112
litical crisis and in reference to affairs de-
manding deep knowledge and careful consi-
deration of the law, your Excellency is acting
under the advice of that member, without the
advice and opinion of Her Majesty's Attorney-
General.

We have heard the statements referred to with
alarm as tending to compromise the honour of
your Excellency's Government, and fraught
with peril to the Colony.

Assuming the facts so stated to be true, we
humbly, but most earnestly pray your Ex-
cellency to take this our respectful remon-
strance into your serious consideration. We
can assure your Excellency, with the utmost
sincerity, of our anxious desire in all things
to mark our high respect for your person
and office; at the same time, charged as we
are with high constitutional privileges invol-
ving corresponding duties, we dare not hesi-
tate to pray your Excellency, at this serious
crisis of affairs, to have recourse to the advice
of your Executive Councillors, who, by Her
Majesty's Instructions and the rules of the
Constitution, are appointed as your Excel-
lency's advisers in all matters of importance;
-Councillors who are sworn to advise your
Excelency rightly, and who, will be respon-
sible to Her Majesty, to your Excellency, to
this House, and to the Colony for the advice
they may give.

Without presuming to question your Excel-
lency's undoubted right to exercise, under or-
dinary contingencies, a free and unbiassed
judgment upon matters of Government policy,
we, nevertheless, cannot but regard the sub-
ject of your Excellency's Message, involving
as it does the relations between the Execu-
tive and the Legislature, and affecting the whole
state of political affairs at the present moment,
as matters of such importance as to be unfit
to be confided to an unofficial and irresponsi-
ble adviser, but rather as demanding recourse
on your Excellency's part to your Excellen-
cy's swore constitutional advisers.

In the meantime we respectfully assure
your Excellency, that we will, at the earliest
moment, proceed to consider the subjects re-
ferred to in your Excellency's Message, with
an anxious desire to co-operate with your Ex-
cellency by all constitutional means in avert-
ing the difficulties and dangers at present im-
pending over the colony.

(Signed) CHAS. CLIFFORD,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.

House of Representatives, Auckland,
August 9th, 1854.

MESSAGE No. 30.

On Thursday, the 10th instant, the Officer
administering the Government received from
the House of Representatives an Address dated
the 9th, to which he would have replied with-
out delay, if he had not at the same time been
informed of the adjournment of the House
until this day.

He rejoices at being able to dispose at once
and entirely of the incidental matter to which
the attention of the House has been directed,
from the consideration of the important sub-
jects of his Messages Nos, 24, 25, and 26.

Although he believes that under the Royal
Instructions which form part of the Constitu-
tion of New Zealand, he should have been
justified in treating the present critical state of
affairs as one of those occasions on which it is
competent to the Governor to act independently
of His Executive Council, and to avail him-
self of any advice or assistance at his free dis-
cretion, bearing himself alone the entire res-
ponsibility of any act performed by him, yet
happily there is no necessity for further ex-
planation of his views on that point, since he
is able to inform the House that in every
step taken by him during the present emer-
gency, he has enjoyed the unqualified con-
currence and support of his constitutional
advisers.

The Officer administering the Government
receives with pleasure the assurance of the
House that they will without further delay
proceed to consider the subjects of his Message
No. 25, because he is only waiting for the
result of their deliberations thereon, in order
to add some members of the Assembly to the
Executive Council with the view of turning the
remainder of the already protracted yet fruit-
less Session to some good account for the
people of New Zealand.

R. H. WYNYARD,
Officer administering the Government.
Auckland, New Zealand,
15th August, 1854.

To his Excellency the Officer Administering the Go-
vernment of New Zealand

WE, the Commons of New Zealand in the
House of Representatives assembled, humbly beg
leave to address your Excellency in reply to
Messages Nos. 25 and 26, presented to this House,
on the subject of the recent changes in the Execu-
tive Government, the relations between the Exe-
cutive and the Legislature, and other matters
of general policy.

We beg to repeat the assurance of our high
respect for your Excellency's person and office
of our anxiety to co-operate with your Excel-
lency in measures requisite for the public service
and of our earnest desire to reconcile unhappy
differences which threaten the peace of the
Colony. We trust that your Excellency will
receive this our humble Address as conceived,
in that spirit, and intended as far as possible
to promote those objects.

Turning to the subject of those Messages,
we venture to remind your Excellency that
the first act of this House, upon commencing its
practical work, was to resolve, after careful and
lengthened deliberation, in favor of the immediate
establishment of the Executive Government upon
the basis of Ministerial Responsibility. We do not
repeat arguments which appeared to us, and were
admitted by your Excellency to be conclusive as
to the wisdom and necessity of that policy. We
embodied our sentiments in a respectful Address
to which we received a reply conveying the
assurance of your Excellency's intention "to
approach the consideration of the subject, with a
sincere desire to give effect, as far as might be
in your power to do so, to our views." Your
Excellency now assures us that at that time