objection was focussed on certain items of expenditure, but the criticism could have no practical effect until a Provincial Government had been elected.
The New Zealand Constitution Act had been passed in England (June 30, 1852), and proclaimed in New Zealand (January 7, 1853). It remained for the Governor to put it in force by issuing writs for the election of a House of Representatives, Superintendents and Provincial Councils, and appointing members of a Legislative Council.
The advent of representative government was considered by some people to be a favourable opportunity to try to heal the breach which had gradually grown up between Sir George Grey and the Canterbury settlers, and with this well-meant object, an address to His Excellency the Governor was prepared, signed and forwarded. This document is worth quoting, not only on account of its delightful originality, but as illustrative of the antagonism which unfortunately was accentuated later in connection with the Land Regulations.
“To His Excellency Sir George Grey, K.C.B., Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand, etc., etc,
“Sir,
“We, the undersigned inhabitants of the Canterbury Settlement, beg to address your Excellency for the purpose of submitting to you certain apprehensions and anxious hopes which have been excited in our minds by reflection on the critical circumstances in which this colony is necessarily placed by the approaching introduction of a totally new form of government.
“Having regard to the organised state of hostility between the executive and popular party, which has invariably subsisted in colonies peopled by the British race so Jong as Representative Institutions were withheld from the colonists, and from which, of course, New Zealand has not been exempt, we cannot help fearing that, as has happened on many like occasions, the important
