WELLINGTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 577, 15 May 1858, Page 4

WELLINGTON.

Our files from this province, just receivl extend from the 31st of March to the sth

May. As we have had some insight into tie occurrences of latest date in papers' -brought la few days ago, it will be only desirable to recipitulate the proceedings consequent upon tie crisis at which affairs had arrived when we lass noticed them in order. Our readers will remeni\ her that Mr. Wakefield had succeeded in passing through the Council an amended reply to his\ Honor's address. This fact was held to naark\ sufficiently the rejection of the pre-existent \ Ministry; and Mr. Wakefield was sent for. Ho \ proposed to amalmagate the offices of Treasurer \ and Secretary and to do without a responsible Solicitor. Dr, Featherston rejected this proposition as contrary to existing law. Mr. Waljcfield returned to the Council, explained hia case, and brought forward a bill to amend

the obnoxious Executive Act. By suspension of standing orders, this was passed through the Council at one sitting and sent up to his Honor, who, however, declined to assent" to it. The conclusion his Honor came to, his reasons for it, and the consequences which followed, are given in the following? message to the Council :— Mb. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Provincial Council, , ,

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of an Address from the Council, and a copy of an Act passed by the Council, authorising me to form my Executive Council without appointing a Solicitor to the Province, to which I am requested to assent on behalf of his Excellency the Governor. I regret that I should consider it my duty to refuse to give my assent to this bill. The honourable member, for the city, Mr. Wakefield, in his late communication with me, has avowed the intention of a majority of the Council to pass an act to combine in one person the offices of Treasurer and Secretary. The result of such intended act, coupled with that now under consideration, would be to concentrate in that one person (as far as the requirements of the law would go) the whole of the responsible offices of the Executive Government —while practically, ■ the Superintendent would, in financial and legal matters, be acting on; the information and advice of persons not even members of the Council, and in no way responsible to it or" to the constituencies of the province. -.:.....,'.

The system of Responsible Government; inaugurated by me four years ago, with the?full consent, and under legislation qf the Provincial Council, obliged the Superintendent to act by and; with the advice of a Secretary, Treasurer, ;and! •Solicitor; and by a distinct pledge—by which I then bound myself (analogous to the long established custom which binds the Imperial Government in reference to the same matter), —I made it a necessary condition of appointment to any of those offices, that .the person appointed should, on acceptance of the. office, go back to "his constituents for re-election. I still consider these conditions essential to the existence of Responsible Government; and that the act to which my assent is requested, coupled with the intention referred to of combining the Secretaryship with the Treasury, is substantially •destructive of that form of Government.

I cannot avoid perceiving also that a Secretary, supported by a majority of the Council, and uncontrolled by the check of any other heads of department, having a legal and exofficio position in. the Executive, would in practice, be the Executive Government, reducing the Superintendent to a mere Registrar'of his edicts —-a position which I must decline to fill. !

I fully recognise the importance of the difference of opinion which exists between the majority of the Council and myself on this occasion, and the responsibility which rests on me in this matter. Although this Act, which proposes a fundamental alteration in the form of Government hitherto adopted in the province, has been passed in haste, having been carried through all Its stages in a single evening, under suspension of the standing orders, I can scarcely expect that the majority of the Coiincll will reconsider the subject or retreat from the position it^has taken. On the. other hand, my own decision rests on a principle, and that one which has formed the basis of the policy on which I have •hitherto been elected by the suffrages ■of the constituencies of the province.

I feel that I have no right aay longer to call upon my present Executive to continue to fill the offices they hold and to act as my advisers unsupported as they>are by a majority of the Council, and three of them not even possessing seats in that body. Neither will I act in contravention of law and. of all my former professions, by exercising the functions of the elected head of the Executive Government without the aid of those official advisers by and with whose advice the existing law requires me to act. I have therefore determined to resign the office of Superintendent, and will by the first opportunity forward my resignation to his Excellency; the Governor. It only remains for me to point; out to the Council the expediency of- making an immediate appropriation for the public service during the interval which must necessarily elapse before my successor can be elected. ■ I. E. Featherbton, Superintendent. '