574 PARLIAMENTS OF THE DOMINIONS [PART III
not insist on making a change, and as a matter of fact ab
that time the principle of limitation was still maintained.
But it could not permanently be kept in force, and it
broke down practically in 1888, when the Ministry of
the day appointed, with Lord Carrington’s permission, in
ten months, twenty-two members. Lord Carrington was
deemed by Sir C. Dilke to have been too devoted to the
theory of ministerial responsibility. A protest against the
appointments by the Opposition members of the Council
and others was sent to the Governor, but no favourable reply
was returned. This really ended the controversy, and if
Mr. (now Sir G.) Reid was refused an increase in September,
1894, he dissolved Parliament, was returned to power, and was
allowed subsequently to make appointments; he carried his
land-tax proposals by the fact that it was known that the
Governor was prepared to add members to the Upper House
if needed to carry the day, while in 1899 again federation
was carried by the addition to the Upper House of twelve
members. So in 1908 Mr. Wade received a large increase
of members, though such increase was not needed to carry
measures, and indeed in 1909 the Upper House amended
in very material particulars the governmental proposals for
closer settlement by the compulsory division of private
lands,? while in 1900 and 1901 it rejected women’s suffrage
Acts, and yielded in 1902 mainly because the Federal Parlia-
ment had bestowed the suffrage on women. It rejected an
Income Tax Bill in 1893, and in 1895 a Land and Income
Tax Assessment Bill.
In 1910 a proposal was brought forward by the Govern-
ment of Mr. Wade that the Upper House should be given
a more definite and effective position in the Parliament by
limiting its numbers to some definite figure, say half the
1 A proposalin 1876 to make the Upper House elective was necatived in
the Lower House, very wisely.
2 The situation is incorrectly stated by Jenkyns, British Rule and Juris-
diction beyond the Seas, p. 67; Parl. Pap., H. C. 70, 1889, p. 43.
* See the attack of the Labour party in Parliamentary Debates, 1908.
Sess. 2, pp. 79 seq.
4 Qee Parliamentary Debates, 1909, pp. 4305 seq.
