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hand, is it necessary to ask you to bear in mind through all your deliberations that the great basis of public revenue and social wealth is commercial industry; and that unless the provinces now mainly limit their larger expenditures to the purchase of increased mercantile appliances, we shall be utterly incapable of competing with other markets of the world; and so, with a diminished population, and loaded with debt, public and private, the colony would soon suffer the mortification of insolvency and virtual repudiation.

In introducing the business of the session, I would venture to suggest that this is not a season for the indulgence of luxurious cravings from any quarter whatever, and what revenue we can command must be expended upon absolute necessaries, and that our principal care in the matter of public works should be to invest our money in reproductive undertakings. I have caused to be prepared estimates of revenue and expenditure, which, when laid before you, will disclose a proposal for very considerable retrenchments throughout every department of the Provincial service.

Public opinion has been greatly agitated for some time past by a very general discussion of the adaptability of the existing form of Provincial Constitution to the present advanced state of the Colony, and it is generally (and with good reason) supposed that the Central Legislature, next session, will very earnestly debate this subject. The ablest public men in the colony are much divided in opinion—one party favouring the abolition of the provinces at once, another loudly advocating the continuance of the Provincial Governments and Legislatures with greatly increased powers. A third class of politicians desire to retain Provincial institutions, which, while divested of nearly all their present legislative functions, would still have exclusive and absolute power, both legislative and administrative, in the matter of the waste lands of the Crown and public works of a commercial character.

This Council, as you are aware, has no power to make any alterations in the Constitution; but, as representing very reliably the public opinion of the Province, it may by its resolutions express to the Parliament of the Colony its feeling in regard of any proposal for effecting alterations or reforms.

I am impressed with the conviction that very considerable changes in the Constitution of the Provinces would have very salutary results, I therefore purpose to send down for your consideration a memorandum shortly describing certain alternative schemes of reform. I may at once declare my entire approval of the relinquishment of most of our powers of legislation, and although at law we may not enact any change of our Constitutional powers, still it is now competent to your majority to decline legislation on any except a given class of subjects, and so voluntarily impose limits on your action, to the great saving of time and money. Without any external aid or permission we may accomplish one very material and imperatively necessary measure of reform, by very largely reducing the expenses of legislation, as well as of administration.

Among other things, your opinion will be requested as to the expediency of altering the present system of Executive Government. I incline to a very prevalent idea that great waste of time and power, both in the case of the governing and governed, is involved in the present scheme of Responsible Government. However responsible the Executive Council or Ministers may be, it appears to me, at any rate, that the responsibility of the Superintendent is of a very mythical order, excepting in so far as he is responsible at law upon breaches of certain statutes made expressly in his behalf. In fact, under the existing order of things, the Superintendent has none except a merely nominal political responsibility.

I am of opinion that the original constitution never intended the addition of responsible Government (in the present shape) to the then already sufficiently cumbrous machinery of Provincial Government; and the recent enactment by the General Assembly