NEW SOUTH Your petitioners most humbly and respectfully pray your Honourable House to take these premises into favourable consideration; that you will be pleased to adopt the foregoing suggestion, or so amend the Bill as to make it suitable to the country, and acceptable to British subjects, rejoicing in, and proud of living under the protection and government of the Crown and Constitution of England. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. [Here follow 416 signatures.] To the Honourable the Legislative Council of New South Wales. The Petition of the undersigned Landed Proprietors, Householders, and Colonists of the said Colony. Humbly Showeth, THAT while your petitioners acknowledge the ability with which your Honourable House has considered the new constitution for this colony, and agreeing with the advisability of the creation of an Upper Chamber, as forming a balancing power between the Crown and the people, respectfully dissenting from the principles of the Bill laid on the table of your Honourable House, they conceive such Upper Chamber should be neither entirely nominee nor elective, but should partake of both elements; so that it should be alike independent of the Crown and of the people, being a deliberative assembly formed by the co-ordinate powers of the two existing estates. The Crown and the people having equality of right to select a representative chamber, to consist of twenty-four members, the lower chamber being purely elective; the members of the upper chamber not to be under forty years of age, and possessing real property to the amount of 700l. per annum ; the period to be for a lengthened duration, or for life, and the members to be entitled as in Canada, "Honourable." That in order to carry out this system, the colony to be divided (in addition to the electoral districts with their polling places, &c.,) into electoral divisions, the aggregate number of votes of the districts (under one system of suffrage) to be decisive as to the return of the electoral division. That your petitioners conceive a constitution based upon these three distinguishing principies of selection would be the nearest approach to the British constitution the circumstances of the colony would admit of, and therefore, solicit that your Honourable House may be pleased to take the same into your consideration. And your petitioners will, as in duty bound, ever pray. To the Honourable the Legislative Council of New South Wales, in Council Assembled. THAT your petitioners are desirous of expressing their respectful approbation of the fairness and prudence manifested by your Honourable House, in postponing the further consideration of the New Constitution Act until the sense of the country at large has been obtained; and they feel themselves bound not to permit the present most important crisis to pass without recording their opinions upon a subject so deeply affecting their own, and their children's interests. That it is, however, the deliberate conviction of your petitioners, that an upper house of legislature, nominated entirely by the Viceroy, to which, moreover, his Excellency would have the unrestrained power of adding new members when, and in what numbers, he pleased, could never grow into an independent power of the State, nor ever be regarded by the people with respect and confidence. That your petitioners are further persuaded, that the addition of an upper house will not improve the legislature of the colony unless, in its formation, due regard be had to the three following principles : 1. That in order to preserve, unimpaired, our hereditary liberties, the existing balance be maintained between the several estates of the legislature, and that, accordingly, the Crown on the one side, and the people's representatives on the other, engage in this great constitutional Act as equal powers. 2. That no upper house can be adapted for the performance of those high duties to which it is destined, that does not stand upon a separate basis, being independent alike of the Crown, the ministry, and the people. 3. That the success of an upper house (which has its character to establish, and its influence to acquire, and will long be regarded as an experiment in legislation,) must, in a great measure, depend upon the amount of ability and worth that is collected within its walls; that it is therefore needful, that in a community so limited as ours none of any class, party, or profession be excluded, and provision be made to secure, as far as it is possible, the selection of the best and wisest men out of every class, party, and profession. That your petitioners respectfully submit the following proposal for the formation of an upper house, which is, they conceive, in conformity with the principles above stated: That the house should consist of twenty-seven members, of which the Viceroy should elect nine, the representative assembly nine; and those eighteen should elect the remaining nine. That at each dissolution of the lower house, one third of the upper should vacate their seats, being, however, eligible for re-election, and that their places be filled up by the three several estates of the legislature electing, as before, each a third. That your petitioners understand that it is the purpose of your Honourable House to make, at this time, some changes in the representation of the country, and they take this opportunity of respectfully submitting that they are at present, with regard to their local interests, virtually unrepresented; though allowed a voice in the return of three members of your Honourable House, they have really no weight in the election of any; and would now earnestly pray your Honourable House to relieve them from their anomalous condition, by dividing the large constituency of the county of Cumberland into two or more elective portions. That your petitioners are encouraged in this prayer, from having observed that your Honourable House has already so divided the county of Camden, which is much inferior to Cumberland in population and importance. That your petitioners respectfully submit, as an easy and natural division of the county, that the populous neighbourhood round Sydney might form one elective portion of the country, on each side of the Great Western Road a second, and that on each side of the Great Southern Road a third. Humbly referring these several particulars to the judgment of your Honourable House, [Here follow 71 signatures.] To the Honourable the Legislative Council of New South Wales. The humble Petition of the under-signed Settlers, Landholders, and others resident in the Humbly Showeth, THAT your Petitioners are most anxious that the form of Government for this Colony should resemble the British Constitution as closely as circumstances will permit, believing it to be, of all others, the most conducive to the welfare and happiness of the people at large; and that any essential departure from its principles must inevitably tend to the most calamitous consequences. Under this conviction, your Petitioners respectfully urge that your Honourable House will affirm in its leading principles, the Constitutional Bill now under your consideration, so that the government of the colony may be vested in three estates:-a governor, appointed by the Crown; a legislative council nominated for life; and a House of Assembly, to be chosen by the poople, in such a manner as fairly to represent all classes and interests of the community. And your petitioners will ever pray. [Here follow 66 signatures.] To the Honourable the Members of the Legislative Council of the Colony of New South The humble Petition of the under-signed Inhabitants of Windsor, Richmond, and the Showeth, THAT your petitioners are strongly imbued with feelings of loyalty and attachment to Her Majesty's person and throne. That your petitioners, having taken into consideration the Constitution Bill now before your Honourable House, are opposed to the passing of it in its present shape. That your petitioners believe that the present structure of society in this colony is not at all adapted for a titled order of nobility or hereditary legislation. That your petitioners view with apprehension and alarm the proposal to have an upper house nominated by the Crown, for life, as they conceive such a body would be an irresponsible oligarchy, devoid of public confidence, and unfitted to promote the interests of the country. That your petitioners would respectfully suggest the following plan for the formation of an upper house, to consist of not more than twenty-seven members :-let nine be chosen by the Governor,-nine by the lower house-and let these eighteen elect the remaining nine; and at every dissolution of the lower house let one-third of the members of the upper house vacate their seats, and their places be filled up as before by the Governor, the lower house and the upper house each selecting one-third; the retiring members to be eligible for re-election. That your petitioners object to the exclusion of judges and ecclesiastics from the legislature, being of opinion that no section of the community should be excluded therefrom by legislative enactment. That your petitioners object to that clause of the Bill requiring a majority of two-thirds of both houses to alter and amend the Constitution Act, deeming it altogether un-English and at variance with the spirit of the British Constitution. NEW SOUTH NEW SOUTH And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. [Here follow 384 signatures.] To the Honourable the Legislative Council of New South Wales. The Petition of the under-signed Landed Proprietors, Householders, and Colonists of the said Colony : Humbly Shewoth, THAT, while your petitioners acknowledge the ability with which your Honourable House has considered the new Constitution for this colony, and agreeing with the advisability of the creation of an upper chamber, as forming a balancing power between the Crown and the people, respectfully dissenting from the principles of the Bill laid on the table of your Honourable House, they conceive such upper chamber should be neither entirely nominee or elective, but should partake of both elements; so that it should be alike independent of the Crown and the people, being a deliberative assembly formed by the co-ordinate powers of the two existing estates. The Crown and the people having equality of right to select a representative chamber, to consist of twenty-four members; the lower chamber being purely elective; the members of the upper chamber not to be under forty years of age, and possessing real property to the amount of 700l. per annum, the period to be for a lengthened duration, or for life, and the members to be entitled, as in Canada, "Honourable." That in order to carry out this system, the colony to be divided (in addition to the electoral districts, with their polling places, &c.) into electoral divisions, the aggregate number of votes of the districts (under one system of suffrage) to be decisive as to the return of the electoral division. That your petitioners conceive a Constitution based upon these three distinguishing principles of selection would be the nearest approach to the British Constitution the circumstances of the colony would admit of, and therefore solicit that your Honourable House may be pleased to take the same into your consideration. And your petitioners will, as in duty bound, ever pray. To the Honourable the Legislative Council of New South Wales in Council assembled. The humble Petition of the under-signed inhabitants of Kiama and the neighbourhood, Respectfully showeth, THAT Some of the clauses in the Constitution Bill, now under consideration in your honourable House are opposed to the wishes of your petitioners, and repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution, under which they desire to live. That while your petitioners are desirous of seeing two houses of Parliament established in this colony, they nevertheless deprecate the powers sought to be delegated to the Crown by the present Bill, in the nomination of members to the upper house, conceiving as they do that the unalienable and exclusive right of choosing their own legislators rests with the people who are required to obey their enactments and defray the expenses of the due administration thereof. That your petitioners consider the Civil List secured to Her Majesty by the Constitution Bill as extravagant beyond what the services provided for require, and humbly request that that clause be reserved for the consideration of the future legislature, as the only legitimate tribunal to determine on such a subject; and your petitioners further regard the amount of pensions intended by the Bill for retiring government officials as being more than equivalent for their services and a wasteful expenditure of the public money. That in the distribution of the additional members of the legislature proposed to be created by the Constitution Bill, respect has not been had to population, which alone, in the estimation of your petitioners, forms the true basis of representation; and, consequently, the city of Sydney, town of Maitland, county of Cumberland, and other populous rural districts along the coast, will not be adequately represented in the forthcoming legislature of the country. That your petitioners having watched with considerable anxiety the progress of this Bill through your Honourable House, have observed with what strange inconsistency its supporters, whilst professing to imitate the British House of Lords in its construction (an important element of which are the bishops of the Established Church of England), have advocated a clause, rendering ministers of religion ineligible to a seat in either house of Legislature, your petitioners, therefore, deem such restriction unsound in principle, an undue limitation of the privileges of electors, and without precedent in the annals of the civilized world. That your petitioners are decidedly of opinion that the present system of disposing of the waste lands of the territory is destructive to the best interests of the colony; they therefore deeply regret to find that the New Constitution Bill proposes not only to perpetuate that system, but also to prevent the future legislature from having the power to alter it. In conclusion your petitioners respectfully request that your Honourable House will be pleased to take this petition and remonstrance into your serious consideration, that it may tend, in some measure at least, to prevent the new Constitution Bill in its present form from becoming the law of the land. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. [Here follow 105 signatures.] To the Honourable the Legislative Council of New South Wales. The humble Petition of the under-signed, resident in the District of Richmond River, Humbly showeth,— THAT your petitioners are most anxious that the form of Government for this colony should resemble the British Constitution as closely as circumstances will permit, believing it to be, of all others, the most conducive to the welfare and happiness of the people at large; and that any essential departure from its principles must inevitably tend to the most calamitous consequences. Under this conviction your petitioners respectfully urge that your Honourable House will affirm in its leading principles, the Constitutional Bill now under your consideration, so that the government of the colony may be vested in three Estates-a Governor appointed by the Crown; a Legislative Council, nominated for life; and a House of Assembly to be chosen by the people, in such manner as fairly to represent all classes and interests of the community. And your petitioners will ever pray. [Here follow 18 signatures.] The Petition of the under-signed, Proprietors and Residents of the Upper Hunter, to the Showeth, THAT your Petitioners are of opinion that the elective element is essential to good government, and that no Government can be good which is not based on that principle. Your Petitioners, however, consider that the conservative element is equally necessary in the formation of a Government intended to assimilate with the English Constitution, and is essential to the preservation of order and to the security of life and property, and that this element cannot have its due weight in a Government formed of two elective chambers. That your Petitioners are adverse to any institution that may have for its object or that may lead to the establishment of a class having distinct political privileges. Your Petitioners therefore trust that your Honourable House will adhere to the principles recommended by your committee, so far as relates to the forming of a house of representatives elected by a wide and popular constituency, and an upper chamber nominated by the Crown. And your Petitioners as in duty bound, will ever pray. [Here follow 40 signatures.] To the Honourable the Legislative Council. The Petition of the under-signed Magistrates, Clergymen, and other Inhabitants of the Town and District of Parramatta, Showeth, THAT your Petitioners are deeply impressed with feelings of loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen, and attachment, veneration, and respect for the Constitution of their fatherland, and therefore deem it wise and politic to have a constitution framed for the government of this colony as analogous to the British Constitution as circumstances wil admit of. Your Petitioners believe that the Legislative Council represents the interests of all classes generally of this colony. That your Petitioners approve, with some slight exceptions of matters of detail (which they believe will be corrected in Committee), of the great principles of the measure now before your Honourable House. That your Petitioners highly approve of an upper house in the legislature, and think that house should be composed of the most respectable and intelligent colonists, above forty years of age, with ample property qualifications, and that they should be nominated by the Crown for ten years. That your petitioners, having confidence in the present Executive Government, believe that they would nominate such persons only as would act with impartiality, and thereby form a just equipoise between the people and the Crown. Your petitioners disapprove of a double elective house, believing that an elected upper house would be a mere reflex of the lower one. NEW SOUTH NEW SOUTH Your Petitioners pray that your honourable house will take the forgoing premises into your best consideration, and your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. [Here follow 31 signatures.] To the Honourable the Legislative Council of New South Wales in Council assembled. WE, the undersigned, Inhabitant Stockholders, Landowners, Merchants, Storekeepers, and Householders generally of Bathurst and its vicinity, having directed our attention to the report of the Select Committee of your Honourable House upon the new Constitution and the Bill framed upon its recommendations, respectfully desire to express our unqualified disapproval of the principles of nomineeism and hereditary rank, which it is proposed to introduce into that measure as its most prominent features. Whilst expressing our earnest disapprobation of nomineeism in any shape as a parliamentary principle, we are of opinion that its powers of political mischief would be vastly augmented by making it a separate and preponderating element in the form of a nominated upper chamber, inasmuch as its members must be necessarily chosen from their known adherence to the policy of the Government nominating them. We protest, moreover, against the proposed distribution of the additional representative members, who will be called into existence by the removal of the present nominee members from the lower House, because we have ever believed, and are year by year growing stronger in the conviction, that the Electoral Act of 1851 does not afford a fair and just representation to the wealth, intelligence, and population of this colony. Without attempting the important task of delineating a constitution which we conceive would adapt itself to the circumstances of the colony as represented by its physical condition, its moral and intellectual growth, and its political necessities, we would suggest that any departure from the elective principle in the construction of an upper chamber, would tend to the creation and introduction of an irresponsible power into the government of the country, which must ever excite the suspicion and jealousy of the people, and prove destructive of harmony and good feeling between the inhabitants of the colony and those into whose hands the administration of the public business is committed. We believe that the proposed Constitution for the government of the colony contemplates the infliction of an almost irreparable injury to its highest interests, and insults the good sense and self respect of the people, by seeking to deprive them of that weight and authority in the management of their affairs, to which they possess an indefeasible right, and by conferring on a very small fractional part of its own body higher prerogatives and a greater degree of political power than is now enjoyed by the whole. As precautions against the progress of democratic principles, we are of opinion that the recommedations of the Select Committee are not only useless, but worse than useless: first, because the favourable circumstances of the country place the means of comfort and independence within the reach of the masses; and secondly, because history and experience alike demonstrate that the most direct method of rendering democracy a dangerous and mischievous element in any country, is to deprive the people of their just rights by the enactment of unjust and unequal laws. Except as a reward of merit in the individuals upon whom they are conferred, we regard the bestowal of titles and honours in a young country (such as our own) extremely injudicious and ill-advised and believing; that, however credible the history of our Legislation may appear as compared with that of other colonies, very few have so far distinguished themselves as to become eligible for such distinction. We cannot but conclude that unmerited as they must be in the vast majority of instances, these titles and honours will fail to excite that respect and reverence which alone render them worth the possession. In conclusion, we beg to state as our deliberate conviction, that any attempt to assimilate a colonial to the British Constitution must inevitably prove futile, as the latter is the growth of ages and the result of circumstances which can never again occur, much less be compressed into a single generation. For these reasons it appears to us that the only form of government which will preserve peace and order, protect life and property, and promote the lasting prosperity and happiness of the community, will be one which is accommodated to the altered condition of society, its wants and necessities, and which whilst it fairly represents all classes and interests secures its universal approbation. (Here follow 411 signatures.) |