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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8960, 18 August 1892, Page 4

Tl ie much - talked of correspondence b< jtween Ministers and the Governor in reference to the proposed appoint - 0 !ieuts to the Legislative Council was 1 iid upon the table of the House of • iieprasentatives yesterday. The various •nemos, are pretty much on the lines on which it was supposed they would travel. Ministers assert that they have a right authoritatively to advise His Excellency as to the number of members he should call to the Legislative Council, while His Excellency takes up the position that lie has a right to exercise his personal judgment in this matter, and that he ought not to make so many nominations as would amount to a "swamping" of the Council. The Governor, in one of his concluding communications, states that he "will be prepared to forward the Ministers' memos, to the Secretary of State for the colonies." Nowhere in the correspondence does Mr. Ballance take up the position that if their advice is not accepted Ministers Will resign, hut in his last letter he says that "the Council may harass by the expense and worry of an election of the representative body," that is, may render necessary a general election. The correspondence raises some highly important questions of constitutional procedure the authoritative settlement of which is likely to. establish a precedent which Will govern all future cases of a similar character throughout the Colonial Empire.