A curious constitutional squabble is going on in New Zea-
land. Lord Glasgow, the Governor, has been asked by his Ministers to appoint twelve additional Members to the Legis- lative Council, which is a body whose Members are nominated by the Crown,—that is, the Governor has been asked to create peers. Lord Glasgow has expressed his willingness to nominate nine new Members, but he refuses to swamp the existing House without the necessity for the step being more clearly proved. The matter is being referred, it is said, to the Colonial Office. The Colonial Office will have a difficult pro- blem to solve. The proper principle,—that is, the principle upon which in the end all such Colonial disputes are decided, —is that the Governor's working prerogatives are no more and no less than those of the Crown in England. The Colonial Office, then, will be confronted with the question: "Can the Crown, when advised to make peers by its Ministers, refuse P" It is curious to note the detail in which history repeats itself. On the one occasion in English history when peers were made to carry a Bill in the House of Lords, twelve was the number created. Queen Anne's Tory Ministry made twelve new peers, and, when they took their seats, Lord Wharton asked if they proposed "to speak through their foreman."
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