NOMINEE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 337, 20 August 1875, Page 3

NOMINEE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

(From Mr. G iactetonc's speech in 1552.), - It was, he believed, the intention of Lord Grey that the Legislative Council of New Zealand should be composed of persons elected by the-local Legislatures of the separate districts. "Whence did His Lordship derive that "idea? From the United States; and in turning to that quarter he resorted to the best fountain of instruction to .which he could have recourse. If there wis one thing in the Constitution of the United..States.which more than all.others entitled the great authors of that" astonishing work.to .the gratitude ;i of their countrymen and to fame as wide and lasting as the world, it was the' system adopted for the election of the Senate by introducing the principle of election, not ae-' cording to the numbers of population, but by separate States, thereby counterbalacning the principle of purely popular election . . Let the House take a homely view of the question. It was not difficult to bring the House of Peers to London ; but it was found difficult to bring' members • of the Legislative Council to Toronto, more difficult to bring them to Halifax, and it would be found still more, difficult to bring them to Wellington, if that should be fixed upon: as- the seat of the Parliament of New Zealand. The inequalities of fortune' with which we were familiar in this country were unknown in New Zealand. Here we have many men' of large fortunes and leisure, who, it might almost be said, were born to political pursuits. These persons were of course well able to bear any expenses which might attend the discharge of their legislative duties. To make, men do the work in the colonies it was found necessary to pay them, not for sordid purposes, but to enable them to bear the expenses to which .they were subjected, to sompensate them for the losses occasioned by their absence from their ordinary pursuits, The colonists would find this paymont if you,gave them representabut not if you give them your nominees. (Hear, hear.) So powerfully did these considerations operate, that, as the right hon. baronet must know"'from the records in his office, the Government of Canada had frequently been brought almost to a dead lock in consequence of the difficulty of finding a quorum of the Council to pass the most important measures. Tho necessity of nominating Councillors by the C'rown. was one of those vulgar superstitions which ought long ago to have been exploded. If this country had interests distinct and separate from those of the Colonies there might be some reason for maintaining the system ; but that was not h e case. That which served the purpose

of the Colonies best, served ours also. As to this notion of creating a set of men who should be the representatives of an influence from home it was an error pregnant and fertile with mischief of every kind. It was keeping up that intervention of the Government at home on all those local and domestic questions, which was the source of so much .vexation to the Colony, and so much expense to the mother country. For these reasons he trusted that the Government would reconsider this question: of a nominated . Legislative Council. (Hear, hear.) '