and amend the same as the said committee shall think fit; and upon their adoption, alteration, or an • idment of such report, the committee shall prepare a report stating the reasons for the adoption, alteration, or amendment of the said report, and shall lay the same before the House. The House shall thereupon proceed to consider the report of their committee, and shall either adopt, alter, or amend said report as the House may deem expedient, and upon the ultimate adoption by the House of such report in its original, altered, or amended form, the electoral district so fixed by the House of Representatives, and the number of members assigned to each shall constitute the electoral districts into which New Zealand is to be divided until such <

time as another census of the colony has been taken and a now report has been adopted by the House of Representatives of New Zealand in the manner set forth in this Act.