PROVINCIAL COUNCILS' ORDINANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 81, 24 July 1852, Page 7

PROVINCIAL COUNCILS' ORDINANCE.

Copy of a Despatch from Earl Grey to Governor Sir George Grey. Downing-street, April 2, 1851. Sir, I have to acknowledge your Despatch, No. 123, of the 24th' of October last, enclosing the draft of a " Provincial Councils Bill," and informing me of your intention of submitting it forthwith to the Legislative Council. 2. The general principles of the measure are in full accordance with the instructions and suggestions which I have already given you on this subject. 3. There are, however, two points in which I consider it defective, and which are of sufficient importance to induce me to mention them at once, instead of waiting for the arrival of the Ordinance itself. In what I have to say, therefore, I shall assume that the Ordinance has passed, or will pass, in substantial agreement with the draft before me.

4. I do not find that it contains any provision reserving to the local Government the initiation of money votes. I conjecture the omission to have happened in this way: the existing. Provincial Council Ordinance (sec. 16), provides that no law shall be enacted or question debated unless on the proposal of the Governor. It is possible that in omitting this provision as incompatible with the new organization of the Council, it did not occur to the' framers to reserve the control thereby abandoned in the case of money votes.

5. But in whatever way the omission may have occurred, it is very material. It is obvious (as experience in some British colonies has amply proved) that without this power the local Government cannot carry on the affairs of the community with advantage, because it cannot estimate beforehand

the means which may be at its disposal, or determine to what services these shall be appropriated. The New South Wales Constitutional Act (5 and 6 Vict. c. 76, sec. 34,) affords an example of the kind of clause which is required.

6. The second point is, your proposing to vest the power of confirming and disallowing the Ordinances passed by the Provincial Councils in the Governor- in-Chief, instead of in Her Majesty.

7. This is an innovation of a serious character, and one which I conceive the Legislative Council of New Zealand would have no authority to make, were it not that the language of the Act which you cite (11th and 12th Vict. c. 5) is such as to be open to the interpretation, that this very unusual power is conceded by it to that Legislature.

8. I am not prepared to advise her Majesty to consent to so material a change in the ordinary form of a colonial constitution. You state, indeed as your reason, that you wish to follow the analogy of by-laws made by a municipal body, expecting that the powers of these Provincial Councils will be gradually absorbed by the Central Legislature. But this is an anticipation of the correctness of which it is impossible to be certain ; in the meantime, the powers actually confided to these Legislatures, although limited by certain restrictions, are absolute on the unrestricted subjects, and greatly exceed those of an ordinary municipal body. Looking, therefore not merely at the particular instance, but also at the general rules which those entrusted with the administration of her Majesty's colonial possessions must bear in mind, I think the recognised principle must be preserved.

9. This would, indeed, have been sufficiently done, if clause 22 of the draft Ordinance had stood alone. For it would then have been in the power of the Secretary of State to instruct the Governor-in-Chief in no case to confirm a law passed by a Provincial Council until he had received her Majesty's authority to do so, leaving the Governor-in-Chief free to disallow, without such authority, any which he might deem objectionable. This would have rendered the deviation from the ordinary method one of form only, and not of substance, and I should have regarded it as immaterial.

10. But the power reserved to her Majesty by that clause seems to be controlled by subsequent clauses (although the effect which would resull from this apparent conflict is not clear to me), and especially by clause 44, which renders it imperative on the Governor-in-Chief to declare his disallowance within twelve months, and which must, in most cases, render intermediate consultation with the Secretary of State impossible. . 11. The Ordinance, therefore, requires amendment in these particulars, and as it is convenient that the law for the establishment of Provincial Councils should be contaiued in a single Ordinance, the best course will be to repeal the present one, aud re-enact it with the necessary alterations. In the meantime, as Her Majesty'cannot be advised to confirm it in its present shape, I shall defer submitting it to the Queen when it arrives. 12. The remaining suggestions of your Despatch will be fully borne in mind when the subject of the general institutions of New Zealand comes next under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government. I have, &c, (Signed) Gbev. Governor Sir George Grey, &c, &c, &c.