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bly has not only failed to solve, but has rendered far more difficult and complicated.

For my own part, holding as I do, that it is essential in a country like this, where all have a share in the Government, that every one should be acquainted with its structures and principles—and believing that the more the Constitution is studied and understood, the more warmly it will be appreciated—the more fully the colonists will recognize and value the great boon that has been conferred upon them, I feel that I should ill requite the confidence reposed in me by my fellow-settlers, if I did not seize this opportunity to press upon your consideration, and through you upon theirs, the great question, upon the proper solution of which the successful carrying out of the constitution entirely depends. That question is,—in what sense is the Constitution Act to be read—in what spirit is it henceforth to be carried out?

I shall probably best explain my own views, by referring to the different interpretations put upon it by the three several parties of whom the Assembly was composed.

The Municipalists held that the Provincial Councils were mere Municipal Corporations, and ought to be stripped of all functions except those inherent in such subordinate bodies.

The Centralists claimed for the Central Legislature all the attributes of the Imperial Parliament, and aimed at incorporating the Provincial Governments into the General, with a view to their ultimate absorption. They maintained the right of the General Assembly, in virtue of their concurrent jurisdiction, to intermeddle in all Provincial affairs, to repeal acts of the Provincial Councils, and to restrict their legislation to a few insignificant objects. They desired further, to convert the Superintendent, from being the elected officer of the people, and as such responsible to them, into a mere agent of the Governor, from whom he was to receive his instructions, and to derive his Executive power.

The Provincialists, on the other hand, maintained that the Imperial Parliament had established two separate and independent Governments—independent each in its own sphere, one for Provincial purposes over each Province—the other for general purposes, over the whole colony; and they advocated therefore, not a legislative, but a federal union of the Provinces. And here, in order that I may not be misunderstood, allow me to explain in what sense I use these terms.

By a legislative union I mean such an incorporation of the Provinces, that the General Assembly should exercise over them supreme legislative authority in all matters, much in the same way as Parliament legislates for the whole of the United Kingdom, or as the old Legislative Council legislated for the whole of New Zealand.

By a Federal union I mean that system under which the Provincial Councils would be independent and exercise exclusive jurisdiction in all Provincial matters, except on those matters of general concern which may have been either expressly intrusted to them alone; or with which the Provincial Council have been expressly prohibited by the Constitution Act from interfering.

Such briefly is the construction put upon the Constitution Act;—such the principles held by those three several parties.

It would not, I apprehend, be difficult, by referring to the despatches between the late Governor and the Colonial Office, to the debates in Parliament, or to the opinions of those most conversant with Colonial Constitutions, to show, that the authors and supporters of the Act at any rate entertained a very different view of the nature, character, and functions of the Local Legislatures to that enunciated by those who would fain reduce them to mere municipal or district councils.

But without attaching more weight to the opinions of the framers of the Constitution than they may be considered fairly entitled to, I content myself with pointing out, what has always appeared to me, to con—

stituate the grand distinction between the Provincial Legislatures and Municipal Councils:—

That distinction consists in the difference of their powers of Legislation—upon the latter a special power—upon the former a general power of Legislation has been conferred.

By a special power, I mean—that the body upon which it is conferred can only make Laws on certain specified subjects and upon none others. It cannot make a single regulation upon any matters upon which it is not either expressly or by necessary implication authorised to legislate. Thus if you will refer to the 5th Chapter of the Royal Instructions of 1846 headed Municipal Corporations, you will find that all the subjects on which they were to make Bye-Laws are expressly enumerated, and that they could legislate on those alone. The City and Harbour Commissioners of Auckland afford other examples of bodies clothed with special power of legislation;—they can frame and pass bye-laws only on those matters upon which they are authorised to legislate by the Acts of the Provincial Council which called them into existence.

The Poor Law Commissioners at home are clothed with very large powers of Legislation, but of Legislation only in reference to matters connected with the relief of the poor.

On the other hand as I have already said, there has been delegated to the Provincial Councils (equally with the General Assembly,) not a special but a general power of Legislation, subject (as is the case with the General Assembly also) to certain restrictions. They are empowered not to make bye-laws, not to legislate upon such and such subjects, but they are authorised to make Laws on all except the thirteen matters expressly reserved from them.

Such being the broad line of demarcation between the Local Legislatures established by the Constitution and Municipal Corporations, it seems unnecessary to comment further on the views of those, who persist in regarding them as similar or analogous bodies.

Neither do I imagine that the interpretation of the Act or the position assumed by the Centralists—a party whose object it is to enlarge and stretch the functions of the General Government to the utmost limit, and to absorb all the Provincial Powers, will upon examination be found more tenable.

In the first place, the very fact of the Imperial Parliament itself creating the Provincial Councils, instead of leaving it to the General Assembly to create them and define their powers, appears to me the strongest possible proof, that the Imperial Parliament intended, that the General Assembly should neither interfere with Provincial Matters, nor with Acts of the Provincial Councils, but should confine itself to those subjects of general concern which are exclusively reserved to it.

Had it not been their intention that these two Governments should be independent—each within its own sphere, the probability is, that the creation of the Local Legislatures would have been left to the Central Legislature in the same way as the old Provincial Councils were. Former Provincial Councils having been established by the Colonial Legislature were liable to have their powers altered and curtailed, or themselves at any time abolished; for the same power which made them could, and as we know, did unmake them; but the present Councils having the same origin as the General Assembly can only be abolished by the Imperial Parliament.

The importance of this common origin becomes more apparent, when it is remembered that the weakness of the first American Congress was so manifestly owing to its having been formed by, and being dependent upon the State Legislatures that when it became necessary to revise the Articles of Confederation, the State Legislatures, were expressly and intentionally excluded from taking any part in their revision. The Constitution after having been drawn up was submitted, not to the State Legislatures, but to the people of each State assembled in Convention for the purpose of ratifying it;