AN ELECTIVE COUNCIL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 71, 10 August 1912, Page 5

AN ELECTIVE COUNCIL.

AN ECHO OP HISTORY. (By Telegraph-Own Correspondent.) . Wellington, Last Night. Ihe attention of the Post has been called by the Rev. J. J. X or th to a curious fact relating to the proposed reform of the Upper House. Mr. North points out that the first constitution tor New Zealand was drafted in England and passed by the English Parliament, and sent to the Governor (Sir Geo. Grey) for immediate publication. Sir Geo. Gray saw at a glance that the constitution suspended the Waitangi Treaty, and would embroil us hopelessly with the natives, and he took the bold step of suspending it on his own authority. Sir Robert Peel recognised the urgency of Sir Geo. Grey's objection, and requested that the Governor should transmit his ideas of a constitution for New Zealand to London. Sir Geo. Grey went up to Ruapehu, and there, in a gipsy tent, attended only by a few Maoris, framed the momentous document. The authorities in London approved of it, with one modification on which thev insisted, and which Sir Geo. Grey afterwards pronounced to he a vital wound. He had made both Houses elective. The English modification made the Upper House nominative. "We are now, after all these years," points out Mr. North, "going to Sir Geo. Grey's first suggestion."