here was no property qualification whatever
required for members of the legislative council. The address of the
House expressed the opinion that members of the council should be
required to possess a certain amount of real estate, and that their
seats should be vacant on the loss of this qualification, or on their
becoming bankrupt, or public defaulters, or from neglect to give their
attendance for a given time without leave of the lieutenant-governor.
The address also stated that the constitution of the legislative council
was defective and objectionable in other respects, because, of the
eighteen members who composed it, a great proportion held offices at the
pleasure of the Crown, and the principal officers of the government
usually formed a majority of the members present. It was also complained
that members of the Church of England had too great a preponderance in
the council, the only members not of that communion being one
Presbyterian and one Baptist.

{THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL}

At the next session of the legislature, despatches from Lord Stanley
were laid before the House of Assembly in which it was stated that the
council would be increased in number to twenty-one, and four new members
of the council were to be appointed. The new members then appointed were
T. H. Peters, Admiral Owen, William Crane and George Minchin, while the
Hon. Thomas Baillie, the surveyor-general, the Hon. Mr. Lee, the
receiver-general, the Hon. James Allanshaw, of St. Andrews, and the Hon.
Harry Peters, of Gagetown, retired. No doubt the retirement of two
officials who received large salaries was some improvement, but the
council required further remodelling before it could be said to be an
efficient body, or one in sympathy with the inhabitants of the
province.

The legislative council has now ceased to exist, and it may be said of
it that it was never a very satisfactory body for legislative purposes.
Perhaps the original composition of it created such a prejudice against
legislative councils as to hamper its activities; and, from having been
at first merely the echo of the wishes of the governor, it became
latterly, to a large extent, the echo of the wishes of the government.
Gradually it became relieved of its official members, and in its last
years no head of a department ever occupied a seat in the legislative
council; for it was thought, and rightly, that the power ought to be in
the House, where the responsibility to the peop