Guide 3 to NSW State Archives relating to Responsible Government - OCR - Flipbook - Page 63
A Guide to New South Wales State Archives relating to Responsible Government
we are prepared upon the surrender to the Colonial Legislature
of the entire management of all our Revenues, ... and upon the
establishment of a Constitution among us similar in its outline
to that of Canada, to assume and provide for the whole cost of
our Internal Government.
The petition was forwarded to the Secretary of State in the
Governor's Despatch No.7 of 15 January 1852.
A further inclusion is a printed Report from the Select Committee
appointed to prepare a reply to Earl Grey's answer to the Council's
Declaration and Remonstrance, ordered to be printed 6 August
1852. ("In conclusion, fully agreeing with Earl Grey, that the
interests of the Colony and of the Empire, rightly considered,' are
the same,—we cannot understand why we should not be treated
as an integral portion of that Empire, and enjoy the same power of
self-government which is possessed by our fellow countrymen at
Home. To be contented with any thing less would be alike
derogatory to ourselves and unjust to our children.")
Governor's and Colonial Secretary's Minutes and
Memoranda
CGS 909
Many of the Minutes for the 1850s are originals, duplicates or
copies of despatches from the Secretary of State to the Governor.
They mainly differ from the despatches in the series Governor:
Despatches, circulars and cables from the Secretary of State and
the Under Secretary, and copies of despatches to the Secretary of
State, NRS 4512, by the correspondence and other papers which
are often included with them.
1853 Minutes - M11190
Topnumbered M11190 is Duplicate Despatch No.95 of
15 December 1852 from the Secretary of State. This conveys the
decision of Her Majesty's Government on the petition of the
Legislative Council adopted in the Session of 1851 and informs the
Governor of the concessions which Her Majesty's Government is
prepared to make to the Legislative Council on certain conditions.
CGS 909,
M11190 in
[4/1044]
But they have arrived, after full consideration, at the conclusion
that under the new and rapidly changing circumstances of New
South Wales, the time is come at which it is their duty to advise
Her Majesty that the administration of those lands should be
transferred to the Colonial Legislature ... They believe that the
rapid progress of New South Wales in wealth and population
renders it necessary that the form of its constitution should be
more nearly assimilated to that prevailing in the Mother
Country, and should be better adapted to the enlarged
functions and increased responsibilities which will now devolve
on the Legislative body.
Sir John goes on to state that it was the wish of Her Majesty's
Government that "the Council should establish the new Legislature
on the bases of an elective Assembly, and a Legislative Council to
be nominated by the Crown adopting this general outline they
would leave it to the judgment of the Council to determine the
numbers of the two Chambers, and if they think it necessary, to
make any change in the constituency by which the new Assembly
is to be elected: subject to the approval of such changes by Her
Majesty".
62
State Records Authority of New South Wales
