abolished, its duties amalgamated with those of the Registrar General, or rather 2 distinct sets of duties in both cases were held by the same individual Officer.
It was not considered certain whether their arrangements would work permanently so nothing was done as to altering the Council. It was subsequently Mr. Smith, who held the combined office of Treasurer & Registrar General, was given a personal appointment to the Executive Council.
On General Colborne's discontinuing from his attendance at Council, for Mr. A. Kennedy and Mr. Alexander both recommended the personal appointment. ## Mr. Alexander to the Council, he was so appointed.
The last is now dead. Mr. Smithson leave, the Attorney General is temporarily acting for him, apparently without any formal appointment.
We are then asked no more on this matter.
I consider the personal qualifications of several individual gentlemen, but it is considered not unbecoming to criticize the liberality of a mandate.
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I think we should be exposed to less difficulty if we could return to the practice of making the Executive Council consist solely of certain office holders; if a man is considered fit to hold an office conferring a seat in Council, he may fairly be assumed fit to sit there. Absences on leave and death vacancies do not then entail the raising of unnecessary questions.
The Surveyor General, being head of the great spending department of the Government, is probably not a bad candidate in Council; but I should think the office of Treasurer & Registrar General, assuming them to be now permanently suited for all practical purposes, is the more important of the two.
I should have thought it was rather insulting to the Chief Justice to put a puisne judge, a junior man, in a magisterial capacity.