COUNCIL PAPERS. (NEW SOUTH WALES.) (From the "Sydney Empire," July 30 )

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 662, 18 August 1852, Page 3

COUNCIL PAPERS. (NEW SOUTH WALES.) (From the "Sydney Empire," July 30 )

HER MAJESTY'S DEC ISION ON THE ACTS PASSED IN 1850. Despatch from the Right Honourable Earl Grey, to Governor Sir C. Fitzlloy. No. 119. Downing-street, 20th September, 1851. Sir — I have received your despatches enumerated in the margin (viz., 209, 2 December, 1850; 211, 4th; 212,5 th; 213, 6th; 214, 7th; 216, 10th) transmitting, and explanatory of, the Acts passed by the Legislature of New South Wales, during the year 1850. I have to inform you that her Majesty has been graciously pleased to assent to the Acts enumerated in the annexed schedule. The Acts passed by the Legislature but not comprised in that schedule, arc the following : — No. 8, imposing an import duty ; No. 22, respecting the distillation and exportation of spirits ; No. 37, the pilotage Act; and the private Act incorporating the Bank of New South Wales ; which have been referred to other departments -of her Majesty's Government. No. 31, the university Act, which you express your intention to explain in a sepcrate despatch, which has not yet arrived. No. 38, the police Act; No. 41, the Sydney corporation act ; and No. 44, the reserved Act for disqualifying Clergymen from sitting in the Legislature ; which appear to me open to objections of different kinds, which I shall state in the course of the present despatch. And finally, the private Act respecting a tram road to Newcastle, on which my decision was communicated to you on the 24th July lastOn the Laws which I have been able to recommend for the confirmation of her Majesty, I have little to observe. I have submitted to the Lords of her Majesty's Treasury, the question raised by your Despatch of the 10th of December, 1850, whether the pattern stamps required for prosecutions under the Act No. 1, should be sent out regularly from this country. I do not anticipate, however, that this course will be taken. I have also communicated to the Governors of Van Diemen's Land, South Australia, Western Australia,! and New Zealand, my concurrence in your suggestion, that Laws should be passed in those Colonies, analagous to the Act No. 7, for the apprehension «f offenders escaping to New South Wales from other Colonies. Lastly, I think it right to add, that though I h/ive not considered it necessary to advise the disallowance of No. 24, the Lien on Wool Act, my opinion of its impolicy remains unaltered. I have been unable to advise the confirmation of No. 38, the Police Act, because in the 11th section, it makes a provision which appears to me to exceed the powers given to the Legislature by the Constitutional Act, 5 and 6 Victoria, cap. 76. It disqualifies various police officers from being elected members of the Legislative Council, or voting at_ the election of any such Member s. I concur in the opinion expressed by your law officers in their report on the reserved Act of this session, No. 44, that the Legislature had not the legal power, as then constituted, to enact a provision of this kind. As, however, the disqualification is in itself clearly a proper one, I should recommend that the Police Act should be re-enacted in the ordinary way, with the omission of this clause, which might then be embodied in a peperate reserved Bill, under the powers given to the present Legislature of New South Wales by the 32nd clause of the Australian Colonies Government Act. I have also refrained from advising her Majesty to confirm the Sydney Corporation Act, until I should receive a fuller explanation of its tendency than lat present possess. The principal alterations of a constitutional kind are those mentioned by yourself, namely, that the Mayor and Aldermen, instead of being elected by the Council, are to be elected by the citizens; and that instead of each ward electing its own Councillors, the whole hotly of Councillors will be hereafter (fleeted by the whole body of citizens. You ap-

near to bo not without hope, that by thus breaking up local influences, a more respectable class of persons will be obtained than some who have heretofore been elected Councillors. I shmild very much fear a less satisfactory result. The provisions that all the Councillors arc to be elected by all the citizens is calculated to render that body a. representative, not of the various interests concerned in the order and good management of the city, but of any popular feeling which may happen to be ao prevalent as to unile the rotes of a simple majority of the citizens ; and the inconveniences of such a result will be enhanced by the provision which transfers also the election of the Mayor and Aldermen to that simple majority, without what I consider the useful intervention of the Council. I should wL>h therefore to be informed more fully what are the grounds for anticipating an improvement in the material of the City Corporation from alterations from which I should myself certainly apprehend a contrary result. With regard to the reserved bill, No. 44, for disqualifying Ministers of Religion from being elected members of the Legislative Council, I have already implied my opinion that it is inconsistent I with the Imperial Act, 5 and (5 Vic, chap. 70. On this ground therefore, I have felt precluded from recommending its confirmation. But lam also of opinion that the substance of the enactment is open to serious objection. I think that very strong reaeons should be adduced for excluding from political power or privileges any specific class of persons not evidently disqualified fro n using them properly, especially when the excluded class possesses education, character, and influence. In the present case, I do not see that such reasons can be alleged. It may be true that the purity and dignity of religion are better consulted by securing that its ministers should not be niixod up in politics, but I think that in a country where there is no established Church, the accomplishment of this object is most properly left to the discipline which each religious communion may voluntarily adopt for that purpose. It may also be urged that the better class of the Clergy are unlikely to accept seats in the Legislature— that their presence will tend to excite religious animosities — and that their own habits do not ordinarily fit them for the transaction of public business. But I think it may fairly be left to the electors to decide how far in any particular case these objections exist, and whether or not they are outweighed by the advantages of education and character which may be expected to exist among the Clergy, and would tend to make them a valuable element in a Colonial Assembly. Finally,! cannot considei that theprccedentof the Englibh House of Commons, and the Imperial Act of 41 George 111., is at all applicable to the present case; remembering that the Churches affected by that Act possessed the advantages of a Legal Establishment, and that one of these Churches, as represented in the Legislature by its Prelates, who have seats in the House of Lords — while the other has, in the General Assembly, a body possessing large legal powers, both for transacting the business of the Church, and for making known its wishes to the Crown and to Parliament. The Act is also objectionable in several of its details. It would operate, I should imagine, with disproportionate stringency in the case of completely organized Churches. The "Ministers, Priests, or Ecclesiastics" of these Churches, are clearly excluded from the Legislature but it seems doubtful how far this exlusion would extend to the Preachers or Religious Authorities of more ! irregularly constituted communions, who yet ! would not be at all more eligible as members of j a Legislative body. The penalty also, though taken from the Imperial Act, passed in 1801, is evidently excessive. Any "minister" is made liable to a ruinous succession of fines of £500, for every day during which he may sit in the Legislature, to be recovered by any persons who shall sue for them ; and he is further disqualified for ever from holding nny public office of honour or profit, or any u cure, office, or promotion ecclesiastical," words which would be perfectly intelligible as applied to the clergy of England and Scotland, but are very ambiguous in their application to New South Wales. Her Majesty's assent to the Acts contained in the annexed Schedule, you will communicate to the inhabitants of New South 'Wales, in the usual manner. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, GREY. Governor Sir C. FitzTtoy, &c., &c, &c.