THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES BILL. [From the Times, June 1.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 554, 23 November 1850, Page 3

THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES BILL. [From the Times, June I.]

The measure which Lord Grey introduced last night to the Lords is the fruit rather of an actual necessity than of a speculative ambition. Had a Colonial Secretary, or some theorist at his elbow, aspired to leave a name among the founders of nations and giver of laws, he would have disdained the safe humility of the " Bill for the Government of the Australian Colonies." For a cluster of various and changing communities, in every stage of progress, some already talking of independence, and others just acquiring a political consistency, the bill attempts a middle course, and a piovisional system. Without cutting the leading strings altogether, it allows and encourages the colonists to choose their own Constitutions. From the recent debates in the Lower House it may

easily be seen that many would have preferred a total surrender of the Imperial supervision ; while perhaps an equal number would have thought a fuller and more precisely defined constitution more worthy of the Legislature that confers it. The bill does not satisfy either party. On the one hand, it retains tha existing check ; and, on the other hand, it leaves to the colonial legislatures themselves the task and the honour of maturing their constitutions. Its object is not so much to die* tate, or even to instruct, as to provide the form and manner in which the colonies may do for themselves w hat it appears to be very clear they can do best for themselves. The eldest and most populous of the colonies is left in the undisturbed possession of a small and compact Legislature, which works about as well as Legislatures can be expected to do, which satisfies public opinion in the colony, and which happens also to be in its materials very like those " conventions," " assemblies of the States," or " constituent assemblies," which have usually been the organs of great constitutional changes. This Legislature, working well in one instance, is given to the other colonies, with the power of further self-deve-lopment both as to the composition of the several Legislatures and the formation of a General Assembly of the Australian colonies* As might be expected, the feature of the bill which excited most discussion lastnightwas the provisional adoption of the single chamber instead of the British model. Lords Fitzwilliam, Monteagle, and Wodehouse protested very strongly against a scheme which, if we could suppose it final, would militate against the supposed necessity of our Upper House. There is not only some ingenuity, but also a great deal of truth in the remark, that the British constitution is the most successful, and a single assembly the least successful, form of government known in the world ; but true and clever as it is, it applies as little to the actual circumstances before us as the fact that a man is the strongest, and an infant the weak-* est, thing in the world ; or the cognate fact, that a man can better work on roast beef and porter than arrowroot and milk. We have to deal with States still in their infancy, the eldest of which is not so old as Earl FitzwilHam, and the rest of which ar# very much younger — communities of but the other day. We cannot msike them at once what they will be ; we can only help them onwards one little step towards that maturity in which we .fondly hope to see the image of our own constitution. Moreover, this constitution of ouis was not created by Act of Parliament ; nor was it made in a day. For ages we had a single chamber, which answered every purpose, because there was only one class that bad anything to do with the government of the counI try. Time produced another class, and time gave it political consequence. Hence the knights of shires, and burgesses of cities and boroughs became eventually a second chamber, not less important than the first. In giving, therefore, only one Chamber to the colonial legislature in the first instance, we are proceeding at least on our own historical precedents. In the nature of things, however, there is very little choice. If the colonies are to frame their own constitutions, and if we are to give up the idle and dangerous ambition of stamping a particular model on the colony, then we must allow them a species of convention, or single mixed chamber, for the purpose. Were we to manufacture, with what material we could find, two distinct Houses, representing different interests and classes, and commit to them the task of settling between themselves their several compositions and powers, we should simply be setting up two parties of children to pull one against the other, with the certainty that one would eventually be dragged off its legs and rolled in the dust. Lord Stanley described last night with great force and propriety the origin, the disagreeable results, and the happy termination of just such a struggle between the Houses of Newfoundland. Not to recur to some important passages of our own history, we will suppose that in the course of a year or two some great question should arise affecting the respective constitutions and powers of our two Houses of Parliament. That question would be settled either by one house succumbing to the other, or by a conference of some sort; and in the present unsettled state of our colonies, all that we can do is to give them a species of conference in which the representatives of the various colonial powers may adjust existing differences, and feel their way to a more perfect system. The House of Peers in this country is"a fact just as much as the Monarchy. There is an hereditary Sovereign, and there are hereditary legislators. Several hundred men, generally of great wealth and noble descent, of the highest social position, and connected together by domestic and political ties for many generations, conjointly possess by the law of the land a third voice with the Sovereign and the representatives of the people in the making of our laws. There is no such fact, nor the shadow of such a fact, in the colonies.

There is neither a King nor a peerage in New South Wales, and we cannot give it either, unless we adopt Mr. Bankes's loyal but hazardous suggestion, and send one of our young Princes to found an Australian dynasty. Nothing has been proposed, indeed, that would at all resemlle our own House of Lords. An elective chamber, with higher qualifications, •would bear little resemblance to an hereditary peerage ; nor would a chamber of life nominees ; much less a chamber composed of officers of state. What other materials are there ? Lord Monteagle will not admit there are no materials to be found, but he is content with refusing to make the admission, and does not venture to justify his refusal by pointing out the materials. Lord Stanley forbears to speak positively on the point ; he framed the single chamber of New South Wales, and is not prepared to say the time is come when it should give place to two. As regards the other Australian colonies, it is desirable, be says, that they should pass through the same process as New South Wales has undergone. On the whole, therefore, the British House of Lords, for want of recognizing any class in the Australian colonies like itself, is under the necessity of sanctioning a measure which ■does some violence to aristocratic prejudices. We believe.it to be- inevitable. With the very best intentions it is impossible to make the colonies like the mother country. The Governor with his- staffiis the true colonial House of Lords ; his influence and his veto represent its social position, and its voice in the Legislature. Apparently generations must pass before there will be families of such wealth and position, such services and such honours, as will constitute a peerage strong enougb to contend successfully against a colonial democracy.