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Chamber as occasion may require; vacancies be filled up within three months of their occurrence by the Governor, on the advice of his Ministers; that a clause be inserted giving the Governor power to appoint, on the advice of Ministers, on an emergency, such a number of new Councillors as would bring the Council into harmony with the country." By this His Excellency expresses the opinion that vacancies should be filled within three months of their occurrence by the Governor on the advice of Ministers. It is over nine months since the last vacancy arose. The refusal to accede to Ministers' advice is therefore inexplicable, for it is notorious that those members who generally support the Liberal party and vote for Liberal measures in the Legislative Council are in a hopeless minority. - His Excellency, evidently ignoring all other considerations, rests his objection solely on the necessity for confining the numerical strength of the Council within a fixed limit. That limit is arbitrarily settled by His Excellency, without even consulting or having the assent of Ministers. The Constitution Act is set aside. The action taken is unsupported by either statute-law or precedent. Ministers, therefore, very respectfully demur to what appears an inexpedient and unconstitutional attempt to control and curtail the operation of the constitutional law of a self-governing colony, and that in such a way as to place His Excellency's Advisers at a disadvantage. In accordance with constitutional usage, no right should be claimed by the Governor except in cases where, under the Eoyal Instructions, he is bound, as an Imperial officer, to act independently of his Ministers. This certainly is not such a case, nor is such independence either expressed or implied in the Royal Instructions. Every precedent is against the course now adopted by His Excellency —a course which, if successful and persisted in, must inevitably curtail the privileges of the electors of this colony, cause irritation, and tend to weaken the bonds of affection between Her Most Gracious Majesty's subjects in New Zealand and the Mother-country. The Premier does not concur in the statement that there are thirty-seven members of the Council who last session regularly attended the Council's deliberations. As stated in his previous memorandum, at no division last session were there more than thirty-five votes recorded; the average number of votes recorded was only twenty-eight. The fact that sickness counts as attendance, and that still the large sum of £402 10s. was deducted last session for non-attendance of Legislative Councillors during the session, as compared with £139 deducted in the session of 1893, coupled with His Excellency's admission that ten members were not in their places last session, goes far to support the Premier's contention. It proves conclusively that the attendance was small, intermittent, and insufficient. At the time it was decided by the late Premier to recommend twelve additional members for appointment to the Council, there were then thirty-six members on the roll, and with the twelve additional members the total would be forty-eight. The resignation of the Hon. James Crowe Richmond was accepted on the 7th July, 1892. On the 27th September, 1892, His Excellency agreed to appoint twelve additional members to the Council. These, with those already on the roll, would bring the number at that time up to forty-seven. Since then the resignation of the Hon. Mr. E. Johnson has been accepted (28th November, 1892), and that of the Hon. Mr. J. N. Wilson (10th April, 1893). Subsequent to this, again, there have been two vacancies caused by the deaths of the late Hon. Mr. Hart and the Hon. Mr. P. Dignan. There is one member who, owing to paralytic affliction, was unable to attend to his duties in the session of 1893, neither did he attend in 1894. Indeed, it is well known that he will never again be able to attend to his duties as a Councillor. So that there have been nominally four and practically five vacancies since His Excellency agreed to make the last twelve appointments to the Legislative Council. By these resignations and deaths the Government is weakened both in respect to speaking- and voting-power in the Upper Chamber. There is no law fixing the limit to the number of Councillors, neither are there any resolutions passed by either branch of the Legislature fixing the maximum number of persons to be appointed to the Council. In 1885, when the population of this colony was a little over 500,000, there were fifty-four members of the Legislative Council. The population of the colony is now over 700,000, and with the addition of the four appointments recommended the number would be only forty-seven. It must also be remembered that the large questions which are being dealt with by the Legislative Assembly at the present day were not contemplated at the time before referred to, when there were fifty-four members in the Council. As far back as 1873, when the population was only 295,946, the number of Legislative Councillors was 49, while the number of members of the House of Representatives was 80. In 1879 the number of Councillors was 48; in 1880, 47; in 1881, 47; in 1882, 47 ; in 1883, 50; in 1884, 49; in 1885, 54; in 1886, 53 ; in 1887, 47 : or an average from 1879 to 1887 of 49 members. The Premier notes that His Excellency has called attention to the number of Legislative Councillors since the passing of " The Representation Act, 1887." The passing of that Act in no way restricted the number of Councillors ; and, though giving this illustration, the Premier does not for a moment admit that the number of Legislative Councillors should be dealt with or regulated on either a general or seven years' average. There are matters of much greater import which would, the Premier hopes, be taken into consideration. The claim made by His Excellency's Advisers to fill the vacancies caused by death and resignation is reasonable, and cannot in any sense be termed an attempt to swamp the Council. : With a due sense of the responsibility which is cast upon them, answerable as they are to the Legislature and to the colony, and strengthened by the possession of the confidence of the people to a larger extent than any other Ministry ever had in New Zealand, Ministers claim that if the ground upon which the advice tendered had been rejected were admitted, then, as a logical sequence, the inevitable result would be that the rights which belong to the inhabitants of a free and selfgoverning colony would be jeopardized. They claim also that there is an absence of good and sufficient reason for the objections raised by His Excellency.