SSION OF 1855}

The House met again on February 1st, 1855, and then the real work of
legislative and administrative reform began. In the speech from the
throne it was stated that the Customs Act would expire in the course of
a year, and that it was necessary that a new Act should be passed. A
better system of auditing the public accounts was also recommended, and
a better system of electing members to the legislature. On March 5th,
correspondence was brought down, dated the previous 15th of August,
announcing, on the part of the imperial government, the withdrawal of
the imperial customs establishment, which was considered to be no longer
necessary, and stating that as the duties of these offices were now
mainly in connection with the registration of vessels in the colonies,
and the granting of certificates of the origin of colonial products,
this work would hereafter be performed by the colonial officers. A
letter addressed to the comptrollers and other customs officers had
informed them that their services would be discontinued after January
5th, 1855. So disappeared the last remnant of the old imperial
custom-house system, which had been the cause of so many difficulties in
all the colonies and which had done more than anything else to bring
about the revolution which separated the thirteen colonies from the
mother country.

The great measure of the session of 1855 was the law to prevent the
importation, manufacture or selling of liquor. This bill was brought in
by Mr. Tilley as a private member, and not on behalf of the government.
It was introduced on March 3d. Considering its importance and the fact
that it led to a crisis in the affairs of the government and the
temporary defeat of the Liberal party, it went through the House with
comparatively little difficulty. It was first considered on March 19th,
and a motion to postpone its further consideration for three months was
lost by a vote of seventeen to twenty-one. The final division on the
third reading was taken on March 27th, and the vote was twenty-one to
eighteen, so that every member of the House, with one exception, voted
yea or nay. The closeness of this last division should have warned the
advocate of the measure that it was likely to produce difficulty, for it
is clear that all laws which are intended to regulate the personal
habits of men must be ineffectual unless they have the support of a
large majority of the people affected by them. That this was