CHAP. viir] RELATIONS OF THE HOUSES 581 
advisers, If ministers were unable to agree with the Governor 
they must in the last resort resign, but it was for them to 
decide whether they should take this step, and they had 
preferred to refer the matter to the Secretary of State. 
Since that time there have been no serious differences 
between the two Houses in New Zealand. An Act of 1891 
limits the tenure of office of all new members to seven 
years, and this, together with the continuation in office 
of ministries favourable to the view of Mr. Ballance, has 
resulted in the gradual harmony of the Council with the 
Lower House. It is recognized that the Council is unable 
bo resist the Lower House, and all the important and 
most democratic social legislation! of New Zealand since 
1900 has been passed without serious difficulties from. the 
Upper House, which has, however, served the useful purpose 
of amending these measures in detail. In fact, the Upper 
House of New Zealand appears now to serve adequately 
the useful purposes of an Upper House, but of course the 
position there is rendered simple by the fact that the great 
majority of the people are politically in sympathy with the 
Government, and that the Opposition does not differ from 
the Government on matters of fundamental importance. 
There have naturally been various discussions as to the 
possibility of strengthening the Upper House, and several 
members of Parliament have time after time introduced 
motions in favour of making it elective There is not, 
however, as far as can be seen, any real desire on the part 
of the people and the country that this step should be taken, 
and there are obviously strong objections to complicating 
the machinery of legislation, at any rate in a democratic 
country, and especially in a Dominion which has as yet no 
serious questions of external affairs to trouble it. 
"e.g. old-age pensions in 1898, conciliation and arbitration in 1900. 
The period up to 1899 saw a good deal of alteration and even rejection of 
land and industrial legislation, as shown by Pember Reeves in State 
Experiments in Australia and New Zealand. But the decade 1901-10 
‘ells of constant increase in the power of the Lower House. 
' See e.g. Parliamentary Debates, 1907, cxxxix. 276-303. A proposal 
to this effect is a fairly constant feature of the parliamentary session.