legislation. Mr. Ballance pointed with a good deal of significance to the fact that in view of the friendly relations which should exist between the colony and the Mother Country, it would be a dangerous doctrine to admit that the Governor considered it his duty to thwart the people of the colony in giving expression to their feelings and opinions.
The whole question of the self-government of the colony was involved in the battle between the Ministers and the new Governor. New Zealand had arrived at a critical point in its history. It had had some bitter struggles for its independence in the past. Conservatives and Liberals had united in defending the constitutional right of the people to govern themselves, and there are many traditions of the sacrifices the colonists were ready to make in the early days as long as the Imperial Government left them their self-government. Now, apparently, some of these rights were to be taken from it. From a constitutional point of view, it is probably the most important question that the New Zealand Parliament has had to deal with.
The principle for which the Liberal Party was called upon to fight is sufficiently important to justify the reproduction of at least one of the communications sent by the Government to Lord Glasgow. It is as follows:—
Memorandum to His Excellency.
“Ministers beg to acknowledge the receipt of His Excellency’s memorandum of the 8th inst., and desire to notice one or two matters therein. His Excellency remarks that the ‘best information he was able to obtain was procured solely from public documents, and the memorandum left by Lord Onslow.’
“Ministers reply that no public documents have ever been submitted to them by His Excellency of any kind bearing on the question, and they have had no opportunity of expressing any opinion upon them. The same observation will apply to the memorandum left by Lord Onslow in so far as it was treated confidentially; and, although a memorandum (probably that referred to) was sent to the Premier for his inspection, no copy was kept, and his Excellency has never asked for the opinions or advice of Ministers on this confidential memorandum. Moreover, the circumstances affecting the Council have greatly changed since the departure of Lord Onslow; and his memorandum could hardly be supposed to express the present condition of affairs.
“Ministers take exception to the statement ‘that the idea underlying the whole case of Ministers is that whatever measures an Administration bring forward are sent in to express the feeling of the country.’ It would be more correct to say that measures passed by large majorities of the House of Representatives, within eighteen months of its election are sufficient to entitle