at low upset prices, placed a check on the rise of land values.
The year 1852 was Mr. Godley’s last year in Canterbury. Overshadowing all local matters were two great questions: (1) The New Zealand Constitution Bill; (2) The attitude of the Canterbury settlers towards the Canterbury Association. It will be convenient to take them separately in their order. Fostered by Mr. Godley, a constant agitation was kept up against the Constitution Bill in general, and more particularly against Sir George Grey’s Provincial Council Ordinance. This agitation, as events proved, was unnecessary, as in his despatch, April 2, 1851, Earl Grey, who had at that time only received the draft of the Provincial Councils Bill, had decided to disallow it on two grounds, stated therein as follows:—
“I do not find that it contains any provision for the initiation of money votes. ... The second point is, your proposing to rest the power of confirming and disallowing the ordinances passed by the Provincial Council in the Governor-in-Chief, instead of in Her Majesty. This is an innovation of a serious character, and one which I conceive the Legislative Council of New Zealand would have no power to make, were it not that the language of the Act which you cite, 11th and 12th Vict. C. 4, is such as to be open to the interpretation that this very unusual power is conceded to it by that legislation. I am not prepared to advise Her Majesty to consent to so material a change in the ordinary form of a colonial constitution.”
This despatch, with its implied censure on Sir George Grey’s autocratic methods, was made known to the Canterbury public by the “Lyttelton Times,” on July 24, 1852, fifteen months after it had been written. During that period, the agitation against the Provincial Council Ordinances had been allowed to continue. In later days, the suppression for more than a year by the Gover-
