New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, JULY 30.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4481, 30 July 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, JULY 30.

Ministers presented the following opinion from the Solicitor-General on the Constitutional question during last evening's sitting : MEMORANDUM FOR THE TKKMIEK. I have carefully read and considered the Act of the Imperial Parliament (SI and 32 Victoria cap. 92,) declaring the peters of the General Assembly to abolish any province in the colony. I think that the power to abolish provinces is absolute, and that the General Assembly is empowered to abolish any and all of the provinces. (Signed) W. S. Reid. Wellington, July 29,1875. This memorandum was read by the Clerk of Parliament, Major Campbell, and placed on the table of the House. Our readers will perceive that on the point at issue, Mr. Reid is in accord with Mr. Prendergast. It is held by both these lawyers that the section of the Imperial Act of 1868, quoted by us yesterday, enables the General Assembly to abolish the provinces. When on this subject, we may explain that in commenting on Sir Georgk Grey's argument in our last issue, we did not quite accurately state it, so far as the power of his Excellency to call to the Executive Council persons residing out of the colony is concerned. It is not illegal to do so, he argued, but the call is not operative until the person to whom it is addressed arrives in the colony. However, for reasons of public policy it was contended that Parliament should limit the number of persons residing without the colony whom the Governor might be at liberty'to call to his Executive Council. This explanation is necessary, because the argument as stated by us yesterday implied a censure upon the Governor, although the act criticised was done on the advice of his Ministers, who are responsible to the General Assembly.. There is another point also to which we should refer. It was made by Mr. Stafford, and at the time had a telling effect on the House. We refer to the words in the commission of his Excellency Lord Normanby, bearing on the constitution of the Executive Council, which Mr. Stafford declared to be different from those used in the commissions of former Governors. This is not the case. The words are identical with those in the commission of Sir James Fekgusson, as printed in the Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1873, A.—6. The whole of the hon. member's argument on this point, therefore, as a matter of course, falls to the ground. There was nothing in it, although without referring to the records of Parliament to verify tho statement, we expressed the opinion yesterday that tho Governor's commission did not bear out the view taken by the member for Timaru. We are the more fortified in

our opinion by the fact that Lord Normanby's commission is of the stereotyped pattern. It confers no exceptional powers -whatever. We have gone into this matter thu3 minutely, because we conceive that the country should know exactly the position of this important constitutional question, which will stand as a precedent in the future. It is for the present in abeyance, but will doubtless be settled definitely before the prorogation.