We can hardly suppose that the Go vernment will persist, to what would literally be the death, in carrying their Abolition resolutions through the House during this session. All custom and all precedent are against them in such a proceeding, and the present Ministry are hardly in a position to run counter to the example of older Parliamentary bodies. It is generally held to be an essential part of proper management that the constituencies should be con bulted, and an appeal made directly to them to record their opinion at some ; time between the initiation and com ' pletion of any important political change. Again and again, at various periods, this has been done in the Im perial Parliament. The repeal of the Com Laws, the Reform Bill, the Irish Church Act, are only a few out of many instances in which the same plan has been followed. In every case, in deed, within. the present century, we believe it may be said that a vital or important change has been submitted to the country, as it were, dur ing the progress of a debate—that is, a scheme of change has been matured, discussed first in Parliament, and then upon the hustings. The statesmen of the old country have de clined over and over again to proceed as it were per saltum, and to legislate on important matters in the plenitude of their power, without going back for definite instructions to the body that

created their political being. It is im possible to doubt that such a plan is a wise one, and we hope that the Colonial Ministry will be guided in their con duct of affairs by time-honoured prece dent. "We admit at once that in the general outline of their scheme th.c country is with them. Abolition, as it is vaguely but popularly termed, has many friends just now, and but a few determined and able foes. Even

within the walls of the House it **

evident that a considerable number of members deprecate the unreasonable haste in which the Ministry propose to

act. Sufficient will be found, at least,

to turn the overwhelming majority

which the Government possessed into a bare numerical preponderance; and we shall not be surprised if this bare majority dwindles down at last into a respectable minority. 