IMPERIAL REJECTION OP MEASURES. 115 reaching a house, and all the survivors, though much frost¬ bitten, recovered under the kind and judicious treatment which they received. The census taken in 1855 declared the population of the island to be seventy-one thousand. There were two hun¬ dred and sixty-eight schools, attended by eleven thousand pupils. The Normal School was opened in 1856 by the governor, and constituted an important addition to the educational machinery of the island. During the session of 1855 an act was passed to impose a rate or duty on the rent-rolls of the proprietors of certain rented township-lands, and also an act to secure compensa¬ tion to tenants ; but the governor intimated, in opening the assembly in 1856, that both acts had not received Her Majesty's confirmation, at which, in their reply to the speech, the house expressed regret,—not hesitating to tell His Excellency that they believed their rejection was attribu¬ table to the influence of non-resident proprietors, which had dominated so long in the councils of the Sovereign. Mr. Labouchere , the colonial secretary, in intimating the deci¬ sion of the government in reference to the acts specified, stated that whatever character might properly attach to the circumstances connected with the original grants, which had been often employed against the maintenance of the rights of the proprietors, they could not, with justice, be used to defeat the rights of the present owners, who had acqm~e^ their property by inheritance, by family seVtiCrilent or otherwise. Seeing, therefore, that the rights of the pro¬ prietors could not bo sacrificed without manifest injustice, he felt it his duty steadily to resist, by all means in his power, measures similar in their character to those recently brought under the consideration of Her Majesty's govern¬ ment. He desired, at the same time, to assure the house