A great deal is said here at present about rendering our second branch of the Legislature elective. As the advocates of the plan, however, comprise two classes of persons, with views not only distinct but contradictory, it is difficult to foresee how they are to agree on details, when it assumes a practical shape. The one class desire to construct a more efficient Conservative body than the present Council, the other seek an instrument to aid them in their schemes of subversion and pillage. For my own part, I believe that a second legislative body, returned by the same constituency as the House of Assembly, under some differences with respect to time and mode of election, would be a greater check on ill-considered legislation than the Council as it is now constituted. Baldwin is very unwilling to move in this matter. Having got what he imagines to be the likest thing to the British constitution he can obtain, he is satisfied, and averse to further change. In this instance I cannot but think that he mistakes the shadow for the substance. I admire, however, the perseverance with which he proclaims, '_Il faut jeter l'ancre de la constitution_,' in reply to proposals of organic change; though I fully expect that, like those who raised this cry in 1791, he will yet, if he lives, find himself and his state-ship floundering among rocks and shoals, towards which he never expected to steer. Three years later he held the same language to the Duke of Newcastle. Writing on March 26, 1853, to inform him that the Bill for increasing the representation had been carried in the Assembly by a large majority, he adds:-- The Lords must be attended to in the next place. The position of the second chamber in our body politic is at present wholly unsatisfactory. The principle of election must be introduced in order to give to it the influence which it ought to possess; and that principle must be so applied as to admit of the working of Parliamentary Government (which I for one am certainly not prepared to abandon for the American system) with two elective chambers. I have made some suggestions with this view, which I hope to be able to induce the Legislature to adopt. When our two legislative bodies shall have been placed on this improved footing, a greater stability will have been imparted to our constitution, and a greater strength, I believe, if England act wisely, to the connection. [Sidenote: The Act passed.]