LOCAL GOVERNMENT ARG UMENTS. 151

ence to the landlords’ proposed bill, that they could not believe that the legislature would sanction any measure bearing on the land question which might differ essentially from the principles embodied in the commissioners’ report. They asserted that the assembly deemed the government pledged to carry out the award of' the commission, and they denied that the charge preferred in the pr iamble of the proprietors’ bill, that the commissioners had exceeded their commission, could be substantiated. From the language of the commission, the government argued that the powers conferred upon them were unlimited,——amply sufficient to empower them to define any mode of settlement of a purely equitable character. By a passage contained in a despatch of the colonial secretary, he seemed to apprehend that the arbitration system prescribed by the commissioners would necessitate a multiplicity of separate local arbitrations, which would constitute insuperable objections against this mode of adjustment. The government, however, did not anticipate that many of these arbitrations would take place in the practical working of the system. In their opinion, two or three cases on a township would have the eti'eet of establishing a scale ofprices which would become a standard of value. The minute—a temperate and well-reasoned doe- ument—coucluded with an expression of' the hope that the bills passed by the house of assembly would receive the royal sanction. They reminded the colonial secretary that the ditierences which the commissioners were appointed to determine had, for half a century, exerted a most baneful influence upon the (colony, and that the people hailed with much satistaction the prospect of having them adjusted. Should anything occur to prevent such adjustment, the con- sequences would be of a. very serious nature, and result in causing much anxiety to Her BIajcsty's ministers, and also to the local government.