Untitled

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6379, 15 February 1892, Page 2

In replying- to the toast of his bc.:.lrh, His Excellency the Governor, at the Mayoral banquet (it Wellington, paid a liinh cumplimeut to tho Legislative Council for the statesmanlike ai;d dignified character of the debates which took place there. He uddt;d that even those members of tho J.egislative Council who had been most recently elevated to it had abstained from any kind of attack upon his present Advisers, although in runny quarters it had been thought that that would bo the effect. He had had the honor of sitting in the Upper Chamber ol England for some eighteen years, and those who listened to him would perhaps not be surprised if he said that he watt still old fashioned enough to have some regard and respect for tho bi-oarr.ernl Constitution. From all h« had lwu-ii), in his experience of the House nf Lords, iiud from all he had read in m.«>u»y, hi- gaiiu--. d lhat tb:it House appreciated that its nominal privileii-e.H ai:d pri rogntives werv still strictly limited by constitutional u-iiga, and he did not think th.it the Upper House in this country assumed to itself any greater rights or privileges than the House of Lords in England. Pie did not suppose that in either case the Upper House would .'t;t itself in defiance against the will of tho constitueticieri. If ir, did. however, mutilate by amendment a measure upon which the constituencies had pronounced decisively and systematically rejected measures proposed by Ministers with whom they were iv opposition, he ventured, to think that the next question which would be submitted to the opinion of the electors would be some fundamental change in the Constitution. But common sense was tho main and tho principal characteristic of Englishmen. The members of Upper Houses, and especially the Upper House here, were distinguished from popular assemblies by the maturity of their principles, by the fact that they had attained to that position owing to their success in some other walk of life, and he did not think that while they retained that characteristic of Englishmen —common sense—they were likely to imperil either the Legislative Council or tho House of Lords. His Excellency went on to pay a high compliment: to tho Houso of Assembly in New Zealand for having consistently maintained than reputation they had always enjoyed for the order and decorum of their debates. Although there might have been strong words und sharp epithets, since he had been iv the colony, at least, there had been none of those scenes so disgraceful to Englishmen which had been of too frequent occurrence in the House of Commons and iv Parliaments of Australia.