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Early Wellington

Legislative Council

Legislative Council.

The Legislative Council was opened by the Governor on the 14th December, 1841. The principal legislative measures appeared to be the Municipal Corporation Bill, which the Government seemed anxious to pass in order that the Wellington people might be compelled to erect, at their own expense, those public buildings which they (the Government) refused to build; and the Police Magistrates Bill. This last measure made the Justices of the Peace mere puppets, unable to commit a prisoner or to hold him to bail, and granted to the paid Police Magistrate, who constituted the entire machinery of Government in these settlements, a power on the bench equal to that of any two unpaid magistrates, as well as that from which unpaid magistrates were restricted.