A.—IB

2

to manage purely local matters, and are in their nature chiefly of a municipal character. 6. That the proposed change in the Constitution of the Colony is a matter of general policy is a point which admits of no question, and to suppose that the legislation of the General Assembly on a matter of this importance should be subservient to the will of one or more of these local Councils appears to me to be utterly untenable ; but admitting for the sake of argument that such a thing were possible, how could it be carried out in practice ? There are in this Colony nine Provinces; supposing that five or possibly seven of these local Councils decided in favour of Abolition, and the remainder opposed it, how is the question to be decided ? Are the majority of the Councils to carry the day, or is the population of each Province to be taken into consideration; or is the Provincial system to be abolished in those Provinces which agree to the proposal, and retained in those which oppose it ? "With all deference to Sir George Grey's experience, it appears to me that he has taken up a ground which is entirely indefensible. 7. The General Assembly is elected by the people of this colony under a very liberal franchise, and without in any way wishing to prejudge the decision at which it may arrive on the subject of Abolition, I believe that it is as well able to express and carry out the general requirements and wishes of the community as the Assembly of any other colony in the world; and at any rate, in my opinion, it is the best and only constitutional mode by which the real feeling of the country can be obtained. 8. It seems to me, also, that the calculation into which he has gone, with regard to the relative population of Auckland and Otago, and the rest of the colony, is equally unsound. Whether such a system may be right or wrong, equal electoral districts form no part of the British Constitution, as evinced by numerous constituencies in England, especially in London. By the Constitution of this colony, the Legislature has full power to alter or increase the representation of the colony, but they have not seen fit to adopt equal electoral districts; and what, I would ask, would be said of any one in England, who would venture to deny the power of Parliament to cary out such changes as it considered desirable, upon the ground that one portion of the country was not as fully represented according to population as another. 9. Sir George Grey also omits to inform your Lordship that although possibly the majority of the members from the Province of Auckland are opposed to the abolition of the Provincial system, that feeling is certainly not unanimous, except perhaps in the City of Auckland and its immediate neighbourhood; neither does he state that in May, last year, a resolution in favour of abolition was carried by a majority of five in the Provincial Council itself, and was only rescinded the next day by a majority of one at the direct instigation and dictation of Sir George Grey himself. I think, therefore, he is hardly justified in claiming the whole of the province as adopting his views. 10. That the Legislature has power under the authority of the Imperial Parliament to make the change proposed by the Abolition Act, is, I think, amply proved by the fact that your Lordship has informed me that Her Majesty will not be advised to disallow it. 11. As regards the concluding portion of his letter, were it not that Sir George Grey most emphatically asserts his belief in the report to which he alludes, I should certainly have treated it as a bad joke, and even now I hardly know how to treat such a preposterous idea in a serious manner. That Sir George Grey should seriously inform your Lordship that he believes that there is the slightest foundation for the report which he says exists, that opposition to the Ministry might involve the bombardment of the City of Auckland by Her Majesty's ships, or that he should consider it incumbent upon him to ask your Lordship to send a telegraphic message to me to dispel all apprehension of Her Majesty's forces being used for such a purpose, is, I think, a sufficient proof of the spirit and tone in which he has entered into this controversy. 12. Sir George Grey contents himself with indorsing the truth of the report, without stating the source from which he obtained it. I can only say that I never saw it, and if I had I should have looked upon it as a pure invention, circu-